Recount on the way in Florida Senate race
Rick Scott and Bill Nelson have filed lawsuits as the drama over their Senate race continue to heat up.
At a hastily convened press conference Thursday night at the governor's mansion, Gov. Scott, a Republican, said he had asked the state's top law enforcement agency on Thursday to investigate election operations in Broward and Palm Beach counties and filed lawsuits demanding access to ballots narrowing his lead against Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson.
Meanwhile, Nelson has filed a lawsuit asking that the deadline for local election officials to file preliminary unofficial vote totals to the state to be extended past noon Saturday.
The margin in three statewide races — the Senate, the governor and commissioner of agriculture — are now slim enough to trigger mandatory recounts. The first unofficial totals, which are due at noon Saturday, will determine which races proceed to recounts.
Scott accused election officials in Broward and Palm Beach, two Democratic strongholds, of "rampant fraud" in a vote-counting process that has continued days after the election and sharply narrowed GOP leads in statewide races, even flipping the state agriculture commission race from a Republican to Democratic lead of more than 2,000 votes on Thursday.
As of Friday morning, officials in Broward were still tallying early voting and absentee ballots, according to the state's election website. Palm Beach was still counting absentee ballots.
Broward officials cite the unusually high turnout at the lengthy ballot for the delays.
Nobody is certain how many ballots are still to be counted.
Nelson's campaign responded to Scott's claim by criticizing it as a sign he is fearful of losing the election.
“The goal here is to see that all the votes in Florida are counted and counted accurately. Rick Scott’s action appears to be politically motivated and borne out of desperation,” Nelson spokesman Dan McLaughlin said.
President Trump has taken to Twitter to weigh in on the drama here and in the Georgia governor's race.
Meanwhile, around the state canvassing boards are still reviewing provisional ballots to determine whether they should be counted. Voters cast provisional ballots when the eligibility to vote cannot be determined at the polling place, perhaps because the didn't have photo IDs.
Lawyers and party officials are watching over those canvassing efforts. Voter signatures on those provisional ballots can become a sticking point.
If canvassing boards believe that signature on the provisional ballot doesn't match the signature on file with election officials, they can reject the ballot.
But lawyers for Nelson argue that those officials have no particular expertise to decide whether the signatures came from the same person.
The lawsuit they filed in the Tallahassee federal court asks for a temporary injunction barring election officials from rejecting absentee or provisional ballots based on signature mismatches.
Over the past 24 hours, vastly different narratives are being pushed by the parties about the elections drama.
Scott and other Republicans say corrupt Democratic officials are trying to fraudulent flip the elections.
"I will not stand idly by while unethical liberals try to steal an election," Scott said Thursday.
But the Nelson campaign said it was just trying to ensure that everyone gets counted.
“The goal here is to see that all the votes in Florida are counted and counted accurately. Rick Scott’s action appears to be politically motivated and borne out of desperation,” Nelson spokesman Dan McLaughlin said.
At 10:30 a.m. Friday, Palm Beach County 15th Circuit Chief Judge Krista Marx began hearing Rick Scott’s lawsuit against Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher regarding the elections results.
Marx ruled that any overvote/undervote or damaged ballot that wasn’t provided to the canvassing board must be.
On election night, Scott declared himself the winner just before midnight when he held a lead of about 55,000 votes out of some 8 million cast.
But as counting continued, that margin tightened significantly.
By early Friday afternoon, Scott's lead had dwindled to just 15,012 votes out of nearly 8.2 million cast.
That is well with the margin that triggers an automatic recount.
State law mandates a machine recount of ballots in any race where the preliminary tally shows a margin of victory within 0.5 percentage points. In a machine recount, election officials run ballots through high-speed tabulation machines to double-check the numbers reported by precinct-level voting machines on election day. Those machines are tested for accuracy just before the recount and the results of the recount are presumed correct.
Machine recounts would take place early next week at election offices in each county.
If the machine recount shows a margin of victory of less than 0.25 percentage points, election officials then would begin a hand recount. The margin the Senate race was 0.18 points.
Any manual recount doesn't mean that election officials would look at each of the more than 8 million ballots cast in the state. Instead, they would be examining ballots that tabulation machines said had "overvotes" or "undervotes" in the contested race.
An overvote occurs when the tabulating machine believes a voter cast more than one vote in a certain race. In some cases, voters do fill out more than one bubble for a race. Such "true" overvotes are not counted.
But sometimes a stray pen mark or other voter error can cause the tabulation machines to register an overvote. In such cases, where the voter intent is clear from the ballot, the vote is counted.
Similarly, an undervote is when a tabulation machine says no vote was registered in a race. Voters sometimes decide not to vote in certain races, perhaps because they feel they don't know enough about the candidates.
But such true undervotes are more common in down-ballot races, not high-profile races like a U.S. Senate election. And, as with overvotes, sometimes they are caused by voters improperly filling out ballots. If the intent of the voter is clear from an examination of the ballot, the vote is counted.
At a hastily convened press conference Thursday night at the governor's mansion, Gov. Scott, a Republican, said he had asked the state's top law enforcement agency on Thursday to investigate election operations in Broward and Palm Beach counties and filed lawsuits demanding access to ballots narrowing his lead against Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson.
Meanwhile, Nelson has filed a lawsuit asking that the deadline for local election officials to file preliminary unofficial vote totals to the state to be extended past noon Saturday.
The margin in three statewide races — the Senate, the governor and commissioner of agriculture — are now slim enough to trigger mandatory recounts. The first unofficial totals, which are due at noon Saturday, will determine which races proceed to recounts.
Scott accused election officials in Broward and Palm Beach, two Democratic strongholds, of "rampant fraud" in a vote-counting process that has continued days after the election and sharply narrowed GOP leads in statewide races, even flipping the state agriculture commission race from a Republican to Democratic lead of more than 2,000 votes on Thursday.
As of Friday morning, officials in Broward were still tallying early voting and absentee ballots, according to the state's election website. Palm Beach was still counting absentee ballots.
Broward officials cite the unusually high turnout at the lengthy ballot for the delays.
Nobody is certain how many ballots are still to be counted.
Nelson's campaign responded to Scott's claim by criticizing it as a sign he is fearful of losing the election.
“The goal here is to see that all the votes in Florida are counted and counted accurately. Rick Scott’s action appears to be politically motivated and borne out of desperation,” Nelson spokesman Dan McLaughlin said.
President Trump has taken to Twitter to weigh in on the drama here and in the Georgia governor's race.
Meanwhile, around the state canvassing boards are still reviewing provisional ballots to determine whether they should be counted. Voters cast provisional ballots when the eligibility to vote cannot be determined at the polling place, perhaps because the didn't have photo IDs.
Lawyers and party officials are watching over those canvassing efforts. Voter signatures on those provisional ballots can become a sticking point.
If canvassing boards believe that signature on the provisional ballot doesn't match the signature on file with election officials, they can reject the ballot.
But lawyers for Nelson argue that those officials have no particular expertise to decide whether the signatures came from the same person.
The lawsuit they filed in the Tallahassee federal court asks for a temporary injunction barring election officials from rejecting absentee or provisional ballots based on signature mismatches.
Over the past 24 hours, vastly different narratives are being pushed by the parties about the elections drama.
Scott and other Republicans say corrupt Democratic officials are trying to fraudulent flip the elections.
"I will not stand idly by while unethical liberals try to steal an election," Scott said Thursday.
But the Nelson campaign said it was just trying to ensure that everyone gets counted.
“The goal here is to see that all the votes in Florida are counted and counted accurately. Rick Scott’s action appears to be politically motivated and borne out of desperation,” Nelson spokesman Dan McLaughlin said.
At 10:30 a.m. Friday, Palm Beach County 15th Circuit Chief Judge Krista Marx began hearing Rick Scott’s lawsuit against Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher regarding the elections results.
Marx ruled that any overvote/undervote or damaged ballot that wasn’t provided to the canvassing board must be.
On election night, Scott declared himself the winner just before midnight when he held a lead of about 55,000 votes out of some 8 million cast.
But as counting continued, that margin tightened significantly.
By early Friday afternoon, Scott's lead had dwindled to just 15,012 votes out of nearly 8.2 million cast.
That is well with the margin that triggers an automatic recount.
State law mandates a machine recount of ballots in any race where the preliminary tally shows a margin of victory within 0.5 percentage points. In a machine recount, election officials run ballots through high-speed tabulation machines to double-check the numbers reported by precinct-level voting machines on election day. Those machines are tested for accuracy just before the recount and the results of the recount are presumed correct.
Machine recounts would take place early next week at election offices in each county.
If the machine recount shows a margin of victory of less than 0.25 percentage points, election officials then would begin a hand recount. The margin the Senate race was 0.18 points.
Any manual recount doesn't mean that election officials would look at each of the more than 8 million ballots cast in the state. Instead, they would be examining ballots that tabulation machines said had "overvotes" or "undervotes" in the contested race.
An overvote occurs when the tabulating machine believes a voter cast more than one vote in a certain race. In some cases, voters do fill out more than one bubble for a race. Such "true" overvotes are not counted.
But sometimes a stray pen mark or other voter error can cause the tabulation machines to register an overvote. In such cases, where the voter intent is clear from the ballot, the vote is counted.
Similarly, an undervote is when a tabulation machine says no vote was registered in a race. Voters sometimes decide not to vote in certain races, perhaps because they feel they don't know enough about the candidates.
But such true undervotes are more common in down-ballot races, not high-profile races like a U.S. Senate election. And, as with overvotes, sometimes they are caused by voters improperly filling out ballots. If the intent of the voter is clear from an examination of the ballot, the vote is counted.
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