Broward County elections chief Brenda Snipes is suing outgoing Florida governor Rick Scott to get her job back after flip-flopping on whether she still wanted it.
Snipes filed a federal lawsuit against the Republican governor and Senate president Bill Galvano alleging that she had been denied due process and that it is unconstitutional to suspend elected officials such as herself.
After coming under fire for mismanagement during the midterm elections and recounts for the Senate and governor’s races, Snipes submitted her resignation to Scott, effective January 4.
But she decided to take back her resignation and fight Scott after he suspended her in the interim for malfeasance, incompetence, and neglect of duty. The governor, however, declined to grant Snipes her job back.
The former elections chief of one of the most disorganized counties in the state will be “fighting this to the very end,” her lawyer said earlier this month.
Just hours before her resignation, Snipes had finished a recount of the votes cast for the gubernatorial, Senate, and agriculture commission races. She was criticized for taking more than the allotted time to submit the recounted vote totals and for “misplacing” more than 2,000 votes for the agriculture commission race.
She also has a history from previous years of destroying and misplacing ballots from previous elections stretching back to at least 2012.
“After a series of inexcusable actions, it’s clear that there needs to be an immediate change in Broward County and taxpayers should no longer be burdened by paying a salary for a supervisor of elections who has already announced resignation,” the governor said in a statement.