Palm Beach prioritizes races to get recount done
48 views · Published 22 November 2018 · 1:43 · Indexed 4 October 2026
Channel: AP Archive · 2018 · News & Politics
(17 Nov 2018) Volunteers gathered around folding tables Friday to begin a painstaking hand recount in Florida's acrimonious U.S. Senate contest, with a goal of determining the intent of about 93,000 voters whose ballots for Republican Gov. Rick Scott or Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson could not be counted by machine. The hand recount is required by state law whenever candidates are separated by 0.25 percentage points or less. Unofficial results showed Scott ahead of Nelson by 0.15 percentage points, or fewer than 13,000 votes out of more than 8 million cast. The overall recount has been fraught with problems. Palm Beach County, a Democratic stronghold in South Florida could not finish its machine recount by the Thursday deadline because of machines breaking down. A federal judge rejected a request to extend the recount deadline. But by Friday afternoon, the Palm Beach election board announced it prioritized the order it would continue its recount focusing on the Senate race first to meet the Sunday deadline. They still have outstanding statewide races for governor and agriculture commissioner. The Election board spent part of the afternoon going over ballots that has issues, to determine whether they needed to be duplicated and counted or they didn't meet Florida statutes to be included. Susan Bucher, Supervisor of Elections in Palm Beach County says they are obligated to finish all recounts regardless of deadlines. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter: https://twitter.com/AP_Archive Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/APArchives Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/APNews/ You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/02d18fe44db0e4923ca104b3d0a19d79
