With Multiple Races Too Close to Call, Florida Prepares for Mandatory Recounts

According to the New York Times, Florida officials announced Saturday that with the elections for senator, governor and agriculture commissioner deemed too close to call, that mandatory machine recounts are in order.

Gov. Rick Scott, whose sizable lead has evaporated to less than 13,000 votes as ballots continue to be tallied, has cried foul. The target of his ire, Broward County elections supervisor Brenda Snipes, is under fire for not only admitting to tabulating roughly a dozen rejected ballots, but failing to confirm if she has finished counting them all.

“Three days after Election Day, the vote tally continues to change and Supervisor Snipes still refuses to explain where and how the new votes came to light,” the campaign said in a statement. “The public deserves a clear and direct answer.”

The deadline for the state’s 67 counties to hand in their unofficial results was today at noon. As such, three statewide races are legally required to go to a recount since they remain under a 0.5 percentage point margin:

The Senate race between Gov. Rick Scott (R) and Bill Nelson (D)

The governor’s race between Ron DeSantis (R) and Andrew Gillum (D)

The commissioner of agriculture race between Nikki Fried (D) and Matt Caldwell (R)

The order to initiate the recount is expected this afternoon from Secretary of State Ken Detzner, an appointee of Mr. Scott. While tallies are expected to begin soon as well, starting with the larger Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties. Smaller counties are expected to begin tomorrow.

Each county has until Thursday to run all of its ballots through counting machines again. While any race that remains within a margin of 0.25 of a percentage point or less will have until the 18th to conduct a manual recount.

Of important note, the odds of Gillum emerging triumphant in a recount appear to be low, as he currently trails DeSantis by 33,600 votes—or 0.41 percentage points.