The 2016 LBTS Final Election Results – Broward Supervisor Of Elections
Dear Readers …. Last night the new 2016 Lauderdale- By- The- Sea Commission was sworn in after a celebratory 6:30 pm farewell to outgoing two- term Commissioner Stuart Dodd and retiring Town Manager Connie Hoffman … I believe the election results were read from the dais and congratulations were made ….This writer chose to take a pass on watching the proceedings …. I did look at the official election results sent by the Town Clerk prior to the meeting and saw some disturbing issues that will be swept under the rug as so much was during this incredibly strange 2016 LBTS municipal election….The Broward County SOE left in 16 votes for “Candidate Withdrawn” aka Candidate Dan Darnell who dropped out asap after the final day of declaring to run for the commission and the resulting mess that ensued when his name was included on the absentee ballots …( see prev. posts)…..The Broward County SOE had stated no ballots with Darnell’s name would be counted and that first batch of absentee ballots received would either be put aside or destroyed …depending on which week the answer was given by the Broward County SOE ….Besides the 16 “Candidate Withdrawn” shown on the final election results there is a “Total Votes” number discrepancy between the mayoral race and the one commission race for Commissioner Dodd’s seat representing the south end of town……The mayoral race shows a ‘Total Votes’ of 2063 votes and the commission race shows a ‘Total Votes’ of 1998 with the inclusion of 16 “Candidate Withdrawn” -Darnell votes…That’s a short of 65 votes in this race …add back in the 16 “Candidate Withdrawn”-Darnell votes that were not to be counted or shown in the results and the total difference between these two races is 81 votes that are unaccounted for! ….Can it really be that 81 voters either voted for “Candidate Withdrawn”-Darnell and the Broward County SOE chose to show only 16 of them in the final official results …. tossing aside the 65 other votes….or…. did 65 voters really decide not to vote in the commission race at all?…. Neither makes any sense and in any other year that I’ve been involved over the last 10 years …..this would have been a “Red Hot Issue” ….one that would beg for immediate answers from the Broward County SOE before the swearing in to assure this was a clean election result for the commission seat in the south….. with real verified numbers to assure those results….in my opinion….But alas….this is not any of those past years….and we will never know what happened and why….
That being the case…the sad case…. and for all the reasons written in the last 2 previous posts on this election ….this writer…. like my friend Stu Dodd … is term limiting out…. self- term limiting out …. The voters/residents became happily complacent in the last 6 years and in the 2012 /2014 municipal elections with uncontested races for incumbents and small turnout for single commission races …. and in my opinion…… the “Old Guard” mainly left in the north end of town ….so many thought were long gone….bided their time and waited for that complacency and for all the major opposing players to be gone or termed out to pick up where they left off in 2007…. Well played!…… Time will tell just how far this “Old Guard” agendas ( sewers in Palm Club etc…prev. posts) will be back on track and come to fruition with the newly seated commission now so beholden to them….. ( look at the backers of the newly elected and where they reside contained in the candidate treasury reports)….and time will also tell if the demographics of the town…especially in the south end of town will come forward to decry those old tactics once again or will simply accept it all ….lock, stock and barrel …..as was the case for many years in the past….until it became to blatant to sit back and do nothing…
And no…. Dear Readers ….there will NOT be an outgoing “How The Sausage Was Made…2010- 2016″….as many have requested or asked about ….
For this writer……. I am going to go back to blogging on other topics as I did in the beginning of BCbythesea in 2008 ….Those old non -LBTS posts are still making their way around the world- wide web sphere producing comments years later from far and wide… bringing forth much pleasure of how vast this world really is ….and how much world there is outside of LBTS politics and those political “bubbles” that remain the same….
Under BCWrites….. more to come….
