Jacob Ogles
With a hand recount of U.S. Senate votes in Broward County complete, Democrat Bill Nelson netted less than 300 votes, according to Republican Rick Scott’s campaign.
That’s bad news for the Democrat, who hoped the examination of some 32,000 undervotes in the heavily Democratic County would help close a 12,603-vote deficit in the election.
Miami Herald reporter Alex Harris on Saturday tweeted that Nelson picked up 410 new votes in the hand recount of undervotes, while Scott won an additional 136 votes. That’s a 274-vote gain for Nelson from Broward County.
Scott held a 0.15-percent lead on Nelson after a machine recount of votes in every county concluded earlier this week. That’s small enough to trigger a hand recount, required be Florida law should raced come down to less than a 0.25 margin.
Nelson’s team counted on a big return from Broward County, where nearly 25,000 fewer votes were cast for U.S. Senate than for governor, a statistical anomaly.
While a number of people blame a design flaw in the Broward County ballot, which placed the Senate race in a column underneath voter instructions while the governor’s race topped the center column of the ballot, Nelson attorney Marc Elias previously argued it was more likely a machine calibration problem.
Elias had hoped a recount would find thousands of votes for Senate in the county, where Nelson won nearly 69 percent of the votes already counted.
With the hand recount done, however, the vast majority of some 34,000 undervotes in the county were simply left blank by voters.
That realization dashes Democrats’ greatest hope for a different outcome in the Senate race, but Nelson’s campaign this week did win a lawsuit allowing voters whose vote-by-mail ballots were rejected based on mismatched signatures to challenge the decision.
Voters have until 5 p.m. today to contact election supervisors and confirm the legitimacy of their votes.
Additionally, most election supervisors have yet to report a count on military and overseas vote-by-mail ballots. State law allows those votes to come in as much as 10 days after the election so long as the ballots were postmarked before the conclusion of the race.
But those votes typically break for Republicans.
5 comments
Jonathan
November 17, 2018 at 2:59 pm
So the Democrats (starting with Clinton) and including Nelson, Gillum, Abrams, simply cannot graciously accept the decision of the voters. The WSJ has an editorial stating it is time for Gillum to concede. The Democrats have made the public endure this farce for two years–it is really getting old.
linda t
November 17, 2018 at 3:20 pm
If military/out-of-country votes have 10 extra days from election date (11/6) to get ballot in, wouldn’t that make the deadline yesterday, 11/16?
UC
November 17, 2018 at 4:35 pm
As a guy who voted to Gillum/Nelson, give it up both of y’all.
Nick D
November 17, 2018 at 8:26 pm
Why is it when republicans talk about voter fraud the democratics say it’s reteric or a lie but when the democrats talk about it it’s the truth and that’s why they lost. I have found out two things about the democrats ,your guilty until proven innocent and they are sore losers. My family have been Democrats for over 100 years but it’s time to go republican
Nordonia Nate
November 18, 2018 at 9:17 am
Voting is a RESPONSIBILITY. The voter is responsible for registration. The voter is responsible for validating his voting information. The voter is responsible for finding their polling place. The voter is responsible for knowing what is to be voted on in the election. The voter is responsible for READING THE BALLOT.
These childish excuses about ballot design…. Seriously.. Can you people get any more desperate?
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