Volusia County recount has different results than their first count

The recount is now a re-recount in Volusia County.  

On Tuesday morning, the Supervisor of Elections Office announced that their canvassing board would reconvene to recount a portion of the ballots again. The county completed their original recount on Monday night.

"When we compared the totals between last night's results and the first unofficial results...there was a discrepancy,” said Election Supervisor Lisa Lewis.

The discrepancy wasn’t for additional ballots counted into their totals, rather for about 240 ballots missing from the counts of their vote-by-mail and early votes.  Lewis believes that the handling of paper jams during the initial recount is likely the cause of the shortage. 

"The way we were handling the jams, procedurally, it looks like they weren't being counted,” she said.

Lewis said an error with the machines was nearly the only explanation. She said the ballots, since being cast and counted, have been sealed and stored in a locked vault; only removed to conduct the recount and then put directly back inside.

The new recount includes a large amount of the ballots cast in the county, so Lewis said they will likely be working into Wednesday. If at the conclusion of that count they still find a shortage, she said they would have to have some discussions about next steps.

Many watching the new recount Tuesday just said they were glad the county had moved so quickly to complete the recount before the Thursday deadline; otherwise a solution to the discrepancy may have been impossible to meet.

Most Florida counties continued their recounts Tuesday into the Governor race, the US Senate race, and the State Agriculture Commissioner race. While the majority started Sunday or Monday, a handful of counties were just beginning the process Tuesday morning.

So far, Flagler County is one of the few reporting that they have completed their recount. The findings of that are already up on the County’s Election website and show only a few single votes added or removed from their original counts.

Additionally, Seminole County’s Supervisor of Elections said Tuesday that he hopes to be completed with the recount by the end of the night.

All Florida counties have until Thursday at 3 p.m. to complete the recount, or under state law they will be forced to report their original vote counts.