The seemingly endless saga of Florida’s midterm elections has reached its final chapter.
On Sunday afternoon, Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson conceded to Republican Gov. Rick Scott in a video posted on his campaign’s Facebook page, after historic election recounts throughout the state. Last weekend’s manual recount sealed the deal for the U.S. Senate and Florida Commissioner of Agriculture elections.
Nelson inched closer to Scott after the manual recount, but not enough to win reelection with Scott in the lead by 10,033 votes out of more than 8 million ballots cast in Florida, according to the Miami Herald.
Although he was defeated, Nelson said he remained proud of the work of his supporters throughout his campaign. He’ll continue to fight to preserve the rights of voters, including health care and LGBTQ+ rights, he said.
“I by no measure feel defeated, and that’s because I’ve had the privilege of serving the people of Florida and our country for most of my life,” Nelson said.
The manual recount in Alachua County took six hours and 36 poll workers to finish, TJ Pyche, the spokesperson for the Alachua County Supervisor of Elections wrote in an email. The county’s official election results were certified and sent to the state Saturday night. These results include 15 votes for Scott and 36 for Nelson in the manual recount.
Democrat Nikki Fried will become Florida’s next agricultural commissioner after beating her Republican opponent Matt Caldwell by 6,753 votes, according to the Miami Herald. Pyche said 10 votes went to Fried and 21 went to Caldwell after the county’s manual recount.
A canvassing board composed of the Supervisor of Elections, a county court judge and the chair of the county’s board of commissioners or a commissioner in Alachua, determines a voter’s intent by hand in a public manual recount, the Tampa Bay Times reported.
A majority of the ballots in a manual recount comes from overvotes and undervotes, Pyche said. An overvote is when a voter marks two candidates rather than one for a position in a specified race, and an undervote is when a voter leaves a race blank on the ballot, according to the Miami Herald.
A machine recount in Alachua County shifted .01 percent of the county’s votes in the races for Florida governor, U.S. senator and agriculture commissioner Monday. Although the machine recount was estimated to take two days, it took less than 20 hours.
Scott will be sworn into the U.S. Senate in January and Ron DeSantis will be taking Scott’s former seat as Florida’s next governor.
Contact Dana Cassidy at dcassidy@alligator.org and follow her on Twitter at @danacassidy_
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.
