Nelson releases video: ‘Rick Scott is trying to stop all the votes from being counted’

Florida Sen. Bill Nelson (D) released a video statement Friday accusing his opponent in the state’s bitterly fought Senate race, Gov. Rick Scott (R), of attempting to stop election officials from counting the remaining votes yet to be tabulated in two statewide elections.

In the video released Friday afternoon, Nelson accused Scott and other Republicans of attempting to pressure state officials into calling the races early as it appears that both Nelson’s race and the Florida gubernatorial contest were headed to recounts

{mosads}His statement follows a lawsuit filed Thursday by Scott’s campaign accusing the Broward County supervisor of elections of withholding election information from Scott’s campaign amid the vote count.

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

This process is about one thing: making sure that every legal ballot is counted and protecting the right of every Floridian to participate in our democracy. pic.twitter.com/nK7xPk9y82

— Nelson for U.S. Senate (@NelsonForSenate) November 9, 2018

“Scott is abusing the full force of his public office as governor to stop a complete and accurate counting of all the votes in Florida — which would determine whether he wins or loses,” Nelson continued in the video. “The governor has decided to abandon the most fundamental of all rights, because he fears that he will lose the election if all the votes are counted.”

Nelson’s comments follow Scott’s accusation Thursday night that “unethical liberals” were attempting to “steal” the Florida Senate race, as well as accusations of impropriety in Broward County’s vote tabulations.

“The people of Florida deserve fairness and they deserve transparency and the supervisor of elections is refusing to give it to us,” Scott said in a Thursday night press conference.

“I will not sit idly by while unethical liberals try to steal this election,” he added.

President Trump has also spoken out about the issue, appearing to accuse Florida election officials of falsifying vote counts both in the past and in the case of Scott’s race.

“Bad things are going on in Broward Country, really bad things. We’ve been to court, had a lot of drama. We won. I say this: We easily won. But every hour it seems to be going down. I think that people have to look at it very, very cautiously,” the president said earlier Friday.