Thread by @MiamiHerald

Ah, the 2018 Florida election recount. Remember that?

Accusations of voter fraud, blown deadlines, lawsuits, conspiracy theories.

We can't believe we're saying this, but what if that fiasco was a good thing? (Thread!) hrld.us/2SyaSUU

So here's the bad news: The 2020 presidential election will almost certainly be close. Maybe close enough to trigger another recount in Florida.

And the good news: The state has an opportunity to fix Florida's election woes before 2020. But lawmakers have to act.

Yes, Florida's voting problems are very real, but they're hardly insurmountable.

We looked at all the problems of the 2018 midterms to try and figure out what went wrong and how to avoid another national embarrassment in the Sunshine State.

Among the issues:

1. A ton of absentee ballots: One in three ballots in 2018 were cast by mail, and that really complicated things for Florida. But what if the answer is… more mail-in voting? hrld.us/2Sz53GW

Voting by mail is incredibly popular. But experts say Florida will reach a tipping point where the time and effort to process those mail ballots will grow, and officials won't have enough time to count them all within the state's extremely tight deadlines.

Some argue that shifting to a completely mail-based system would save Florida money and avoid future chaos as voting by mail inevitably becomes more popular.

2. A flawed ballot design: In Broward County, some races were displayed below the printed instructions on the ballot. That design may have cost Bill Nelson the Senate race. hrld.us/2SwI9jt

But bad ballot design is not a problem unique to Florida. There are really simple fixes we could learn from other states, like strengthening standards and implementing ballot-design review.

3. Old technology: Election officials have shied away from high-tech voting methods. It's almost taboo in an era of Russian hacking fears.

But new hardware, software and databases exist that could make supervisors' lives easier. We look at some here: hrld.us/2SyFp5g

4. Lack of transparency: Days after the election, the state couldn't explain how many votes had been rejected or even how many votes remained to be counted.

This confused voters, and even caused Gov. Rick Scott to flip out after 60,000 additional votes were counted in left-leaning South Florida after election night.

Things were particularly bad in Broward County. Protesters called for Brenda Snipes' resignation after a mix-up with provisional ballots, a missed deadline to transmit recount results, and an admission that the county had misplaced 2,000 votes. hrld.us/2SvW0qo

As a result, we got accusations of voter fraud, protests and conspiracy theories. But there are steps the state could take to avoid all that. It starts with transparency.

After all, what's at stake? Just voters' trust in the basic foundation of democracy. hrld.us/2StWJbD

This special report was produced with support from @soljourno.

Journalists @NewsbySmiley, @ceostroff, @jiglesias56 and @TallBrighty poured through thousands of pages of emails, court transcripts, election records and interviewed dozens of experts and candidates for this project

If you value accountability journalism in Florida, please consider subscribing to the Miami Herald. #ReadLocal hrld.us/2SxK3R4