Why did Orange County have more than 38,000 ballots uncounted until Wednesday?

Hours after polls closed, Orange County election workers still had more than 38,000 uncounted vote-by-mail ballots. The holdup in counts impacted a half-dozen competitive House races and high-profile local races, including a County Commission contest.

The Orange County Supervisor of Elections’ Office said the high number of elections in the populous county contributed to delays.

“Two-page ballot front and back using the smallest font, allowable by law, caused a lot of backups,” said Chris Heath, a spokesperson for the office, “especially with the amount of vote by mail we received Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.”

Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed Glen Gilzean as Orange County Supervisor of Elections in March to replace retired Supervisor of Elections Bill Cowles. As of Wednesday, only Orange County and Manatee County had not completed counting of all submitted vote-by-mail ballots.

The Office reported at 1:25 p.m. that it had completed a count of all ballots. But the late tabulation of so many votes had an impact on multiple races. It delayed calls on a County Commission contest won by Democrat Nicole Wilson and on final results for two House seats won by Republican Rep. Susan Plasencia and by new Democratic Rep. Leonard Spencer.

On Election Day, Spencer held a lead over now-ousted Republican Rep. Carolina Amesty, but the lead was within a recount margin at the time. New votes exploded the lead from 217 votes to 1,596 votes, putting the difference outside the threshold to automatically trigger a new count.

Meanwhile, gains throughout the day for Democrat Nate Douglas, a Democrat challenging Plasencia, maintained suspense for nearly 18 hours after polls closed as to whether that race would go to recount. The Republican’s lead shrunk from 1,086 votes as of 11 p.m. on Tuesday to 465 votes on Wednesday afternoon. That still put the difference at 0.61% of total votes, just barely outside the 0.5% threshold to force a recount.

Ultimately, the delay didn’t impact outcomes. But the Office was reporting tens of thousands of outstanding vote-by-mail ballots when neighboring Seminole County had all votes in and Osceola County had 133 votes left to tabulate.