Florida Recount Update: Counting Underway As Candidates File Lawsuits To Extend Deadline

The three statewide races in Florida for Senate, governor and agriculture commission were now ongoing in all the 67 counties to meet the state’s recount deadline fixed for Thursday.

On Tuesday, the head of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said the agency launched a preliminary inquiry last week into allegations of election misconduct in Broward and Palm Beach counties.

The process of machine recounting involves feeding the more than 8.2 million ballots cast statewide into high-speed tabulating machines in order to double-check the results reported to the state Saturday.

Preliminary results of Saturday showed Republican challenger Gov. Rick Scott leading the incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson by 0.15 percentage points in the Senate race.

In the governor's race, Republican former congressman Ron DeSantis was ahead of Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum by 0.41 point while Democrat Nikki Fried was ahead of Republican Matt Caldwell by 0.06 percentage points in the agriculture commission race, Florida Today reported.

Several candidates filed new lawsuits challenging the state laws that govern the process. Palm Beach County Democratic Florida House District 89 candidate Jim Bonfiglio filed a lawsuit to extend the deadline for election recounts to be completed. He initially won the legal battle after the Leon County judge, Karen Giever, ordered Palm Beach County elections officials be given time until Nov. 27 to complete their recounts; however, he lost the battle soon after when Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner petitioned to move the case to federal court.

Palm Beach County Elections chief Susan Bucher had repeatedly claimed the county’s aging ballot counting machines would not be able to recount the votes fast enough to meet the Thursday deadline.

"Florida's election laws are compartmentalized and are somewhat inconsistent. The statues do not seem to contemplate a situation, such as here, where close results trigger the need for multiple recounts," Giever wrote in the order, ABC Local reported.

For now, if the county’s election officials fail to meet the deadline, the state would go with the original results reported after Election Day.

Nelson, who was trailing by 12,100 votes in his battle against Republican Scott, too filed a lawsuit wanting federal courts to throw out Florida’s recount deadlines. He argued the deadlines were too tight to fully check all the votes in his tight contest for re-election.

His lawsuit asserted Broward and Palm Beach counties would not be able to complete counting votes by the deadline and this could disenfranchise several voters. The suit asked the local elections officials be allowed to take the time they require to recount.

“We seek to give all 67 county supervisors sufficient time to finish the legally-mandated recount and do so accurately,” said Dan McLaughlin, a spokesman for Nelson’s campaign, Palm Beach Post reported.