In the real world, a judge found that Broward County Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes had illegally destroyed ballots during the 2016 Florida House race between Democratic incumbent Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and progressive challenger Tim Canova.
In the world of NPR, Snipes is merely the target of partisan attacks — a public servant who faces the occasional criticism from politicians who are invested in specific election outcomes. Here’s how NPR describes the woman at the heart of Florida’s Senate and gubernatorial recounts:
Well, no. The Broward County official has faced more than just accusations of bias and incompetence. As it turns out, the 2018 midterm fiasco isn’t even the first time that a judge has ruled against her for breaking state election laws. A judge found earlier this year that Snipes’ office had “violated state and federal laws by destroying ballots from a 2016 Congressional race too soon — and while the ballots were the subject of a lawsuit against the office,” as the Sun Sentinel reported.
Snipes’ office was ordered to pay an estimated $200,000 in attorney’s fees to Canova, the candidate who had sued the office after he lost to Wasserman Shultz. Snipes testified that the decision to destroy the ballots was a “mistake,” and that there was “nothing on my part that was intentional.”
“When I sign, I sign folders filled with information,” Snipes said, adding, “I trust my staff. They have the responsibility of giving me information that’s correct.”
The closest that the NPR article gets to hinting at Snipes’ history of violating Florida law is when the author writes of the 2018 midterm elections, “Snipes also mixed up a dozen invalid provisional ballots with a batch that were accepted, the Miami Herald reported.” At least they didn’t ignore that.
[Opinion: Incompetence and lawlessness in Broward isn’t fraud, but it has a cost]
Interestingly enough, along with making no mention of the time Snipes illegally destroyed ballots in the Wasserman Schultz race, the NPR article also ignores the criticism that Snipes has taken from progressives. It does include a mention of The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah mocking her incompetence, but that’s about it.
For the most part, the article focuses almost exclusively on the criticisms she has taken from the Right.
“The embattled elections chief has drawn the ire of GOP frustration in Florida’s recount. Protesters outside of the supervisor’s office have used the old anti-Hillary Clinton slogan ‘lock her up’ on signs against Snipes. Some of her defenders say the criticism is unfair: Counting hundreds of thousands of ballots, they say, takes time,” it reads.
It adds, “The pro-Trump group Great America Alliance has produced an attack ad targeting her. ‘Brenda Snipes must be removed. When we can’t trust our elections, we don’t have a democracy.’”
It’s not just that the Broward County Democrat is simply the victim of the occasional accusation of incompetence. It’s that “Snipes admitted to illegally destroying all the paper ballots in the 2016 primary between Tim Canova and Debbie Wasserman Schultz,” as the Florida congresswoman’s progressive 2016 opponent noted on social media this week.
