Here's where we are on the Florida recounts: (thread!) nytimes.com/2018/11/10/us/…
The Florida Department of State says all 67 counties met the noon deadline to report unofficial results. Secretary of State Ken Detzner has ordered statewide machine recounts in Senate, governor and ag commissioner races. Those results are due by 3 p.m. Thursday
Machine recounts were ordered because the three statewide races are within 0.5%. Two -- Senate and ag commish -- are within 0.25%. If they remain under that threshold after the machine recounts are completed, those races will head to manual recounts, to be completed by Nov. 18
Complications (read: potential lawsuits) could arise: Older equipment might struggle to conduct an unprecedented three machine recounts simultaneously. Counties might struggle to later conduct a manual recount in time
All ballots are counted in machine recounts. Not so in manual recounts: Those count only undervotes and overvotes. That's where a machine detected that someone didn't make a choice on a given contest, or picked more than one choice. So a human must make a final determination
The recounts are legally mandated. This is something that changed after the 2000 presidential election. Only way to call it off is for the candidate who is trailing to say he or she doesn't want it
We've already had several lawsuits. Gov. Rick Scott, the Republican Senate nominee, won two lawsuits yesterday against elections supervisors in Broward and Palm Beach counties, the first over vote-totals data, the second over access to ballot reviews
The Scott campaign said neither county fully complied with the judges' rulings. Broward says it did provide all data but the campaign didn't necessarily understand it all. Palm Beach says it was unable to make the court's deadline
Senator Bill Nelson, Scott's Democratic opponent, sued in federal court to declare the process of determining if ballot signatures are valid unconstitutional. The judge there said he wouldn't hold up the results/recount process but the rest of the case is pending
Scott's campaign called on Nelson on Saturday to decline the recount, arguing the margin of 12,562 votes is too wide for a recount to reverse Scott's lead. Nelson and his team have made it clear that they expect to proceed to a manual recount
The closest race is for ag commish. Not the race with most national prominence, but it's likely that it will be the only contest won by a Democrat statewide. Nikki Fried (D) leads Matt Caldwell (R) by 5,326 votes. Caldwell claimed victory earlier in the week, then Fried did
Fried, by the way, ran an unusual campaign focused less on ag issues and more on consumer services also handled by the office, especially regulation of medical marijuana and concealed weapons permits
Machine recounts are seen as unlikely to change outcomes, unless margin is super close. Hand recounts could change outcome *if* they find a machine tabulation error. Otherwise, changes in totals will likely be relatively small, past recounts show. Closest race is ag commish
Gov. Scott claimed potential fraud. But 2 state monitors assigned to observe the Broward elections office found no criminal activity. The Fla. Dept. of Law Enforcement declined Scott's request to investigate Broward and Palm Beach because no fraud allegations had been made. But:
That doesn't mean there weren't irregularities. There were. Broward mixed some 20 unlawful provisional ballots in a pile of 205 lawful ballots. All got counted. That's a problem, especially in a county with a history of elections troubles
The fact that Broward also left behind materials like empty boxes marked "provisional ballot box" in polling places also alarmed some of the public. What's really at stake in a recount is confidence in the entire system, as veterans of 2000 presidential election have said
I've covered elections for 10 years. Usually margins are wide enough that nitty gritty details don't matter. But counting is slow. There are hiccups. Only after seriously long lines in 2012 did Miami-Dade set aside $$ for improvements - now county seems exemplary
