Scott to face Gelzer for Orange County District 6 Commission seat
After a nearly 13-hour recount that ended just before 2 a.m. Saturday, Mike Scott was pronounced runner-up to Lawanna Gelzer, securing a spot against the community activist in the Nov. 8 runoff election for Orange County Commission District 6 seat.
Scott, 40, director of an Orlando youth mentoring program, edged third-place finisher Cynthia Harris by six votes in the seven-candidate primary derby to replace Commissioner Victoria Siplin and represent an area that includes International Drive and most of Pine Hills.
At stake is a four-year term that will pay an annual salary of $91,158.
The final, unofficial results posted on the Orange County Supervisor of Elections website had Gelzer first with 3,455 votes or 19.37% of the ballots followed by Scott with 3,150 or 17.66% and Harris with 3,144 or 17.63%. In multiple-candidate primary races, if no one gets more than 50% of the ballots cast, Orange County election rules require a runoff between the two who got the most.
Turnout was low in the all-Democrat, nonpartisan race with less than 16% of the district’s 112,000 eligible voters participating.
Ballot counts showed 1,419 of those who voted did not pick a candidate in the commission race.
Twenty-eight others picked two candidates, nullifying their vote in the race.
Harris said Friday she would likely file a legal challenge over the results.
“The integrity has been compromised in this election and we want fairness,” she said.
She and Scott were both accompanied by small entourages of supporters and observers to keep an eye on the recount.
Harris’ group included Orlando civil rights lawyer Richard Siwica, retained for a possible lawsuit.
Harris was concerned that vote tallies changed from election night through canvassing board reviews to the recount.
At one point, unofficial results had her ahead of Scott by six votes then trailing by one.
Nick Shannin, counsel for the Election Supervisor’s office, said slight fluctuations in unofficial totals are not uncommon in elections as canvassing boards review “provisional” or questionable ballots and decide a variety of other issues regarding individual votes.
“Sometimes the votes go up, sometimes the votes go down,” he said.
Shannin said fluctuations usually aren’t as significant as in the race between Scott and Harris.
In the recount of District 6 ballots, verification started with elections staff feeding ballots into counting machines, which had been tested for accuracy earlier in the day. Then election workers individually examined the ballots deemed to be unmarked or mismarked.
Both candidates had observers who could double-check ballots.
shudak@orlandosentinel.com