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2018 Elections Tag

A judge has extended the recount in Palm Beach County to November 20. The original deadline was this Thursday. From The Palm Beach Post:
The order would include extending the recounting of votes in the U.S. Senate race between incumbent Bill Nelson and Gov. Rick Scott, the governor’s race between Republican Ron DeSantis and Democrat Andrew Gillum, the race for agriculture commissioner between Democrat Nikki Fried and Republican Matt Caldwell, and the race for state House District 89 between Democrat Jim Bonfiglio and Republican Mike Caruso.

I detailed yesterday how the recount in the Florida senate and governor races have become messy, especially in Broward County. Now it looks like election officials may have to recount votes by hand instead if the results are too tight. Incumbent Democrat Sen. Bill Nelson has also demanded that his opponent Governor Rick Scott recuse himself from the recount.

On November 5, Common Cause Georgia filed a lawsuit that accused Georgia governor candidate Brian Kemp, who held the office of secretary of state until he resigned last week, "of acting recklessly after a vulnerability in Georgia’s voter registration database was exposed shortly before the election." The organization claimed that Kemp's "actions increased the risk that eligible voters could be illegally removed from the voter registration database or have registration information illegally altered." Judge Amy Totenberg of the Federal District Court in Atlanta ordered officials to wait until Friday to certify the governor's race and do all they can to protect provisional ballots.

The recount in Florida has to finish by Thursday, November 15, but officials in Palm Beach County claimed that the recount cannot possibly end by then. It doesn't help that President Donald Trump has demanded officials halt the recount while both sides continue to demean each other, especially in Broward County, whose recount has turned into a massive dumpster fire. Republican Gov. Rick Scott still leads incumbent Democrat Sen. Bill Nelson by 12,562 votes (.15%). Republican Rep. Ron DeSantis leads Democrat Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum by 33,684 votes (.41%)

As the mandatory recount kicks off in Florida, insults and accusations fly between Democrats and Republicans. As of Sunday morning, Governor Rick Scott (R) leads Senator Bill Nelson (D) by 12,562 votes (by 0.15%) in the Senate race.  Representative Ron DeSantis (R) leads Tallahassee mayor Andrew Gillum by 33,684 votes (by  0.41%)) in the gubernatorial race.

Attorneys for Democrat candidate for Florida governor Andrew Gillum and Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) objected Saturday to the exclusion of a vote by a non-citizen. Despite their objections, the vote was not counted, and the Nelson campaign has disavowed their own attorney, claiming that the attorney "was not authorized" to make such a decision and iterating that "non-citizens cannot vote in U.S. elections.”

From joy and relief to oh-em-gee. Florida's Republican Secretary of State has been forced to order a recount of Tuesday's election results for both the Senate and the gubernatorial races.  The recount is mandatory and automatically triggered when the vote margin is less than 0.5%, as it has become since initial results were announced. The recount results are due by 3 p.m. EST on Thursday, November 15th, 2018.  If there is a margin of less than 0.25% following this recount, there will be a second recount, this time by hand. The results of this second recount (which seems likely in the Senate race since the margin is already less than 0.25%) will be due three days later, on the 18th.

It's never over. During my time in private law practice, time and time again I saw cases that were lost converted into wins at the last second when the 'winning' attorney wasn't paying attention.

The Florida elections remain a mess. The heat has turned up even more since Governor Rick Scott announced last night he and the National Republican Senatorial Committee have decided to sue Broward County and Palm Beach County. Scott is in a tight race with incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson. Now it looks like Nelson has decided to sue "to extend the deadline for local election offices to turn in vote counts."

Lakeisha Sorey at Miramar Elementary School in Broward County found a provisional ballot box inside a closet. Sorey did not touch it in order to avoid tampering. She phoned state Rep. Shevrin Jones (D) and the Broward Supervisor of Elections Office. The woman at the office told Sorey the box probably contained blank ballots, but Sorey mentioned the box is locked.

As election officials are counting chads once more in Florida and in Arizona in search of the victor in the US senate race, there is a district in California that is poised to make history once all the mail-in numbers come in. Young Kim, the Republican candidate, is likely be the first Korean-American woman elected to the US Congress once the final numbers are crunched.
California’s Congressional District 39 was one of the tightest races of the 2018 midterm elections, and even with the votes tallied, the outcome remains far from clear.