The GOP leads races for Florida Governor, U.S. Senate, and Agriculture Commissioner have tightened overnight.
Bill Nelson now trails Rick Scott by just 21,899 votes (0.268 percent), while Andrew Gillum is now down 42,498 votes to Ron DeSantis. That’s a margin of 0.524 percent. The threshold for a recount is .5 percent. Peter Schorsch of Florida Politics wrote this morning that Democrats really shouldn’t get their hopes up in the outcomes changing in either race.
The Florida Agriculture Commissioner race may be a different story. Republican Matt Caldwell has seen his lead over Democrat Nikki Fried shrink to 4,109, .05 percent. According to Schorsch, several Democratic consultants and election lawyers believe Fried will pass by Caldwell by the time election results are certified.
Schorsch explained how the recount works:
“All 67 county supervisors of elections offices have to report their final totals to the state. Given all the flavors of nonstandard ballots, such as provisional or overseas ballots, that’s going to take a couple of days. Once all those ballots are in and there’s a tabulation, then comes the decision on a recount.
“If the gap between the top two candidates in a race within 0.5 percentage points, Secretary of State Detzner is required to order a machine recount. Once the order is handed down, voting machines are tested for errors. If no errors are found, the ballots are fed back into the voting machines.
“Counties with electronic voting machines simply compare the number of votes they reported to the state Division of Elections with the number of votes the machines say they received. If they match up, it’s all good.
“In either case, the post-recount totals must be turned in to the state by 3 p.m. Nov. 15. If the post-recount margin is greater than 0.25 percentage points, the race can be called. If not, it’s time for a manual recount. That process can take quite a while, and includes examining disputed or unclear (a la the 2000 Bush v. Gore contest) to determine if and how they should be counted.”
