The Allen West-Patrick Murphy saga just grows more twisted and bizarre. On Friday night the St. Lucie County canvassing board voted to recount all early votes for the West-Murphy race, the Palm Beach Post reports. Let's see, what else? Technically it is not a "recount" but a "retabulation." They discovered 306 uncounted ballots. Governor Scott has now inserted himself in the recount/retabulation mess. West is still demanding a full recount in all three counties. Protestors for both sides are causing a scene in front of the elections office. And oh yes, the county's elections chief has been hospitalized.
Where to start. Well, the vote difference is still outside the margin that would require an automatic recount, so the canvassing board is calling it a "retabulation" instead (but it's really just a recount, as far as I can tell).
Under Florida law, a “recount” occurs when a race is within 0.5 percent or closer. A “retabulation” is a recounting of ballots when the canvassing board determines there are errors in the initial tallying of ballots.
Governor Scott sent three of his henchman down to argue for a full recount, er retabulation, of the early votes:
The head of the Florida Division of Elections Bureau of Voting Systems Certifications, David Drury, also recommended recounting all eight days, but stressed that it was his “personal” recommendation and he was not speaking for the state.
Yeah right, he's just there as a concerned private citizen. What crap. They were there to put the squeeze on the canvassing board. Debbie Wasserman Schultz doesn't like it either:
She issued a statement saying, “In a clear effort to overturn an election result after having lost at the ballot box, Allen West has now run to Governor Rick Scott to needlessly interfere with and politicize a non-partisan election process… . Having Governor Scott intervene is outrageous and inappropriate. After disenfranchising Florida voters by cutting down early voting days and creating extraordinarily long lines at the polls, Governor Scott is now trying to blatantly overturn an election result he disagreed with and undermine Gertrude Walker, a three-decade veteran of the St. Lucie County Supervisor of Elections office.”
Murphy and West also had their attorneys there, and the Keystone cops running the canvassing board are feeling the pressure. West's lawyers (along with the state officials) argue that they might get sued if they don't do a full recount, and Murphy's lawyers argue that they'll get sued if the do a full recount:
“Now we’re getting both sides threatening us,” said St. Lucie County Attorney Dan McIntyre, representing the canvassing board.
About those uncounted votes that were suddenly discovered lying around somewhere:
During Friday night’s meeting, elections staffers wheeled out boxes containing 306 ballots that had not been counted. The ballots were ones in which voters marked at least one write-in candidates and had been segregated from the other ballots.
They also just counted the overseas ballots in all three counties, resulting in exactly zero change in the vote total:
Meanwhile, West and Murphy broke even in the count of overseas ballots by canvassing boards of all three counties Friday night.
West won 34 overseas votes to Murphy’s 29 in Palm Beach County, three to Murphy’s five in Martin and three to Murphy’s six in St. Lucie.
To top it all off, St. Lucie County Elections Supervisor Gertrude Walker is in the hospital:
“Mrs. Walker has been hospitalized. She’s undergoing some tests,” attorney Cynthia Angelos said without providing more detail.
Counties are required to submit final results to the state by noon Sunday. It should be an interesting day.