Gov. DeSantis replaces Palm Beach elections chief after 2018 election woes

Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended Palm Beach County’s elections chief Friday and installed a Republican lawyer to oversee voting during the next presidential contest in one of the state’s most Democratic counties.

DeSantis — a Republican allied with President Donald Trump — said the county’s elections supervisor Susan Bucher failed to properly conduct three contentious statewide recounts for the 2018 midterms. He named West Palm Beach attorney Wendy Link as her replacement.

Bucher’s office didn’t complete the state-mandated recounts for the Nov. 6 election until after Christmas, tarnishing the state’s image and making Florida a national embarrassment, DeSantis said in West Palm Beach.

“Palm Beach County stands alone in that level of ineptitude,” DeSantis said. “They truly have been the keystone cops of election administration.”

DeSantis hailed the action as restoring calm and competency to Florida’s election system, while Democrats greeted it as a “politically motivated move” and a “gross overreach of power.” DeSantis cited incompetence, neglect of duty and misfeasance as the reasons for the suspension.

Bucher was the second South Florida elections supervisor to be suspended over the 2018 recount. DeSantis’ predecessor, Republican Gov. Rick Scott, suspended Broward County’s elections chief Brenda Snipes and replaced her with his former top lawyer Pete Antonacci, also a Republican. On Friday, DeSantis said he is superseding that suspension and will accept Snipes’ Jan. 4 resignation.

Snipes had filed a federal lawsuit to contest her suspension. A judge on Jan. 9 did not reinstate Snipes, but he wrote Scott “vilified” Snipes and denied her a right to be heard. DeSantis’ action on Friday brings the dispute to an end.

Link, a Palm Beach County resident, said she will not run for election in 2020. As supervisor, she’ll play an important role in Palm Beach County’s elections — from determining polling locations to implementing Amendment 4, which allows most Floridians with felony convictions to register to vote.

Link promised she’d ensure elections run smoothly in the state’s third largest county and replace outdated voting equipment that caused delays.

“We are going to be impartial — not partisan — in the way we conduct ourselves,” she said.

Reaction

Bucher did not respond to messages left Friday asking about her next steps, but a friend — Palm Beach County tax collector Anne Gannon — said Bucher is meeting with her legal team about fighting the suspension. Bucher could request a hearing before the Florida Senate, which is charged with deciding whether suspended officials should be reinstated or removed from office.

Bucher, a Democrat who had served as supervisor since 2009, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel she had no knowledge of a suspension when reached before DeSantis’ announcement.

“He’s going to have to prove I did anything wrong,” Bucher said. “They [the state] had [election] monitors here 24-7.”

DeSantis’ top elections official, Secretary of State Mike Ertel, wrote a three-page letter describing Bucher’s “combative incompetence” and cited a litany of problems, some of which involved allegations of violations of state law. His list included missing recount deadlines, refusing to allow damaged ballots to be duplicated in the canvassing board’s presence, locating a polling station inside a gated community and submitting an incomplete state-mandated post-election report on problems that occurred.

Several media outlets sued Bucher for refusing to allow TV stations to videotape a meeting of the canvassing board during the recount.

Bucher was the only election supervisor in the state who did not buy servers sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to guard against cyber-terrorism, Ertel said.

“The 2018 election performance of Palm Beach County’s elections office aren’t miscues, mistakes or glitches, but a systemic issue, which has been in place for years, and barring changes, there seems to be no relief for 2019 and beyond,” Ertel wrote.

As evidence of that, Ertel noted, Bucher’s website on Thursday included no information about the upcoming March city elections in Palm Beach County.

The Florida Democratic Party blasted DeSantis’ move as not treating local election officials equally. Bay County Supervisor of Elections Mark Andersen — who DeSantis cited Friday as an example of someone doing things right — accepted about 150 votes by fax and email from people affected by Hurricane Michael despite there being no provision under state law to allow him to do so.

A Florida Department of State advisory before the election expressly stated that voting by email or fax would not be allowed in Bay County, a stronghold for Republicans.

“The governor’s recent power grab, removing Democrats from elected positions, including Susan Bucher, should be seen for what it is, a gross overreach and a politically motivated move to consolidate power and obstruct the will of the people,” said Terrie Rizzo, chair of the Florida Democratic Party.

Signs of trouble

Bucher came under intense criticism in November over her office’s handling of recounts in three statewide elections. A judge chastised her for delays in providing copies of duplicated ballots to the campaign of Scott, who narrowly defeated Sen. Bill Nelson in a U.S. Senate race.

Palm Beach was the only county in the state still using voting machines purchased in 2007 by Bucher’s predecessor. The machines were incapable of counting races simultaneously. Instead, each of the four recounts in Palm Beach County — the governor, Senate and agriculture commissioner races as well as a state House race — had to be counted separately.

The first signs of serious trouble surfaced on Nov. 9, three days after the election. In a conference call with other election supervisors and state officials monitored by a reporter with their knowledge, Bucher warned that her creaky tabulation equipment could conduct only one recount at a time, not the three that were required.

When the state reminded Bucher that she must comply with specific deadlines with no extensions, she said: “The likelihood of being successful with two or three recounts is not going to happen.”

Then-Secretary of State Ken Detzner reminded Bucher that while other counties got new equipment, she didn’t. “They thought forward,” Detzner said.

The Palm Beach County machines broke down halfway through the recount, an issue that the manufacturer stated was due to handling a volume of ballots for which they were unintended.

The Palm Beach County Commission had allocated $11 million to purchase new equipment, but Bucher said she wanted to purchase equipment as close to 2020 as possible to guarantee they would meet new disability requirements that take effect that year.

The Florida Department of State signed off on the equipment, most recently certifying it in 2015.

Divided crowd

DeSantis announced the suspension Friday on the steps of Palm Beach County’s old courthouse in downtown West Palm Beach.

A group of about a dozen or so onlookers who attended the West Palm Beach news conference shouted their disapproval, booing DeSantis and yelling “not our governor” and “lies.” Ramona Barbagallo, 57, a West Palm Beach Democratic volunteer, held a sign that read: “BULL!” She said she volunteered at the tabulation during the recount, and she thought Bucher worked as hard as she could to conduct the recount.

“I don’t think we are an embarrassment to the nation,” she said. “This is how democracy works.”

Supporters flanked the governor and cheered. One person wore a DeSantis button on her shirt, while another had a Trump hat on.

Michael Barnett, chairman of the Palm Beach County Republican Party, said early Friday there has been a run of problems at the Bucher-run office, which became apparent beyond the boundaries of Palm Beach County during the 2018 election and recount.

“I’m not saying the problems were Brenda Snipes level,” he said. “But it’s been pretty bad. And I think if we had someone in charge who had a better grasp on the job, we could at least be among the other 65 counties who ran their election operations smoothly. We can’t continue to be the laughing stock of the whole state and the nation.”

Political careers

Bucher is the third high-level elected official to be suspended by DeSantis, who took office 11 days ago. The new governor suspended Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel for alleged incompetence in his handling of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland on Feb. 14 and suspended the school superintendent in Okaloosa County, Mary Beth Jackson. Jackson was the subject of a critical report that by a grand jury that investigated allegations of physical abuse of an autistic child by a special education teacher.

Bucher, 60, a native of Escondido, Calif., was elected to the Palm Beach County supervisor office in 2008 and re-elected in 2012 and 2016. She had already drawn one opponent for an anticipated 2020 race. Before winning the elections post, she was a Democratic state representative for eight years.

Bucher earned a reputation during her political career of not shying away from confrontation. Bucher was working as a legislative aide to state Rep. Ed Healey of West Palm Beach when he died of a brain hemorrhage in March 2000.

She ran for his seat, won, and for the next eight years was a diligent student of the lawmaking process, known for spending hours marking up controversial bills and amendments with yellow and pink felt-tip pens.

Assured of re-election from a safe liberal district, she also was a fierce critic of the Republican majority. She voiced outrage when Republicans rewarded a top GOP fund-raiser, Gary Morse, developer of The Villages, by exempting the community’s hospital expansion plans from a rigorous state review.

“It’s a prime example of the government being for sale for campaign cash,” Bucher said at the time.

Friday’s actions cast a renewed spotlight on the county that was at the center of controversy in the 2000 presidential recount in Florida. During that contest, the “butterfly ballot” used by former Supervisor Theresa LePore became a symbol of election ineptitude.

The oddly-designed ballot resulted in hundreds of Palm Beach voters casting ballots for Pat Buchanan for president, possibly costing Al Gore the White House.

In 2018, Palm Beach County once again emerged as a punchline. Protesters called for Bucher to resign and held signs accusing her of running a “fraudulent election site.” Those images were broadcast around the world.

DeSantis said he doesn’t want to see those scenes repeated in 2020.

“We cannot have another circus,” he said.

Staff writers Anthony Man, Dan Sweeney, Larry Barszewski and Kathy Laskowski contributed to this report.

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