What’s next with Palm Beach County’s recount & about Florida’s voter turnout
Excerpt: What happens if Florida elections offices fail to meet Thursday’s looming deadline for a machine recount of ballots in the state’s tightly contested races?
Keep counting, says Florida’s secretary of state.
A spokeswoman for Secretary of State Ken Detzner said Tuesday that counties should continue counting past the deadline so that final tallies can be included in official results. At least one elections supervisor, Palm Beach County’s Susan Bucher, has said she does not believe her office will make the deadline in at least three races and will complete a tally only for the bitter fight between Gov. Rick Scott and U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson.
Bottom Line: Lost in the daily developments of the recount, legal challenges and general incompetence is this somewhat important point... There hasn’t been a legal vote tabulated in Palm Beach or Broward County since 7:31 last Tuesday evening. That being said only one county has completely reported all of its ballots and that’s Osceola County. Reason being... The 10-day overseas and military ballots are still being accounted for in all other counties. Those are due for reporting no later than tomorrow with tabulations to be completed no later than Sunday. That is legally anyway... We are starting to get a clearer indication of participation/turnout with almost all votes – legal and illegal being tabulated.
According to the latest from the state via FloridiaElectionWatch.com, turnout stands at 62.5% or just over 8.3 million votes. How does that compare? It is up considerably from the 2014 midterms when turnout just did top 50% but it’s still well below the near 75% turnout of two years ago. When nearly 9.6 million Floridians voted. So, here’s the thing. Why was it possible for even Broward and Palm Beach County to manage to conduct some semblance of a legitimate elections two years ago with substantially higher turnout than today? Same two counties. Same two Supervisors of Elections, same equipment, same laws. Much lower turnout and many fewer votes to count.
Anyone care to take that one on?