As Florida’s chaotic election season ends, results certified
TALLAHASSEE – It’s finally over. Florida’s official election results were certified by the statewide Elections Canvassing Board on Tuesday, putting an end to a vicious election season and lengthy recount process.
In the final tally, GOP Gov. Rick Scott knocked off incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson to take a U.S. Senate seat, beating Nelson by 10,033 votes out of more than 8.19 million – a margin of 0.12 percent.
Republican Ron DeSantis won the governor’s race over Democrat Andrew Gillum by 32,463 votes, a 0.4 percent margin.
The closest race was the contest for agriculture commissioner, which Democrat Nikki Fried won by a mere 6,753 votes, or 0.08 percent, over Republican Matt Caldwell.
The three statewide races were all under the 0.5 percent threshold for a machine recount, and the U.S. Senate
races were under the 0.25 percent cutoff for a hand recount.
The canvassing board is a three-member panel usually comprised of the governor and two Cabinet members, but Scott recused himself because he was a candidate. State Sen. Rob Bradley was his replacement.
“I am 100 percent confident that the results that we just certified reflect the will of the voters,” said Bradley, R-Fleming Island. “All of the people in the state of Florida can be assured that we’ve just certified the proper results.”
But he also acknowledged the myriad issues in Broward and Palm Beach counties, and said the Legislature will likely address those problems when they meet next year.
“If there’s rules that we can implement and laws that we can implement to make sure our elections are more efficient those certainly will be considered and done,” Bradley said.
The close margins spurred a series of lawsuits in local and federal courts, and the delays in counting votes in Broward and Palm Beach led to charges of voter fraud by Scott, President Donald Trump and other Republicans — all without evidence.
State law enforcement officials are, however, looking into complaints that Florida Democratic Party staffers altered the dates on affidavits used by mail-in voters to verify their signatures, falsely giving them the impression they had more time to complete the forms.
Loud, angry protests spawned in Broward and Palm Beach counties, which struggled with the initial count, continuing their tallies after election night, generating ire among the GOP as Republican leads in the U.S. Senate and governor races narrowed as more votes from those Democratic bastions came in.
The south Florida counties also sputtered during the recounts. Palm Beach’s old machines were unable to handle more than one machine recount at a time. But they didn’t complete the U.S. Senate race on time anyway.
And Broward completed their machine recount before the deadline set in state law, but failed to upload the results to the state website in time, missing the cut-off by two minutes.
During the saga, Nelson and Gillum demanded that “every vote count” but continued to come up short in the courts and in the overall results. Both conceded their races last week.
Caldwell officially conceded Monday.
Florida law allows 10 days for the results to be challenged in court, but with all opponents conceding their contests, the results are likely to stand.