Broward counts bad ballots while Florida races finish manual count before Sunday deadline

FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida – The second day of manual counting for Broward County has just been flown temporarily about an hour after the start of his manual tally on Saturday, when lawyers from both political parties noted that the volunteers were counting the wrong ballots.

Hundreds of volunteers spent the better part of the day sorting out 32,000 votes of votes and under-votes in the Senate race between incumbent Senator Bill Nelson and Republican Governor Rick Scott. Broward officials announced Friday night that they had completed their manual recount.

On Saturday, volunteers began sorting out about 22,000 negative and negative votes in the contentious contest for the Florida Commissioner of Agriculture.

Lawyers found thousands of ballots overlapping, clearly showing a vote in the race for agriculture, but were unclear in the Senate race.

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Volunteers review the ballot at the vote count at the Broward County Election Supervisor's office in Lauderhill, Florida on Saturday, November 17, 2018.
(Mike Stocker / Sun Florida South Sentinel via A)

"It appears that some of the ballots of yesterday were mixed with those of today," Judge DeBarah Carpenter-Toye, a member of the Broward Exploration Council, told the press.

Forty-seven Manila envelopes from the Senate recount were mixed with the envelopes distributed for the Commissioner's race.

Broward County solicitors' attorney, Rene Harrod, told Fox News that the problem was resolved in time and that none of the 47 envelopes had been sent to the solicitation council. This is an important trap because it excludes the possibility that some votes are counted twice.

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Republican lawyer Joe Goldstein has asked that the recount be stopped. Instead, the solicitation committee decided to continue counting and asked the volunteers to report any erroneous ballot in relation to Saturday's count.

The news comes as Florida struggles to finish its mandatory manual recount in the race in the US Senate by Sunday afternoon. The Sunshine State – Broward County in particular – is under the microscope since recounts were ordered last Saturday.

On Thursday Brenda Snipes, Broward County's election supervisor, boasted that she had set the deadline for machine accounts.

"We are delighted to be at this point," she said Thursday afternoon.

A few hours later, the election officials were forced to admit that the county had posted the results of the recount two minutes after the 15:00 hours. cutoff – cancel the count of the machine.

Election Night's Broward results will be kept until hand-counting totals arrive Sunday at noon.

Scott's campaign claimed that Snipes had intentionally submitted late results to be invalidated. In the count, Nelson lost more votes than Scott – which means Scott would have recorded a net gain of 779 votes if Snipes had not been late.

Broward was one of three counties that failed to meet the delivery deadline.

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Hillsborough County deliberately refused to release its numbers, which would have given Scott about 150 votes, as the recount generated a total of 846 votes less than the original total.

"Although we have achieved a 99.84% success in our recount effort, we are not prepared to accept that the votes are not reported," Hillsborough County Election Supervisor told reporters. "For this reason, the solicitation committee decided that the first unofficial results would be our second unofficial result."

The election supervisor, Susan Bucher, told Palm Beach that the county had found "dozens of polling stations missing a significant number of votes" during the count and said that there could be ballot boxes votes not counted, according to The New York Times.

Broward County election supervisor, Brenda Snipes, left, chats with political lawyers during a hand-count, Friday, November 16, 2018 in Lauderhill, Florida.
(AP Photo / Wilfredo Lee)

She also accused the county of making mechanical mistakes and reported that the scanner had overheated.

She flew into two mechanics to solve the problem. The technicians, however, have seen Palm Beach County workers insert a paper clip into the scanner's "In" button to slow down the high-speed scanner. This action caused a short circuit that cut off the power, according to the New York Times.

More than 8.1 million votes were cast in Florida. The state must certify the results of the race in the Senate on November 20th.

Gregg Re, Fox News, Sarah Chakales and the Associated Press contributed to this report.