Florida vote recount begins
THE first US election workers have begun the enormous task of recounting ballots in Florida’s bitterly close races for the US Senate and governor, ramping up their efforts after the secretary of state ordered a review of the two nationally-watched contests.
Miami-Dade County election officials began feeding ballots into scanning machines on Saturday evening. The tedious work in that one county alone could take days, considering some 800000 ballots were cast. Multiply that by 67 counties in the nation’s third most populous state, and the scope of the task was beginning to sink in yesterday.
The Florida secretary of state ordered the recounts on Saturday, an unprecedented step for the two flagship | dpa races in a state that took five weeks to decide the 2000 presidential election. Secretary of State Ken Detzner’s office said it was unaware of any other time either a race for governor or US Senate in Florida required a recount, let alone both in the same election.
Florida’s 67 counties can decide when to begin their recounts, but must complete them by Thursday. Unofficial results show Republican former US Representative Ron DeSantis led Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum by less than 0.5 percentage points, which will require a machine recount of ballots. In the Senate race, Republican Governor Rick Scott’s lead over Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson is less than 0.25 percentage LONDON: Giant sand portraits of soldiers were drawn on dozens of British beaches yesterday to mark the centenary of the armistice that ended World War I.
Film-maker Danny Boyle, who directed the artworks on 32 beaches around the country, said he hoped they would make people remember the “great tide of blood”.
Artists began sculpting the points, requiring a hand recount of ballots from tabulation machines that couldn’t determine which candidate got the vote.
The recount opens against a backdrop of political tensions. President Donald Trump on Saturday tweeted without evidence that the elections were being stolen. Angry protesters also gathered at an elections office in Broward County on Saturday.
Following the announcement of a recount, Gillum withdrew his concession in the governor’s race.
“Let me say clearly, I am replacing my words of concession with an uncompromised and unapologetic call that we count every single vote.”
In a video statement on Saturday, DeSantis said the election results were ephemeral portraits as the tide went out early yesterday, with the the Sea works set to be erased by the next high tide later in the day.
Boyle said the concept was inspired by Rudyard Kipling’s 1917 poem My Boy Jack, which suggests a mother is watching every tide in the hope that her son will one day return from battle.
“The poem has come to “clear and unambiguous” and that he was preparing to become the state’s next governor. He also thanked the state’s supervisors of elections, canvassing boards, and the staff for “working hard to ensure that all lawful votes are counted”.
The scene recalled the 2000 presidential recount, when it took more than five weeks for Florida to declare George W Bush the victor over vice-president Al Gore by 537 votes, thus giving Bush the presidency.
Florida is also conducting a recount in a third statewide race. Democrat Nikki Fried had a 0.07 percentage point lead over Republican state Representative Matt Caldwell in the race for agriculture commissioner, one of Florida’s three Cabinet seats. | represent, for many of us, our own feelings about the unknown soldiers lost to history,” Boyle said. |