What happens if elections chiefs can not make recount deadline?

What happens if Florida elections offices fail to meet Thursday's looming deadline for a recount of ballots in the state's tightly contested races?

Keep counting, says Florida's secretary of state.

A spokesperson for Secretary of State Ken Detzner said Tuesday that counties should continue to be counted. At least one of the elections supervisor, Palm Beach County's Susan Bucher, said she did not believe her office will make the deadline for at least three races and will be complete only for the bitter fight between Gov. Rick Scott and U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson. Late Tuesday, she was saying that she had a lot of things wrong, giving incorrect numbers, and would need to be restarted

But if counts are completed by the deadline for the state to certify results on Nov. 20, "it would include whatever the latest results are from the county," said spokeswoman Sarah Revell.

What's not clear is what happens if it's not counted by the deadline in other races, and what impact it might have on a recount, the results of which are due Sunday, and closer scrutiny. It also means that it is not completed, it would be necessary for the same time.

"Certainly if counties continue doing things past Thursday, it makes meeting that Sunday deadline that much harder," said Marc Elias, an attorney for Nelson.

If properly cast votes are not included in the final tally, it could intensify the ongoing legal skirmishes into a full-blown constitutional state of emergency, said Frances Hill University of Miami constitutional and election law expert.

"The idea we're going to say Florida can vote, but we're only going to count the votes we count to untenable under American election law," she said. "We had this artificial deadline in the Bush v Gore Mess and the [U.S.] Supreme Court used to throw the Florida out of the picture and just take over. "

On Tuesday, Democratic candidate Jim Bonfiglio narrowly missed an unusual extension to the recount, when Leon County Judge Karen Gievers said she would grant a five-day extension in a conference telephone. Bonfiglio lost the race for a Palm Beach County state seat to Republican Mike Caruso by just 37 votes and filed his lawsuit after Bucher said it would not be able to recount his race on her by the Thursday deadline.

But before the judge could put the order in writing, attorneys for Detzner filed a notice to the federal court, taking away her jurisdiction. Bonfiglio's request for an extension.

Further problems developed Tuesday night in Palm Beach County when the county's aging voting machines overhead and spit out incorrect totals, affecting about 175,000 ballots, according to news reports. The votes, which had taken more than a day to count, will have to be recounted. Bucher told reporters the county flew in technicians to repair the machines.

Meanwhile, a change in margin right in the governor's race. Nelson and Scott's race and the contest between Republican Matt Caldwell and Democrat Nikki Fried for agriculture commissioner have already set the threshold for a recount. But the gap between the governor candidates, Republican Ron DeSantis and Andrew Gillum Democrat, sits at .41 percent, which would need to shrink to at least .25 percent for a hand count.

However, the recount machine also identifies the problem for the manual recount.

Democrats of trying to cheat the system.

Trump and Scott, President of the Trump and Scott, have been asked to comment on the issue of the "Must go with Election Night!" Sen. Marco Rubio has called Broward's election office 'dysfunctional' and accused Bucher in Palm Beach of "disrupting our democracy."

Gillum has said it wants to vote, whether or not it matters to his race.

"You have to wonder what's going on when … the president of the United States," he said Monday night at St. John Missionary Baptist Church in Boynton Beach. He is scheduled to appear on Tuesday night at an Orlando church.

Republican accusations of voting fraud, and fierce opposition to recounts that are not expected to generate huge changes, left some elections experts puzzled.

"I can understand Trump because he's Donald Trump, but I do not understand Scott. He's undermining the legitimacy of his own election, "said University of Florida Political Scientist and Brookings Institution fellow Michael McDonald.

"My guess is that we'll end up Thursday, after all this flurry of activity, with the gap not narrowing significantly and then there's just not any purpose for doing additional work," he said.

Hill said.

"It's going to be really important to figure out why this happened and how it has happened," she said.

But first things first: "Right now I can not see how it's responsible for even speculate on why and how. We need to take the position that the founding principles of Florida, and I believe that Florida does not prevent us from doing that. "

Follow Jenny Staletovich on Twitter @jenstaletovich