Stop me if you have heard this before but it became official today as the deadline came and went there will be a recount in three of Florida’s most contested elections. The Florida secretary of state is ordering recounts in the U.S. Senate and governor races, an unprecedented review of two major races in the state that took five weeks to decide the 2000 presidential election.
Secretary Ken Detzner issued the order on Saturday after the unofficial results in both races fell within the margin that by law triggers a recount.
The unofficial results show that Republican former U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis led Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum by less than 0.5 percentage points, which will require a machine recount of ballots.
The focus of the recount will be Broward and Palm Beach counties — both Democratic strongholds where vote counts continued to trickle in after Election Day.
As we reported earlier this week lawsuits have been filed by both the Republicans and the Democrats. But it seems nothing will stop recount process from starting.
The very hotly contested of the tree of course is the race between Republican Rick Scott and the incumbent Democrat Sen. Bill Nelson. Scott, who currently carries a narrow lead of roughly 12,500 votes — about 0.15 points.
Detzner also ordered machine recounts in razor-close contests for a Tampa state Senate seat and for House seats in Volusia and Palm Beach counties.
For the record in the Sunshine State an automatic machine recount is triggered if two candidates are within 0.5 points of one another. If the candidates are within 0.25 points of one another after that machine recount is conducted, a hand recount is triggered.
Meanwhile, the governor’s race between the apparent winner Republican DeSantis and his Democratic challenger Gillum also tighten over the past few days triggering an automatic machine recount. As of now Gillum and DeSantis separated by roughly 0.41 points well within the 0.5 margin.
Then comes the closest of them all the race for agriculture commissioner with Democrat Nikki Fried and Republican Matt Caldwell separated by a tiny 0.06 percentage points — a little more than 5,300 votes.
Okay here is how the recount works, results of a machine recount must be submitted by 3 p.m. on Nov. 15, at which point a hand recount could be triggered and would have to be completed by Nov. 18. Final statewide results are set to be certified on Nov. 20.
