Florida’s secretary of state announced Saturday that there will be
recounts in the Senate and gubernatorial races after the races became
tight enough to trigger them -- amid controversy over the handling of
the counts, with President Trump warning that he will be "watching
closely."
Secretary Ken Detzner issued the order after the
unofficial results in both races fell within the margin that by law
triggers a recount. The results of the machine recount will be due by 3
p.m. ET this coming Thursday. The votes in the Senate race between
Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson and Republican Gov. Rick Scott, and the
gubernatorial race between Republican Rep. Ron DeSantis and Democratic
mayor of Tallahassee Andrew Gillum, will be recounted. There will also
be a recount for the race for agriculture commissioner.
Election
officials in Miami-Dade County said they launched a "machine recount"
Saturday evening, meaning they were loading paper ballots into scanning
machines. The processing of some 800,000 ballots could take several
days, the Associated Press reported.
Earlier Saturday, 266 stray
ballots from a mail sorting facility in Opa-locka arrived at
Miami-Dade's Elections Department, a spokeswoman for the department
told the Miami Herald
on Saturday evening. But the Opa-locka ballots won't be counted because
Florida law says that mail-in ballots can be counted only if they
arrive by the time that polls close on Election Day, the newspaper
reported.
Miami-Dade had received some 15,000 mail ballots Tuesday while conventional voters were at the polls, the report said.
On
Saturday morning, a group of protesters outside the Miami-Dade agency's
offices demanded that all ballots be counted, regardless of when they
were received, the Herald reported.
In Florida, a mandatory
recount occurs if the winning candidate’s margin is less than 0.5
percent. If the margin is less than 0.25 percent, the recount must be
done by hand.
NEWT GINGRICH: AS DEMOCRATS TRY TO STEAL ELECTIONS, THEIR DISHONESTY THREATENS THE VERY FABRIC OF OUR COUNTRY
Both
Scott and DeSantis led their races after the midterms on Tuesday, with
Gillum conceding to DeSantis. But as the days went on, and more votes
were counted, those leads have all but disappeared.
Scott’s lead by Saturday afternoon was reduced to 0.15 percent and DeSantis’ was 0.41 percent.
The
shrinking leads quickly led to suspicions from Republicans that foul
play was afoot in Democratic strongholds of Broward and Palm Beach
counties. Democrats, meanwhile, have accused Republicans of trying to
stop all votes from being counted. President Trump on Saturday told
reporters that “they are finding votes out of nowhere.”
"What's going on in Florida is a disgrace," he said.
He
reacted within moments to the announcement of the recounts by accusing
Democrats of "trying to steal two big elections in Florida!"
"We are watching closely!" he added.
Scott
had asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate the
counties’ election departments, but a spokeswoman told the Associated
Press there would be no investigation as there was no credible
allegation of fraud.
Gillum welcomed the recount in a news conference on Saturday.
"I
am replacing my words of concessions with an uncompromising and
unapologetic call that we count every single vote," he told reporters.
He also called for calm, and said he was prepared to accept "whatever
the outcome of this election so far as every single vote...is counted."
Scott
took to Twitter on Saturday evening, revealing that "7,500 volunteer
recount representatives" were at the ready in Florida.
"Reps will
be deployed all over FL to make sure any potential issues are reported
so they can be quickly reviewed and resolved," he
tweeted. "We won't allow unethical liberals to steal this election!"
In
a sign of the turmoil that could ensue, protesters gathered outside the
Broward elections office ahead of the announcement. Broward in
particular has long been the source of election controversies. In 2016,
Republican poll watchers complained that staff was opening absentee
ballots in private, thereby making it impossible for groups to question
whether ballots were cast,
according to Politico. The GOP sued in 2017 to make sure Election Supervisor Brenda Snipes followed the law.
BALLOT MIXUP PUTS MORE HEAT ON BROWARD ELECTIONS OFFICIAL AS KEY FLORIDA RACES REMAIN UNRESOLVED
On Friday, the
Miami Herald
reported that there were invalid ballots mixed in with about 200 valid
ones, but not solution was immediately found for the problem.
The
announcement was likely to bring back memories for Floridians of the
tempestuous 2000 presidential election, where a chaotic recount decided
the result of the election -- with Republican George W. Bush eventually
nudging out Democratic candidate Al Gore.