Posted on 11/15/2018 2:55:02 PM PST by Red Badger
Following a five-day machine recount of the more than 8.3 million votes cast in the Nov. 6 elections, Secretary of State Ken Detzner ordered hand recounts Thursday afternoon.
An unprecedented statewide hand recount is now under way in the Sunshine State, further extending a high-stakes, partisan battle over every last vote in Florida's crucial U.S. Senate race.
Following a five-day machine recount of the more than 8.3 million votes cast in the Nov. 6 elections, Secretary of State Ken Detzner ordered hand recounts Thursday afternoon in the race between U.S. Sen Bill Nelson and Gov. Rick Scott, and also the race for agriculture commissioner between Nicole "Nikki" Fried and Matt Caldwell.
The order gives canvassing boards in the state's 67 counties three days to pore over thousands of ballots that were rejected by machines because of "overvotes" — a voter appears to have chosen more than one candidate in a race — or "undervotes," in which a voter appears to have skipped a race altogether. With the help of state guidelines, the canvassing boards, which are allowed to enlist the help of volunteers, will try to determine how these voters intended to vote.
It's not entirely clear how many such overvotes and undervotes exist in the U. S. Senate race. A Times/Herald analysis of state and county data shows the number could be between 35,000 and 118,000 But the determination on how those ballots were cast — and the ability of the state's elections supervisors to get through all the ballots — could go a long way toward deciding whether Nelson is reelected or Scott ascends from governor to U.S. Senator.
Thursday's order has been expected for at least a week. Elections supervisors around the state began bracing for automatic recounts in the hours after the polls closed on the midterm elections, as late-breaking returns out of heavily Democratic Broward and Palm Beach counties slimmed leads by Scott, Caldwell and GOP gubernatorial nominee Ron DeSantis.
Florida law requires a machine recount for any race decided by one half of one percentage point or less, and all three races were within the margins when elections supervisors submitted their unofficial results Saturday to the state. As required by law, Detzner quickly gave the state's canvassing boards five days to run their voting totals again in the three races to confirm whether any fell within one quarter of one percentage point, the margin by which Florida law requires a hand recount.
DeSantis' lead held Thursday as the counties reported their tallies, keeping him above the quarter-point threshold and making him Florida's governor-elect barring a legal challenge from Andrew Gillum. But, as expected, the margins in the U.S. Senate and agriculture commissioner races remained under the threshold, requiring hand recounts of overvotes and undervotes.
Now, the canvassing boards and teams of at least two volunteers — with at least one Republican and one Democrat on each team — will pore over thousands of ballots and report back to Detzner. State law requires that the state's canvassing boards conclude that process by Sunday, so that Florida's elections canvassing commission can certify the results of the election by Tuesday.
Counting an Undervote as a vote sounds like BS fabrication of a vote.
People have the. right not to vote in a race.
Not voting in the race may be the intent of the voter when the voter voted.
An overvote should count as no vote.
The person illegally tried to vote twice in the race and /or didn’t follow directions.
The vast majority of the undervotes will be true undervotes.
What is a “true undervote”?
Gee, what could go wrong???
Overvotes belong in the moron pile, and undervotes could be just because people didn't like the choices.
A vote where someone intentionally did not vote for someone in a race. In other words, they deliberately left the circle blank.
This is in contrast to a situation where someone made a mark that cannot be read by the machines. Like a checkmark or an X instead of filling in the circle.
Most of the undervotes will be true undervotes. These happen in every election.
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The question arises, on ballots that had undervotes, was the rest of the ballot with judicial retentions, and constitutional amendment, also left blank. If so these may have been ballots created to skew numbers.
Second question arises, on ballots that had overvotes, are the overvotes limited to the three major races, Governor, Senator, and Commissioner of Agriculture? If so these may have been invalidated purposely to cancel out votes for DeSantis, Scott, and Cauldwell.
There are some who think all the confusion is to disguise vote fraud in the race for the Commissioner of Agriculture post, because that office enforces gun laws in the state of Florida.
They could easily do so in Broward, because that’s where the Parkland shooting occurred, and they will simply state that many Republicans voted to limit guns.
Can you imagine a Commissioner of Agriculture, who is anti-gun, refusing uphold firearm laws and dragging their feet to create havoc.
Like a checkmark or an X instead of filling in the circle.
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If so the entire ballot would have been marked with an S or a check, not just one or two races.
I left some of my ballot unchecked this year for the very reason you stated. This really pisses me off. If the ballot is blank it should remain blank anything less is making shit up. Sorry for the curse word.
Millions were infused into the Ag race by Bloomberg and other Anti’s.
Ballots bubbled for Matt Caldwell would be invalidated over votes if an election worker were to bubble in his opponent later.
Are observers mandated during the absentee ballot processing?
If not, they should be under surveillance during that process,
We have get better at fighting election fraud by leftist democrats. Look how hard we have to fight just to stop blatant fraud in Florida. It happened around the nation to some degree, and we have to expose it, and prevent it from ever happening again. TRUMP 2020! MAGA!
There is NO way to determine how someone who skipped a race entirely 'intended' to vote other than to accept that skipping a race is voting too.
Also- In some counties, the ballots were formatted in a strange way.
The Senate race—IIRC—was shown at the bottom of the ballot-—AFTER a section that had other voter information in it. Pretty sure Broward County’s ballots had this. Snipes made up up that ballot format.
Many may have simply overlooked it, and didn’t register with them that they had not cast a vote for the Senate race.
Also- In some counties, the ballots were formatted in a strange way.
The Senate race—IIRC—was shown at the bottom of the ballot-—AFTER a section that had other voter information in it. Pretty sure Broward County’s ballots had this. Snipes made up that ballot format.
Many may have simply overlooked it, and didn’t register with them that they had not cast a vote for the Senate race.
Nevada has a “NONE of the Above’ choice to mark.
I skip races or retentions if I don’t know anything about the people in it. Also if the race has no interest to me, like ‘Fire Commissioner District X’................
The Broward County ballot was formatted in a manner that would easily make a voter think they had voted on the entire ballot.
The Senate race was at the very bottom-—AFTER a section with ‘voter information’ in it.
That ballot was formatted by Brenda Snipes, if what I have read it correct.
The Agriculture Commissioner handles gun permits.
Put the title in search.
Mine is the only one that comes up..................
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