Election 2018: Hand recounts in Duval County moving quickly, objections to certain ballots are too

Duval County started its hand recount for the Senate and commissioner of agriculture races Friday around 11:15 a.m.

The recount kicked off before a large crowd of onlookers from both parties.

It comes after a machine recount mandated by Florida law when a race falls within 0.5%. If after the machine recount, the race remains within 0.25%, then Florida calls for a manual recount of undervotes and overvotes.

Each ballot is reviewed one by one. Duval County started with the Senate race between Sen. Bill Nelson and Gov. Rick Scott.

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Everything has a method, down to the type of pens that can be used. Only green felt tip pens could be used in the counting area.

Representatives for each candidate and for each party supervised each of the 12 counting tables which consisted of two counters from the supervisor of elections office.

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The representatives are able to object if they disagree with a counter, but they’re not allowed to touch the ballots. The challenged ballot then goes to be reviewed by the canvassing board which is made up of a city councilman, a judge and the supervisor of elections Mike Hogan.

“I think we’re doing a great job. It’s been very methodical. They’re taking time,” said Karyn Morton, chair for the Republican Party of Duval County.

“It’s a real transparent process. We see all the ballots going in. The ones that come out we reviewed with the committee,” said attorney Kevin Cobbin, who is an observer for the Democrats.

It’s a been a long 10 days since Election Day, but it's been longest for Hogan, the man who oversees the entire operation.

“I’m tired. I can’t sleep because I think about, 'Did we do this, did we do that?’ But it’ll be over soon,” said Hogan.

Recounting just the Senate race took up more than six hours.

Hogan said there were about 2,200 ballots that needed to be recounted in that race and around 9,000 for the commissioner of agriculture race.

Despite instructions clearly written at the top of the ballot, some voters still didn’t follow directions.

There were circle marks, scribbles, even markings over the Republican or Democratic designation instead of the actual oval.

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Even Santa Claus got a write-in vote.

The write-in that drew the most laughter in the room was for an “expletive” Rick Scott.

“The ones where you see a mark near the oval then those are ones that are a little difficult. Those took a little more time. There were only like three or four that I really had to struggle with,” said Hogan.

Voter intent is at the heart of the struggle.

The canvassing board makes the final call, but attorneys on both sides have been filing objections.

For instance, in a few cases, the voter filled in the “D” in “Dem” next to Sen. Bill Nelson’s name instead of the oval.

The board decided it was the voter’s intent to vote for Nelson, so it was counted, and a similar situation happened in Gov. Rick Scott’s case where “Rep” was circled.

Cox Media Group