Florida Election Deadline: Hand Recount Ordered For Senate Race
LAUDERHILL, FL — Florida election officials on Thursday ordered a hand recount in the hotly contested Senate race between incumbent Democrat Sen. Bill Nelson and Florida Republican Gov. Rick Scott. The announcement followed a 3 p.m. deadline to wrap up a machine recount of more than 8 million ballots cast throughout the state’s 67 counties.
The close race between gubernatorial candidates Ron DeSantis and Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum apparently ended with a confirmation of the unofficial election night victory for the Republican DeSantis.
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But state election officials also ordered a hand recount in the race for commissioner of agriculture.
“The second set of unofficial returns for the U.S. Senate and Commissioner of Agriculture races has met the statutory threshold to trigger a manual recount,” state election officials said. “As required under Florida law, a statewide manual recount has been ordered by the Secretary of State.”
A manual recount is solely a hand recount of overvotes and undervotes in the affected race. An overvote is when a voter designated more choices than allowable in the recounted race and an undervote is when a voter made no choice or less than the allowable number of choices in the recounted race, according to state election officials. See also Patch Analysis Reveals 38,593 Undervotes In Florida
The results of the manual recount will be reflected in the official returns due to the Department of State no later than noon Sunday.
It was not immediately clear which counties made Thursday’s deadline, but it was apparent that Palm Beach County had not. See also Federal Judge Orders Florida To Give Some Voters More Time
“As the supervisor I take full responsibility. That’s my job,” insisted Palm Beach Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher when it became apparent that the deadline would be missed.
“It was not for lack of human effort. You saw the human effort. It was so incredible, and I thank everybody who participated,” Bucher told reporters. “The fact of the matter is that when mechanicals fail, there’s not a lot I can do about it.”
Floridians have been sitting on the edge of their seats since Nov. 6 to find out who really won the marquee election contests — the state’s Senate and gubernatorial races — in America’s third most populous state.
Some have taken up signs and carried them in peaceful protests. This has been particularly true in Broward County, where Supervisor of Elections Brenda Calhon Snipes has come under fire from President Trump and a host of Republicans as the commander-in-chief lambasted Democrats over what he dubbed “The Broward effect.”
At first, Snipes appeared to just make the deadline but state election officials said on Friday that the Broward results were actually submitted two minutes late. State election officials reverted back to the first unofficial results submitted by Broward on Saturday and disregarded the machine recount. Nearby Miami-Dade County finished ahead of schedule.
The Broward official told reporters earlier this week that she may step down or choose not to seek re-election based on her experience with this election. See also Broward Election Supervisor May Have Had Enough
Much of the criticism and frustration stems from the fact that more than 8 million Floridians took time away from their jobs, families and schools to vote in an election they were told would possibly be one of the most consequential of their lifetimes.
Yet, there has been growing uncertainty over the results, particularly with respect to the U.S. Senate contest.
On Saturday, Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner ordered the machine recounts in three races, including the Senate race, governor’s race and commissioner of agriculture race. The recounts got underway on Sunday and wrapped up Thursday.
“All of a sudden they’re finding votes out of nowhere,” the president told a group of reporters outside the White House prior to the start of the recount. “There’s bad things that have gone on in Broward County — really bad things.”
While there’s been no hard evidence to support the president’s theory, it is true there has been a steady erosion of Scott’s lead in the unofficial vote tallies from Broward County.
The Florida threshold to order a machine recount for federal, state or multicounty races is one half of one percent, according to election officials. “The results from the machine recount constitute the second set of unofficial returns.”
The machine recount returns were due back from the county canvassing boards no later than 3 p.m. Thursday. The hand recounts were ordered in the two races were the statutory threshold of one quarter of one percent was met.
The machine recount involved feeding each ballot through precinct
tabulators, central count tabulators or a combination of the two in each county. Ballots with overvotes and undervotes in the affected races were set aside in advance of the order to conduct a manual recount.
ProPublica’s Electionland project monitors voting problems around the country. If you had trouble voting, or if you saw something you want to tell Electionland about, here’s how.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
Palm Beach County Supervisor Of Elections Susan Bucher, left. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee).
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