Election officials in the United States on Thursday ordered a hand recount of ballots in Florida in a close Senate race between Democrat Bill Nelson and Republican Rick Scott, Reuters reported. Nelson was behind Scott by about 12,600 votes after an electronic recount, or 0.15% of the more than eight million ballots cast.
Under Florida state law, a manual recount is ordered if an electronic recount of ballots finds a margin of victory of less than 0.25% of the votes cast. While each county has its own deadline for finishing the recount, the exercise across the state has to be completed by Sunday afternoon. If counties do not meet their deadline, the state will adopt the first round of tallies that was submitted last Saturday, Vox reported.
Palm Beach County, where more than 1,70,000 ballots were miscounted after machines overheated, missed the deadline to finish the recount by Thursday. Broward County, a Democratic stronghold, completed the recount but missed the deadline by two minutes. The state rejected the results.
Meanwhile, Scott asked Nelson to concede. “Last week, Florida voters elected me as their next US Senator and now the ballots have been counted twice,” Scott said in a statement.
President Donald Trump’s Republican Party has majority in the 100-member Senate, while the Democrats hold majority in the House of Representatives. The outcome of the Florida race would not have a big impact on the Senate majority but it is being closely watched as Florida is a key swing state in presidential elections.
In the race for the post of governor, Republican Ron DeSantis had a 33,683-vote lead over Democrat Andrew Gillum, or a margin of 0.41% points. It is enough to avoid an order for a manual recount, The New York Times reported.
“A vote denied is justice denied – the state of Florida must count every legally cast vote,” Gillum said in a statement after the machine recount concluded. “We plan to do all we can to ensure that every voice is heard in this process,” Reuters quoted him as saying.
Gillum had conceded to DeSantis last week but withdrew his concession on Saturday after Florida’s secretary of state announced that the governor’s election would go to a recount as well.
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