Commonly spread recount myths and what’s actually true

With recounts underway and infinitesimally close election results the subject of repeated insults, lawsuits and insulting lawsuits, the truth has in many cases become a casualty of the ongoing war. Here are some of the most commonly spread myths of this year’s election and the truth lying just behind them — or in some cases, a few hundred miles to the side.

Many of them deal with conspiracies surrounding Broward Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes, and while these myths are untrue, Snipes’ checkered history of

election management has made it easier for them to stick.

Claim: Boxes of ballots have been found at polling places after the election.

False: Boxes labeled “provisional ballots” have been found at polling sites in Margate and Tamarac and at the Fort Lauderdale airport. Are there ballots in these boxes? We don’t know, but the elections office says ballots were already taken from these boxes, and the boxes themselves are left with other voting equipment to be picked up later.

Claim: Tens of thousands of Broward voters did not vote for U.S. Senate because they didn’t see it on the ballot.

Mostly true: Almost 25,000 voters in Broward County voted in the governor’s race but did not vote in the Senate race, according to a South Florida Sun Sentinel analysis of voting patterns. This voting pattern did not happen in any other county to this extent. Why this happened in Broward is unclear, but in ballots in this county, the Senate race appeared on the left hand side, below the voting instructions. Voters may have missed the Senate race for that reason.

Claim: The Broward elections chief destroyed ballots.

True and false: A Broward County Circuit judge found that Snipes had destroyed ballots 12 months after the 2016 election when federal law requires the ballots to be preserved for 22 months. At the time they were destroyed, the ballots were the subject of a public records request by Tim Canova, who lost a Democratic primary in 2016 to U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, DWeston.

Claim: Democrats are trying to steal votes to put themselves over the top.

Mostly false: Democrats hope to pick up more votes, but there’s not much chance that they’ll come out in front.

With all votes other than military and overseas accounted for Saturday, Scott still led Nelson by more than 12,000 votes. Republican gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis still led Gillum by more than 33,000. There have only been a handful of recounts in recent history that put the loser back on top. The 2004 Washington governor’s race saw the initial loser, Democrat Christine Gregoire, down by 261 votes. She wound up winning by 129 votes.

In the 2008 Minnesota governor’s race, Democrat Al Franken was initially down by 215 votes and wound up winning by 312.

The idea that Democrats are riding high in these recounts is only reiterated by Democratic politicians like Andrew Gillum, who said in an appearance at Fort Lauderdale’s New Mount Olive Baptist Church on Sunday, “They don’t get to shut down the process because they’re not winning.”

For either Nelson or Gillum to win now would be historically unprecedented.

Claim: Broward still hasn’t counted a single vote, even though the recount started Saturday.

True: Broward’s machines had a technical issue Sunday morning, when the county planned to start its recount. Instead of sorting by machine, the staff is sorting the first page of the ballot by hand. Once that’s done, the machine recount will start.

Claim: Democratic Senate and governor candidates already conceded on election night, so no recount is necessary.

False: President Donald Trump tweeted confusion over the idea that both Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum and U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson were “back in play” in Florida recounts after conceding on Election Day, wondering how it is recounts could be going on and noting it was “an embarrassment to our country and democracy.”

Florida election law requires a machine recount if the vote margin in a race is less than 0.5 percent and, after that, a hand recount of undervotes and overvotes if the margin is less than 0.25 percent. Undervotes are those in which the machine reads no vote having been cast in an election; overvotes are those in which the machine reads votes for more than one candidate. Even if a candidate concedes on Election Day, these recounts are required by law unless the losing candidate in a race states in writing that they do not wish to have a recount. None of the candidates have done so.

Claim: The complete vote totals were in at noon Saturday. No new ballots can count.

False: Unofficial vote tallies are due to the state Division of Elections no later than noon four days after the election — in this case, by last Saturday. But there is an exception for military and overseas mail-in ballots. These ballots can be accepted up to 10 days after the election, as long as they are postmarked by Election Day. Ordinarily, these ballots are not enough to swing an election, but given the close statewide races this year, they could have an effect.

Claim: Ballots showed up out of nowhere in Broward County.

False: Trump was at the forefront of this myth as well, tweeting that “large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere” and that the state should abandon recounts and go with election night results.

But on election night, Broward County alone showed that it had counted about 34,000 less ballots than it was reporting for total turnout. Compared with other counties, that was an unusually high number of mail-in ballots yet to be counted, but it indicated that they were there, not simply “made up” or “found” over the next few days.

As for the last line of Trump’s tweet, that Florida “must go with election night” totals, that would violate the state’s law regarding election recounts.

Claim: State law requires that ballots not reported by 30 minutes after polls close should not be counted.

False: U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio tweeted out on Election Night that the “law requires counties report early voting & vote-bymail within 30 minutes after polls close” but left out three important words.

In fact, state law requires all early votes and canvassed and tabulated mail-in ballots to be reported by 30 minutes after polls close. That means only those mail-in ballots that have been opened and the results documented by 30 minutes after polls closing must be reported. Because mail-in ballots can arrive at the supervisor of elections office up until polls close, every election year there are many ballots that have arrived but have not yet been opened and recorded by that deadline. For those ballots, elections officials have until noon four days after the election to count them — and six days past that in the case of military and overseas ballots.

That said, the table Rubio tweeted showing which counties had finalized their votes comes from the state Division of Elections website and includes a line for early voting. Broward County’s early vote was not checked off on the table until several days after the election, when the law requires all early votes to be counted by 30 minutes after polls close. It’s not clear whether this was an oversight on the part of the state Division of Elections or whether Broward County’s elections officials were still counting early votes days after the election.

Claim: Rampant fraud was committed by the Broward supervisor of elections; courts even sided with Gov. Rick Scott over it.

Both true and false: Whether “rampant fraud,” as Scott alleged in a Thursday news appearance, took place is at the heart of contentious arguments between lawyers for the campaigns of Scott and Nelson. Scott called on the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate Broward election officials, but FDLE said that it had received no allegations of fraud and no written request from Scott to conduct an investigation.

The lawsuit that Scott’s Senate campaign won in court was not about whether Broward votes were fraudulent, but rather over whether Broward and Palm Beach county supervisors of elections had to produce records of what votes had yet to be counted. Judges in both Broward County and Palm Beach County told the supervisors to turn over the records.

Claim: Broward Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes is corrupt and incompetent.

Mostly false: Judges and FDLE have found no evidence of wrongdoing, but Snipes has a history of problems. Whether she’s incompetent or just disorganized is a judgment that someone — maybe voters — will have to make later.