Patch Analysis Reveals 38,593 Undervotes In Florida

TALLAHASSEE, FL — The undervotes in Florida's Nov. 6 election are much more widespread than Broward County though the South Florida county stands out in a Patch analysis of voting results in each of the state's 67 counties. The Patch analysis revealed there are at least 38,593 instances of undervotes in which Floridians voted for the governor's race but not the Senate race. This could prove to be a game changer as votes are recounted.

Florida's Senate race between incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson and Republican Gov. Rick Scott got fewer votes overall than the governor's race between Tallahassee Democrat Andrew Gillum and former Republican Congressman Ron DeSantis. See also Broward Election Supervisor May Have Had Enough

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On Saturday, Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner ordered machine recounts in both races along with the race to decide Florida's next commissioner of agriculture.

The recounts got underway over the weekend but were delayed in Broward because of an equipment problem.

Sarah Revell of the Florida Department of State said that all of the results reviewed by Patch reflect the first unofficial set of results submitted by counties. She said they do not yet reflect any of the machine recount results. Those results will be available sometime after Thurday's 3 p.m. deadline for the completion of the recounts.

Lawyers for the Nelson campaign filed a lawsuit in federal court on Tuesday seeking to extend the deadline for recounting the votes in the Senate race.

Broward is one of 56 counties in which more Floridians voted in the governor's race than in the Senate race, according to the Patch analysis.

One possibility is that electronic scanners only read part of the ballots. Another is that there were no scanning errors, but that voters simply wanted to vote in the governor's race and not the Senate race. Gillum was vying to become Florida's first black chief executive, which could have been seen as carrying historic significance.

With thousands of additional votes added to Florida's vote tallies since Election Day, there has been growing concern over the handling of returns by Broward County and its elections supervisor Brenda Calhoun Snipes. The retired elementary school principal has lived in the county since 1964, when she and her husband traded Alabama's Heart of Dixie for Florida's endless palm trees and coastline.

Much of the criticism and frustration stems from the fact that more than 8 million Floridians took time away from their jobs, families and schools to vote in an election they were told would possibly be one of the most consequential of their lifetimes.

Yet, there has been mounting uncertainty over the results, particularly with respect to the U.S. Senate contest between Scott and Nelson, but also in the race between Gillum and DeSantis.

As of Monday, Scott led Nelson by 4,098,107 votes compared to 4,085,545, a difference of 12,562 votes.

DeSantis led Gillum by 33,684 votes with the former congressman amassing 4,075,879 votes compared to 4,042,195 for the Democrat.

Broward is one of only two Florida counties along with Union County where more voters chose Florida's next commissioner of agriculture rather than senator.

Here is a county by county breakdown of the undervotes in all 56 of Florida's 67 counties where the phenomenon has occurred:

Dozens of peaceful protesters carrying signs that read "Lock her up," "Don't Steal My Election" and "Fake Votes" continued peaceful protests outside the headquarters of the Broward County Supervisor of Elections this week as President Trump has taken aim at what he dubbed "The Broward effect."

Trump weighed in again on Monday as America was celebrating Veterans Day: "The Florida Election should be called in favor of Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis in that large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged," the president tweeted. "An honest vote count is no longer possible — ballots massively infected. Must go with election night!"

The Florida threshold for federal, state or multicounty races is one half of one percent to trigger a machine recount, according to election officials. "The results from the machine recount constitute the second set of unofficial returns."

Once the machine recount returns are back from the county canvassing boards "the secretary of state and Division of Elections will subsequently determine if the returns for any federal, state, or multicounty races or issues on the ballot meet the statutory threshold of one quarter of one percent requiring a manual recount."

The machine recount involves feeding each ballot through precinct tabulators, central count tabulators or a combination of the two in each county. Ballots with overvotes and undervotes in affected races will be set aside in case the secretary orders a manual recount.

The returns reported on election night were unofficial real-time totals based on information compiled by election officials across the state. They had not yet been certified as official, a process that has been playing out county by county throughout the third most populous state.

Election Attorney Marc Elias, who is representing the Nelson campaign and who served as general counsel to Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential run, said it is not usual to have underballots caused by scanning misses. "On the marking issues, if you go and look at past recounts, you see that voters mark ballots in a whole host of ways, where voter intent is clear, but where machines can't pick them up," he explained. "Partially filled in ovals, X's and ovals circling the names and the like."

ProPublica's Electionland project monitors voting problems around the country. If you had trouble voting, or if you saw something you want to tell Electionland about, here’s how.

A device is used to straighten ballots before machine counting during a recount at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office. (Photo by Joe Skipper/Getty Images).