MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell on Monday claimed Florida's Broward County election supervisor Brenda Snipes is a Republican, despite the fact she is a Democrat.
"We should also point out that Brenda Snipes in Broward County is a Republican appointed by former governor, then-Governor Jeb Bush," Mitchell said in a clip flagged by Mediaite. "So, she was put in by a Republican governor after the mess that we all remember from 2000. And she’s hardly a Democratic official, or someone doing the bidding of the Democratic candidates there."
Snipes self-identifies as a Democrat and has run as a Democrat for her current position.
Florida's Senate and gubernatorial races are undergoing recounts after results from Election Day show narrow leads for Republicans Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis.
Last week, a judge ordered Snipes to turn over voter information from Broward County by Friday evening, and another ordered the Palm Beach elections supervisor to turn over absentee ballots. The Broward County judge found election officials violated the state's constitution by not following open records laws.
The rulings were a victory for Scott's campaign, as Republicans had filed a lawsuit against the two counties, accusing their elections supervisors of not being transparent about votes still being counted.
More than half of Florida's 67 counties have begun recounting votes, but the recount in Broward County was delayed because of an issue with a tabulation machine. Snipes said Broward's recount would begin Monday night and would be completed by Thursday's deadline.
Broward officials also acknowledged mistakenly counting 22 absentee ballots that had been rejected, but were now mixed in with 205 legal ballots.
Scott sought a court order for law enforcement to seize all voting machines, tallying devices and ballots "when not in use until such time as any recounts." Broward Circuit Judge Jack Tuter declined to issue an injunction, saying he has not seen evidence of wrongdoing in counting votes in the county.
Incumbent Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson filed suit against Florida's Department of State "in an effort to count vote-by-mail ballots that were postmarked before Election Day but not delivered before polls closed."
Palm Beach County's supervisor of elections said she did not think her department could finish recounting votes by Thursday.