By Johnny Salvatore

Beranton J. Whisenant, Jr., a federal prosecutor, committed suicide in May 2017.

Actually, suicide should really be in quotes.

The official report said Whisenant, 37, shot himself in the head, which means a gun would’ve been found right next to his body – unless a passerby managed to swipe it before authorities showed up.

Trending: Ocasio-Cortez BUSTED In Major Lie After Saying She Can’t Afford DC Apartment

The thing is, a gun was never found.

Whisenant was handling visa and passport fraud cases in Democrat Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s district in Broward County at the time of his death.

Broward County has a storied history of election malfeasance.

From Sun-Sentinel:

Detectives and a medical examiner found Whisenant had shot himself in the head, Hollywood police said.

Police searched for two blocks north and south of the crime scene but couldn’t find the gun or any other weapon.

He was assigned to the Miami office of the U.S. Attorney’s Office and been hired as federal prosecutor a few months earlier.

A Florida campaign worker signed a sworn affidavit alleging Broward County elections officials were filling in blank ballots.

After this was learned, Chelsey Smith was fired.

Affidavit filed by Broward Election’s employee in support of Caldwell lawsuit provides eye witness account of Elections staff filling in blank ballots. When this was reported the employee was fired and told not to come back. #sayfie

— Jeff Kottkamp (@JeffKottkamp) November 10, 2018

Signed affidavit of Chelsey Smith, employee of Broward County SOE.#StopTheSteal#QAnonhttps://t.co/muwUF6zVNT pic.twitter.com/1cGuU2iQFa

— DeplorableMidwestGal🇺🇸 (@gal_deplorable) November 10, 2018

President Trump weighed in:

Trying to STEAL two big elections in Florida! We are watching closely!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 10, 2018

From The Hill:

Three statewide races in Florida are heading for recounts after a key deadline for county election officials to submit unofficial vote tallies came and went Saturday.

The first round of machine recounts, which must be completed by Thursday, sets up a bitter fight to the finish in Florida’s races for Senate, governor and agriculture commissioner.

Here’s the deal:

Florida update. All 67 counties have now reported, and we have an unofficial vote tally. As it stands, DeSantis leads Gillum by 33,684, and Scott leads Nelson by 12,562. That will precipitate an automatic recount for DeSantis, and a manual recount for Scott. (1)

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018

There are now two things left to do statewide: First, count yet-to-arrive overseas/military ballots; second, proceed to those mandatory recounts. All being equal, neither step looks as if it’ll be enough for either Gillum or Nelson. (2)

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018

Around 20,000 overseas/military ballots have yet to be returned. Deadline for their return is the 16th. In reality, a lot of these will never be returned, will arrive too late, or will be rejected. (3)

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018

For the sake of argument, though, let’s assume they’re all returned—every last one. From what I can gather, we’re looking at ~5,000 military ballots, and then ~15,000 others from around the state. (4)

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018

Given that voters with no party also vote, the best we can do is apply known military registration rates to military data, and apply the results in each county thus far to the county data. If we do this, we get a net increase for both Nelson and Gillum of ~1600 votes. (5)

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018

That would yield a DeSantis lead of ~32,000, and a Scott lead of ~11,000. Which would require the recounts to flip, *net*, 16,000 votes to Gillum and 5,500 votes to Nelson. (6)

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018

Remember, that’s a generous estimate because we’re assuming every single outstanding overseas ballot comes in. But, for the sake of argument, let’s make it *more* generous, and assume these votes are twice as Democratic as has been the case thus far. Let’s make it ~3,200. (7)

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018

Even in that generous scenario, DeSantis keeps a lead of 30,484, while Scott keeps a lead of 9,362. That means Gillum would need 15,242 votes to flip, and Nelson would need 4,681. That seems unlikely—although nothing is impossible. (8)

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018

Which brings us, finally, to Marc Elias’s theory that the machines in Broward have undercounted the Senate line on the ballot by around 25,000 ballots. I doubt this—and Broward says it’s not correct—but, arguendo, let’s add it to our previous assumptions. Then what? (9)

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018

If we subtract the number of votes for Senate in Broward from the number of votes for Governor, we get 24,992. Assuming that these votes go as did the others, that adds just over 9,000 votes for Nelson. (It doesn’t affect DeSantis.) Which leaves Scott with a lead of ~200. (10)

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018

That would be a small enough lead that a recount could potentially change the result. But to get to that point we have to make a lot of pro-Democrat assumptions, and to assume facts not in evidence. It seems unlikely to me that either of these results is going to change. (11)

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018

Which is to say that, as it stands, Ron DeSantis is the next governor of Florida, and, barring some catastrophic errors in tabulation, or some remarkably creative lawyering, Rick Scott is Florida’s next Senator. But it’s Florida, so . . . (12/12)

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018

More:

A few definitions. An “automatic recount” is required for any race with a margin under 0.5%. It involves feeding all the ballots back through the voting machines—including reconstructed damaged ballots. If the new result yields a winning margin over 0.25 the election is over. (1)

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018

A “manual recount” does not mean every vote is counted by hand. Rather, it involves canvassing boards checking every “undervote” and “overvote.” An “overvote” is when a voter makes more choices than allowed; an “undervote” is when a voter makes no choice, or too few choices. (2)

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018

An “undervote” is almost never counted. If a voter declines to vote for a particular office, that’s his choice and there’s nothing anyone can do. As such, an “undervote” will only be counted if, say, the optical machine has made an error and failed to pick up a vote. (3)

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018

Broward County, Florida Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes, a Democrat, was appointed by then-Republican Governor Jeb Bush in 2003.

Snipes has a history of malfeasance.

Because of the craziness taking place in the Sunshine State involving Tuesday’s elections, Snipes was ordered to turn over ballots for inspection by 7pm EST Friday night.

She missed the deadline.

Now, Florida Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz says Snipes may be held in contempt.

This whole fiasco involves ballots mysteriously being found days after the election, all in favor of Democrat candidates Bill Nelson and Andrew Gillum.

Rep. Gaetz: When I leave here we are going to go get motions of contempt prepared and we are going back in front of a judge to hold Brenda Snipes in contempt of court.

WATCH:

Snipes allowed illegal aliens and felons to vote in the past:

Three statewide races in Florida are headed to a recount and all depend on results from a county whose supervisor of elections has a history of losing ballots and breaking laws by allowing illegal immigrants and felons to vote, as well as illegally destroying ballots.

A judge has found that Broward county violated the constitution of the Sunshine State.

BREAKING: Judge finds Broward County violated constitution by not following open records laws, orders election officials to comply by 7pm. Ruling does not address allegations of fraud. @nbc6 pic.twitter.com/M1rK2RPsWj

— Jamie Guirola (@jamieNBC6) November 9, 2018

Judge finds Broward SOE violated public records act and Florida constitution. SOE must provide public records requested by Scott and NRSC.

— Ali Schmitz (@SchmitzMedia) November 9, 2018

Judge Phillips finds Broward elex supervisor Snipes violated the public records act. Snipes must allow immediate inspection of the records Scott is asking for no later than 7 p.m. tonight. Judge says this is information that should already be compiled.

— Nadege Green (@NadegeGreen) November 9, 2018

From Local 10:

A judge ordered Broward County Supervisor of Elections Dr. Brenda Snipes to allow immediate inspection of voter records during an emergency hearing Friday.

The court was asked to intervene in the tight U.S. Senate race between Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson and Republican Florida Gov. Rick Scott as the two sides prepare for a possible recount.

Judge Carol-Lisa Phillip said Snipes must allow inspections on or before 7 p.m. Friday evening. Phillips found that Snipes violated that law by failing to turn over the information to attorneys for Scott’s Senate campaign and the National Republican Senatorial Committee.