It looks like Democrats were able to dig up enough votes at Florida cemeteries in order to force three elections into recount.
Three statewide races in Florida are heading for recounts after a key deadline for county election officials to submit unofficial vote tallies came and went Saturday.
The first round of machine recounts, which must be completed by Thursday, set up a bitter fight to the finish in Florida’s races for Senate, governor and agriculture commissioner…
Famed formerly foreigner and Florida man Charles C.W. Cooke explains what this means and where we go from here:
Florida update. All 67 counties have now reported, and we have an unofficial vote tally. As it stands, DeSantis leads Gillum by 33,684, and Scott leads Nelson by 12,562. That will precipitate an automatic recount for DeSantis, and a manual recount for Scott. (1)
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018
There are now two things left to do statewide: First, count yet-to-arrive overseas/military ballots; second, proceed to those mandatory recounts. All being equal, neither step looks as if it'll be enough for either Gillum or Nelson. (2)
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018
Around 20,000 overseas/military ballots have yet to be returned. Deadline for their return is the 16th. In reality, a lot of these will never be returned, will arrive too late, or will be rejected. (3)
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018
For the sake of argument, though, let's assume they're all returned—every last one. From what I can gather, we’re looking at ~5,000 military ballots, and then ~15,000 others from around the state. (4)
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018
Given that voters with no party also vote, the best we can do is apply known military registration rates to military data, and apply the results in each county thus far to the county data. If we do this, we get a net increase for both Nelson and Gillum of ~1600 votes. (5)
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018
That would yield a DeSantis lead of ~32,000, and a Scott lead of ~11,000. Which would require the recounts to flip, *net*, 16,000 votes to Gillum and 5,500 votes to Nelson. (6)
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018
Remember, that’s a generous estimate because we’re assuming every single outstanding overseas ballot comes in. But, for the sake of argument, let’s make it *more* generous, and assume these votes are twice as Democratic as has been the case thus far. Let's make it ~3,200. (7)
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018
Even in that generous scenario, DeSantis keeps a lead of 30,484, while Scott keeps a lead of 9,362. That means Gillum would need 15,242 votes to flip, and Nelson would need 4,681. That seems unlikely—although nothing is impossible. (8)
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018
Which brings us, finally, to Marc Elias's theory that the machines in Broward have undercounted the Senate line on the ballot by around 25,000 ballots. I doubt this—and Broward says it's not correct—but, arguendo, let's add it to our previous assumptions. Then what? (9)
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018
If we subtract the number of votes for Senate in Broward from the number of votes for Governor, we get 24,992. Assuming that these votes go as did the others, that adds just over 9,000 votes for Nelson. (It doesn't affect DeSantis.) Which leaves Scott with a lead of ~200. (10)
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018
That would be a small enough lead that a recount could potentially change the result. But to get to that point we have to make a lot of pro-Democrat assumptions, and to assume facts not in evidence. It seems unlikely to me that either of these results is going to change. (11)
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018
Which is to say that, as it stands, Ron DeSantis is the next governor of Florida, and, barring some catastrophic errors in tabulation, or some remarkably creative lawyering, Rick Scott is Florida's next Senator. But it's Florida, so . . . (12/12)
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018
So they’re really gonna need to cheat really badly to beat this one.
A few definitions. An "automatic recount" is required for any race with a margin under 0.5%. It involves feeding all the ballots back through the voting machines—including reconstructed damaged ballots. If the new result yields a winning margin over 0.25 the election is over. (1)
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018
A "manual recount" does not mean every vote is counted by hand. Rather, it involves canvassing boards checking every "undervote" and "overvote." An "overvote" is when a voter makes more choices than allowed; an "undervote" is when a voter makes no choice, or too few choices. (2)
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018
An "undervote" is almost never counted. If a voter declines to vote for a particular office, that's his choice and there's nothing anyone can do. As such, an "undervote" will only be counted if, say, the optical machine has made an error and failed to pick up a vote. (3)
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018
Get ready and buckle up, it’s gonna be a wild ride.