Monroe County’s election supervisor jumps into vote recount

BY PRU SOWERS

KONK LIFE STAFF WRITER

If you’re looking for Monroe County Supervisor of Elections Joyce Griffin in the next few days, check her office no matter what time it is. With Saturday’s state-ordered recount of the ballots in three Florida races – governor, U.S. Senate and agriculture commissioner – Griffin is going to be ordering a lot of take-out food between now and Thursday, the deadline for election supervisors to report back.

This is the first time in Florida history a statewide ballot recount has been ordered because the races are too close to call. Under state law, a machine recount is required when candidate vote margins are one-half of one percent or less. While there are six state races below that margin, only three affect races where Monroe County voters cast ballots. In the governor’s race between Andrew Gillum and Ron DeSantis, the state vote margin in DeSantis’ favor is currently 0.5 percent. It is even closer in the race for U.S. Senator between incumbent Bill Nelson and current Florida Governor Rick Scott, who holds a thin 0.14 percent advantage. The other three races under a machine recount order are one state Senate and two state House races in districts outside of Monroe County.

To have three elections recounted at the same time is unprecedented and Griffin said it will a race against time to fulfill her orders. Starting Sunday at 8:30 am, Griffin’s team will begin feeding each of the 36,545 county ballots cast in Tuesday’s general election back into the ballot counting machines. It will likely take days to separate out the results of those three races from the rest of the ballot, Griffin said by telephone Saturday, but she is confident she will make the Nov. 15 deadline.

“I’ll make it if I have to be here 24 hours a day. I make my deadlines,” she said.

But wait, there’s more.

If the recounted vote margins statewide are 0.25 percent or less, each voting district will be ordered to hand count what are known as “over ballots” and “under ballots.” An over ballot means a resident voted for more than the allowed number of candidates; say, voting for two candidates for governor when only one was allowed. The opposite is true for under ballots, where no vote in a race was registered by the counting machines. One outcome of the machine recount this week is that the over and under ballots will be set aside from the authenticated ballots. If so ordered by the state, Griffin’s team will physically examine each over/under ballot to ensure that a voter’s intention, even if they didn’t fill out the ballot properly, is counted.

“At that time [if a hand count is ordered], we’re just looking to make sure the ballot is correct. Sometimes people don’t vote in a particular race. Sometimes they vote for two or more [candidates]. I don’t know why they do it, they just do,” Griffin said.

The Monroe County election supervisor’s office has six staff members including Griffin. If necessary to make Thursday’s deadline, additional staff can be called into help.
“Until we get started, it’s hard to know what we’ll need,” Griffin said.

Regardless of how much time it will take to finalize Florida’s election results and whatever the outcome, Griffin said the recount order is part of her job. But she is also aware of the importance of this election. Monroe County, like the rest of the United States, had historic high levels of voter participation this year. Over 67.8 percent of registered voters in Monroe County cast ballots on Tuesday, a new record for a non-presidential election year

“I’m very excited with out voter turnout,” Griffin said. “I’m glad their voices were heard.”

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