Nelson’s chances fading
As hand recounts continue in Broward, Democrat not getting critical undervotes
TALLAHASSEE — As more votes were examined Friday as part of a hand recount, Bill Nelson’s hopes of holding onto his U.S. Senate seat were fading.
More than 98 percent of the ballots counted by machine in Broward County in the Senate race were undervotes, where neither candidate was selected. Nelson’s campaign has been hoping the 30,449 undervotes in Democratic-leaning Broward would swing his way, overturning his 12,600 vote deficit to Republican Gov. Rick Scott.
Broward was still examining ballots late Friday and had not released official numbers, but observers noticed that many of the hand-counted votes were indeed left blank. Nelson’s hope was that a machine error had somehow missed votes for him.
The Broward total was a large chunk of the 93,000 undervotes and overvotes in the manual recounts in the U.S. Senate and agriculture commissioner races Friday.
Nelson also suffered a key defeat in court, further reducing his chances of overcoming his Scott’s lead.
In Orange County, dozens of staffers and volunteers packed the warehouse behind the supervisor of elections office in Orlando for the U.S. Senate recount.
At each of the more than 20 tables, two staffers sat with one Republican and one Democratic volunteer – including the current and former Orange GOP chairs – and went through more than 3,000 ballots 10 at a time, sorting them into valid votes, undervotes, overvotes and disputed ballots.
The hand recounts are only for ballots rejected by the machines. Reforms made after the chaotic
presidential election of 2000 created a wide leeway for allowing votes as long as someone hadn’t chosen more than one candidate in a race. If someone filled in a bubble for a candidate and also wrote the same name in the write-in line, that vote gets counted, for example.
But besides the many ballots that clearly had no marks made for U.S. Senate, there were some in which voters made some confusing decisions.
One ballot appeared to have a line through two bubbles, leaving it in the overvote pile, while another voter wrote in the name of gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum for the U.S. Senate race.
One voter in Orange filled in a bubble for Senate, but then wrote in “Neither,” while another filled in the bubbles for both candidates.
Then there were not one, but at least two voters who filled in the “D” in the word “Dem” next to Nelson’s name.
Any disputed ballots were taken away to the fourmember Canvassing Board for final determination, though the ballots weren’t shown on large screens while the decision was made as in some other counties.
“I think it’s being executed well,” said Republican observer Ralph Yarborough. “It’s a little chaotic first thing in the morning getting everybody in the room, but I think it’s going great so far. … We have no expectations, we just want it to be a fair and accurate count.”
Criss Ruiz waited in the back, trying to figure out what she was supposed to do.
“I was supposed to be on the list, but I wasn’t on the list,” Ruiz said of her volunteering for the Democrats. “I feel at this point it’s a little chaotic.”
Also on Friday, a federal judge knocked down two lawsuits from Nelson and the League of Women Voters, denying their requests to negate state rules for evaluating errant votes and for Gov. Rick Scott to recuse himself from all election-related actions as governor.
But U.S. District Court Judge Mark Walker also chided Scott for nearly “crossing the line” of using his power as governor to interfere in an election to help himself as a candidate.
“Here, Scott has toed the line between imprudent campaign-trail rhetoric and problematic state action. But he has not crossed the line,” Walker wrote. “As a candidate, Scott can — and has — filed lawsuits. As a candidate, he can appear on television, post on social media, and even make baseless remarks about counties where populations cast majorities of ballots for his opponent.”
Walker was referring to Scott’s news conference outside the Governor’s Mansion last week warning voters to be concerned about potential “rampant fraud happening in Broward and Palm Beach.”
While Nelson’s chances looked grim, Scott wasn’t taking any chances.
After the Department of State rejected Broward County’s machine recount vote totals because it failed to submit them by the 3 p.m. Thursday deadline, Scott lawyer Tim Cerio sent a letter to the agency asking it to reconsider that decision.
Broward officials said they finished the machine recount 15 minutes early but the download process took 17 minutes, so the missed the deadline by two minutes. That meant the Department of State used the initial count in its overall total.
The machine recount totals showed Scott would have gained more than 700 votes on Nelson if those numbers were used. Cerio argued that such a mistake shouldn’t preclude the agency using the recount numbers in the official count.
“Any scenario that would permit a Supervisor of Elections and the canvassing board to complete one phase of a recount process, but revert back to older, outdated results because of an administrative failure to timely submit tabulated results, would lead to absurd outcomes,” Cerio wrote to Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner, a Scott appointee.
In addition to Broward, Hillsborough and Palm Beach counties failed to meet the machine recount deadline. Palm Beach’s machines were old and could only count one of the three statewide races at a time, but it failed to get even the U.S. Senate race completed. The issues surrounding Florida’s election have spurred legislative leaders to look for ways to avoid another embarrassment.
Incoming Senate President Bill Galvano, RBradenton, says lawmakers will look at problems during the 2016 election and the 2018 recount and discuss changes to Florida's election laws.
During a meeting with reporters Friday morning, Galvano said "we've had too many problems in too many cycles." He added that he would "have a system with efficacy that doesn't require judicial intervention."
Asked about criticism Scott and President Donald Trump leveled at elections officials in Palm Beach and Broward counties and whether that undermines confidence in the elections process, Galvano said he's "not sure that there was a lot of confidence going in."
He says "we've sort of been painted with that brush since 2000," adding that by the next election cycle, he thinks "voters are going to want to have more in terms of assurance that their votes are going to be properly counted."
Rep. Jose Oliva, R-Miami, slated to become Florida House Speaker next week, said “the irregularities, constitutional violations and callous disregard for Florida statutes are unacceptable,” but would wait until the results were finalized before taking action. The Legislature is scheduled to meet next March.
Staff writer Larry Barszewski and the Associated Press contributed to this report. grohrer@orlandosentinel.com or (850) 222-5564