Florida recount underway, tensions rise
TALLAHASSEE: The first 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 South Florida county alone could take days, considering some 800,000 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 Saturday, an unprecedented step for the two flagship 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 that Republican former US Rep Ron DeSantis led Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum by less than 0.5%, which will require a machine recount of ballots. In the Senate race, Republican Gov Rick Scott’s lead over Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson is less than 0.25%, requiring a hand recount of ballots from tabulation machines that couldn’t determine which candidate got the vote.
Following the announcement of a recount, Mr 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,’’ he said, adding that he would accept whatever outcome emerges.
In a video statement released Saturday, Mr DeSantis said the election results were “clear and unambiguous’’ and that he was preparing to become the state’s next governor.