It could be almost two weeks before Florida determines who will serve as the state’s next governor and U.S. senator, but the countdown to determining the winners begins Saturday.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, and Sen. Bill Nelson, a Democrat, are currently separated by just 15,000 votes in the race for U.S. Senate.
In the governor’s race, Republican Ron DeSantis leads Democrat Andrew Gillum, the mayor of Tallahassee, by a mere 36,000 votes. With more than 8.1 million votes cast in the state overall, the tallies for the two races are so narrow it will likely trigger an automatic machine recount in the governor’s race, and in the extremely close Senate race, a recount by hand.
The state faces a Nov. 20 deadline to declare the final results of the two races, but a lot has to happen in between, beginning this weekend.
Election officials in Florida’s 67 counties have until Saturday 1 p.m. to turn in their assessment of all provisional and mail-in ballots that county canvassing boards are now scrambling to review.
Some of those ballots are being accepted, and others are being rejected for reasons that include missing or mismatched signatures, or when the signer didn’t register to vote.
Florida’s Secretary of State, Ken Detzner, will review the overall tallies for the two races on Saturday and announce whether recounts will be needed, which appears likely at this point.
The state requires a machine recount if the votes for each candidate are within half a percentage point. If that happens, a new clock is started.
Counties are expected to begin the machine recount process beginning on Sunday. It involves re-feeding all ballots through a county’s precinct tabulators or “central count tabulators.”
The deadline to complete the machine recount is 3 p.m. on Nov. 15.
With those results, Detzner will determine if any of the candidates leads by less than 0.25 percent. If so, he’ll order a manual recount.
Lawyers for Nelson are already arguing for a hand recount of the Senate race because the current-but-unofficial tally shows Scott with less than a quarter point advantage over Nelson.
Ballots from overseas military and civilian voters, meanwhile, are due Nov. 16 and must be postmarked the day of the general election, which was Nov. 6, or earlier.
On Nov. 18, county canvassing boards must turn in results by noon, and the State Election Canvassing commission is set to certify the results on Nov. 20 at 9 a.m.
But the process could get even more complicated and suffer delays.
The State Election Canvassing commission is comprised of the governor, Rick Scott, and two of his Cabinet members, which could draw opposition from the Nelson team.
Nelson’s legal team, meanwhile, has filed a lawsuit Friday to delay the canvassing for provisional ballots, which they fear are being tossed out erroneously because, they say, there is a lack of uniformity in deciding which ones should be discarded.
“We took legal action to get access to lists of provisional voters … to ensure that every individual who cast a lawful ballot is counted,” Marc Elias, an election lawyer working for Bill Nelson, told reporters Friday.
Scott on Friday won a court victory, allowing his team to review ballots and other election records in Broward County that Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes had prevented them from accessing.
