Alachua County elections officials are gearing up for another recount, this time by hand.
Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner ordered manual recounts on Thursday afternoon after 8.3 million votes were recounted by machine, according to the Tampa Bay Times. The recounts were ordered for both the Senate race between U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson and Florida Gov. Rick Scott, and the race for agriculture commissioner between Nicole “Nikki” Fried and Matt Caldwell.
The manual recount requires canvassing boards in each of the state’s 67 counties to individually review ballots that have overvotes or undervotes, according to the Times. Undervotes are ballots in which a voter appears to have not voted, and overvotes are ballots where a voter appears to have chosen more than one candidate in a race.
In the case of a manual recount, 40 volunteers would review the ballots by hand, TJ Pyche, the Alachua County Supervisor of Elections spokesperson, said. If a ballot is unclear, it will be reviewed by the county canvassing board to judge the voter’s intent.
Ron DeSantis declared a Republican victory following the results of the machine recount, according to the Miami Herald. DeSantis leads his Democratic opponent Andrew Gillum by about .41 percent of the vote.
Contact Gillian Sweeney at gsweeney@alligator.org and follow her on Twitter at @gilliangsweeney
Janet Suggs, a 59-year-old Gainesville residents chants “Count Every Vote” outside city hall Sunday afternoon. About 50 people attended the Count Every Vote rally which was hosted by Our Revolution North Central Florida in order to support the Supervisors of elections as well as gain volunteers to assist with the recount.
