Florida’s recount of the midterm elections continued to unfold on Tuesday with new plot twists and a nail-biter narrative, as Broward County’s embattled elections supervisor finally began recounting ballots and candidates filed new lawsuits challenging state laws that govern the process. Broward Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes, who announced that she likely would not seek re-election when her term expires in 2020, said her office began recounting more than 700,000 votes shortly before noon while workers also sorted ballots for the three relevant statewide races: U.S. Senator, Florida governor and commissioner of agriculture. Though Broward started its recount three days after Miami-Dade began preparing to re-tally more than 800,000 ballots, Snipes said she was confident that her office will finish by Thursday’s 3 p.m. deadline to deliver results from the machine recounts to the state. That’s because Broward has fewer votes to count than its neighbor county to the south, and uses faster high-speed counting machines. “There hasn’t been a deadline that we’ve missed,” Snipes said.
Miami-Dade recounted the last of more than 800,000 ballots Tuesday evening to applause from the skeleton crew of county workers there for the end, wrapping up a 74-hour scramble to tally for the second time the results from the three races.
Florida’s most populous county finished its machine recount at 8:12 p.m., well ahead of the deadline.
“We’re doing the preparations” for a hand recount, Elections spokesman Roberto Rodriguez said, “but we can’t do anything until the state calls it.”
Full Article: New lawsuits may extend FL recount deadline | Miami Herald.