HOW TO THINK ABOUT IT
Every second counts. Democratic-leaning Palm Beach and Broward counties have taken center stage in the recount, and on Sunday the Palm Beach County election supervisor said finishing the job by a 3 pm Thursday deadline was “impossible.” If that happens, the tallies on file will be used, but GOP election officials predict lawsuits will be filed if the original counts are used to certify their candidates. Palm Beach volunteers reportedly have just eight machines to count the hundreds of thousands of votes cast in the district. Meanwhile, President Trump tweeted Monday that vote counts were “massively infected,” suggesting voter fraud despite a lack of evidence, and called for the Republican candidates to be named the winners since an “honest vote count” was no longer possible.
Not a good look. Although there’s no evidence of systematic voter fraud in Florida, there’s plenty of ammunition for politicians on both sides of the aisle when it comes to the slow pace of vote counting (and recounting). Election experts say taking multiple days to tally votes isn’t uncommon in large counties — during the 2000 presidential election, Florida’s electoral votes weren’t decided for 26 days, and then only by Supreme Court decision. That incident, along with lost ballots in 2004 and alleged irregularities in 2016, impact voter confidence. A pre-election poll by the University of Chicago found that nearly a quarter of Americans, 22 percent, had little or no confidence that votes would be counted accurately. Some even expect Gov. Scott to suspend Broward County Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes — appointed by Jeb Bush in 2003, then elected to four consecutive terms since — for incompetence, though others say she’s planning to quit.
Why bother? Recounts are often mandated when a race is very close. In Florida, a machine recount occurs when candidates are within a half-percent margin of each other, and a hand recount follows if the machine recount shows the margin is within 0.25 percent. But past recounts have rarely changed the outcomes. Research by FairVote found that out of 4,687 statewide general elections between 2000 and 2015, 27 were followed by recounts and only three of those changed the outcome. All three were Democratic wins: Al Franken’s 2008 Senate victory in Minnesota, Thomas M. Salmon’s win in a 2006 Vermont Auditor election and Christine Gregoire’s successful 2004 bid for governor of Washington State.
State of play. Florida’s not the only battleground. Democratic Senate candidate Kyrsten Sinema’s lead is growing over Republican Martha McSally in Arizona. That count is expected to wrap up by Thursday. And Georgia’s gubernatorial race is still going, with Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams refusing to concede to opponent Brian Kemp, despite his slight lead. If Kemp’s total falls below 50 percent of the vote — it’s currently at 50.3 — that’ll force a runoff, which could see Abrams become the country’s first Black female governor. Kemp’s team called their opponents “sore losers” and insisted there aren’t enough votes to be counted to make a difference. But Kemp’s lead has narrowed slightly since Election Day. Meanwhile, many in Georgia have expressed concern over what they say are voter suppression tactics overseen by Kemp himself during his recently ended tenure as secretary of state: Purges of hundreds of thousands of people, disproportionately minority citizens, from the electoral roll … as well as allegations of limited resources and technical difficulties in areas with many Black voters on Election Day.
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