Fla. election recount continues
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Mishaps, protests and litigation dominated Florida’s first day of recounting the vote for pivotal races for governor and Senate, bringing back memories of the 2000 presidential fiasco.
Much of the drama yesterday centered on Broward and Palm Beach counties, home to large concentrations of Democratic voters.
In Broward County, the recount was delayed for several hours because of a problem with one of the tabulation machines. That prompted the Republican Party to slam Broward’s supervisor of elections, Brenda Snipes, for “incompetence and gross mismanagement.”
Broward officials faced further headaches after they acknowledged the county mistakenly counted 22 absentee ballots that had been rejected. The problem seemed impossible to fix because the dismissed ballots were mixed in with 205 legal ballots and Snipes said it would be unfair to throw out all of those votes.
By the end of the day, Gov. Rick Scott, the Republican candidate for Senate, filed suit against Snipes in a circuit court. He sought a judge’s order that law enforcement agents impound and secure all voting machines, tallying devices and ballots “when not in use until such time as any recounts.” The lawsuit accused Snipes of repeatedly failing to account for the number of ballots left to be counted and failing to report results regularly as required by law.
Juan Penalosa, the executive director of the Florida Democratic Party, accused Scott of “using his position to consolidate power by cutting at the very core of our democracy.”
Unofficial results showed Republican former U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis led Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum by 0.41 percentage points in the election for governor. In the Senate race, Scott’s lead over Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson was 0.14 percentage points.
Meanwhile, in Palm Beach County, the supervisor of elections said she doesn’t believe her department will be able to meet the state’s Thursday deadline to complete the recount, throwing into question what would happen to votes there.