As the Florida midterm election has the country waiting anxiously to see the final results of the Florida election for Senate, governor, and U.S. Department of Agriculture, another phase of the recount will begin.
History repeats itself? Florida officials ordered a hand recount in the Senate race between Sen. Bill Nelson & Gov. Rick Scott. https://t.co/6QHIGJEjR3 #11MSNBC #11thHour pic.twitter.com/p0ah09V2fb
— 11th Hour (@11thHour) November 15, 2018
According to Reuters:
‘Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson trailed his Republican challenger, Florida Governor Rick Scott, by about 12,600 votes, or 0.15 percent of the more than 8 million ballots cast following an electronic recount. The razor-thin margin triggers a manual recount under state law.’
Florida: Senate race stays on knife edge as hand recount ordered https://t.co/js0UoMfiUj
— The Guardian (@guardian) November 15, 2018
The results of the election show less than a 0.25 percent margin, which automatically triggers a recount. Despite the fact that the recount is demanded by law, Trump and his GOP cronies have screamed about voter fraud, Democrats trying to “steal” elections, and voters changing hats and shirts to vote more than once in an election. Trump seriously said that.
‘Elections officials were expected to inspect by hand any ballots that were designated undervotes or overvotes, cases where the machine that reviewed the ballot concluded that a voter had skipped a contest or marked more than one selection.’
In Broward County, which has a population of more than 1.8 million people, a two-minute late submission voided their recount totals. Instead, the unofficial results from election night will stand.
Florida election drama continues as U.S. Senate race heads to hand recount https://t.co/rNBYMVSv1q
— TIME (@TIME) November 15, 2018
The same is true of another strongly Democratic county, Palm Beach. NPR reports that:
‘Palm Beach County — a heavily populated Democratic stronghold in the state, which has been plagued by antiquated, failing equipment — did not meet the deadline and submitted initial tallies collected on Saturday.
‘”It was a heroic effort,” Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher told reporters after the deadline passed. “We were adding up our tallies, and you can see they were adding up, but we just need some more time.”‘
JUST IN: A hand recount has been ordered in Florida's narrow Senate race between Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson and Republican Gov. Rick Scott. https://t.co/yKEWrZhSqG
— NPR Politics (@nprpolitics) November 15, 2018
Free and fair elections appear to be a thing of the past as votes remain uncounted and voters are denied a choice in their elections.
Featured image via Flickr by wiredforlego under a Creative Commons license
