JACKSONVILLE BEACH, Fla. -- It may be one of the tightest election day margins. On Wednesday, no clear winner emerged in the race for Jacksonville Beach mayor.
"Any time you have a competitive race and the lead changes, you want to make sure everything is wrapped up before you concede or you go out and announce your victory," said Supervisor of Elections Jerry Holland.
Charlie Latham right now holds a slight lead over challenger Penny Christian. But according to Holland, there is only a 52-vote difference. Much less than 1 percent.
"We still have a lot of ballots left to count. Those ballots are provisionals, absentees that were voting in our office and the military absentees that came in yesterday."
He says there are enough votes there to change the outcome. Action News reached out to both candidates. Christian was not available. Latham told us he isn't comfortable talking with us until the final results are in. Holland thinks he will have those numbers by late Thursday. But that still may not be when this race is called.
"If a race is within a half-percent that triggers a machine recount," Holland said. "And we are within the half-percent now. But we don't start the recount until we feel confident we've counted all of the ballots that are to be counted."
In all, there are about 10,000 ballots left to count. Holland says that will take through the night and into the morning. At that point, if a recount is needed, they have until Tuesday to complete it. Because there are only six Jacksonville Beach precincts, Holland says the cost should be minimal.
