Scott: Nelson ‘clearly trying to commit fraud’ to win election

Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) on Sunday claimed that his opponent in the state’s Senate race, incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson (D), is “clearly trying to commit fraud to win this election.” 

“That’s all this is,” Scott said on “Fox News Sunday.”

“His lawyer said that a noncitizen should vote. That’s one,” Scott said.

{mosads}”Number two, he’s gone to trial and said that fraudulent ballots should be counted,” he added. “Ballots have already been thrown out because they were not done properly. He said those should be counted.” 

Nelson’s campaign is suing Florida’s secretary of state over the process used to validate mail ballots. His campaign wants authorities to take a second look at some ballots.

Nelson’s lawsuit claims that Florida’s “standardless, inconsistent, and unreliable signature matching process … subjects Florida voters to disparate treatment and inconsistent standards.” 

In a county board meeting last week, a Nelson representative objected to a ballot that had been disqualified as a noncitizen voter. 

“The lawyer who was present was not someone we had authorized to make such an objection,” Nelson’s lead recount lawyer Marc Elias said of the incident. “Non-citizens cannot vote in US elections.”

“And you think that the senator himself is committing fraud?” host Chris Wallace asked Scott on Sunday.

“Well, it’s his team,” Scott answered.

on #FNS @FLGovScott talks about Sen. Bill Nelson pic.twitter.com/LrWjtRWmkn

— FoxNewsSunday (@FoxNewsSunday) November 11, 2018 

A recount in the Florida race is underway.

Scott appeared to have won the election on Tuesday, but his lead has been slowly narrowed in recent days.

The governor and the National Republican Senatorial Committee have both fielded lawsuits against election officials in the state’s Broward and Palm Beach counties.

The courts ruled that the counties were not adequately transparent about the polling process, but did not put forth any evidence of election fraud.

Scott, acting as a candidate, also asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) to investigate election officials in Broward and Palm Beach counties.

The FDLE said Friday that it is not actively investigating Broward or Palm Beach because it has not found credible allegations of voter fraud.

“Chris, 93,000 ballots were found after election night. It’s the law,” Scott said on Sunday. “You have to say how many votes have been cast that night. Within 30 minutes after the election.”

The vote tallies for both candidates have increased since Tuesday as additional ballots are counted.

“Bill Nelson’s a sore loser,” Scott added. “He’s been in politics way too long. 42 years. He just won’t give up.”

When asked for comment on the accusation, Nelson’s team forwarded a video of remarks the senator released Friday accusing Scott of trying to stop all of the votes in Florida from being counted.

“Clearly, Rick Scott is trying to stop all the votes from being counted and he’s impeding the democratic process,” Nelson said. “You can see this from his irresponsible, unethical and unprecedented press statement last night that he’s worried and he’s desperate.”

“The reason why he feels that way is obvious: we believe when every legal ballot is counted we’ll win this election.”

— Updated 12:56 p.m.