As Florida Recount Deadline Passes, Palm Beach County Falls Short

Updated at 4:09 p.m. ET

The Florida recount saga entered a new and unprecedented chapter today.

As a 3 p.m. deadline came and went for Florida's 67 counties to submit results from a machine recount to the Secretary of State's office, not all of them made it in time.

Palm Beach County, a heavily populated Democratic stronghold in the state which has been plagued by antiquated, failing equipment, failed to meet the deadline and submitted initial tallies collected on Saturday.

"It was a heroic effort," Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher told reporters after the deadline passed. "We were adding our up our tallies and you can see they were adding up but we just need some more time."

Counties were supposed to complete machine recounts for the governor, Senate and agriculture commissioner races by 3 p.m. ET Thursday. Palm Beach also has a state legislative race in the balance.

Next door in Broward County, the machine recount was completed just ahead of the deadline. Elections supervisor Brenda Snipes, who has said she will likely leave her post as she comes under intense criticism for mismanaging the election process, said that 23 provisional ballots that were ineligible and had been mixed in with eligible ballots would be counted. If the margin came down to 23 votes, she allowed that the count could be contested. Though a margin that small seems highly unlikely.

Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, who is about 12,000 votes behind Republican Gov. Rick Scott in the Senate race, asked a federal judge to push that deadline back so every county could complete its second tally of ballots, but he was denied.

U.S. District Judge Mark Walker, after presiding over a two hour status hearing Thursday morning to hear arguments on the case, issued an order in the early afternoon denying the request.

That means Secretary of State Ken Detzner will consider the numbers the county first turned in over the weekend as its recount numbers as well.

After the deadline, Scott called on Nelson to concede.

"We need to put this election behind us, and it is time for Bill Nelson to respect the will of the voters and graciously bring this process to an end rather than proceed with yet another count of the votes – which will yield the same result, and bring more embarrassment to the state that we both love and have served," said Scott in a statement issued by his campaign.

If any of the three statewide races are found to be within a quarter of a percentage point margin, then the entire state will conduct a hand recount of ballots that either registered an undervote or an overvote in the race (an undervote is when a marking isn't registered for the race, an overvote is when more than one marking is registered).

According to Florida statutes, that process that would need to be completed by Sunday, when official returns are due. There is another lawsuit pending in Walker's court that could still delay that deadline.

It seems likely that both the Senate race and the race for agriculture commissioner will head towards a manual recount. If current margins hold, the governor's race between Republican Ron DeSantis and Democrat will not go to a hand recount, and DeSantis will be declared the winner.

Judge Walker ruled also early Thursday morning to allow some 4,000 Floridians whose ballots were rejected due to issues with mismatched signatures to resolve those problems by Saturday. The number of ballots at issue in that ruling would be too small to change the lead in the statewide races if the margins are large enough to avoid a hand recount, but if there is a hand recount then those voters would be able to fix signature issues before the Sunday deadline.

Palm Beach County uses the oldest ballot counting equipment in the state and is only able to recount one statewide race at a time.

Over the past few days, those machines overheated, spoiling vote counts, and forcing the county to restart its recount of about 175,000 votes.

"I don't think they were designed to work 24/7 - kind of like running an old car from here to L.A. And so, you know, things happen to them," said Bucher.

In Thursday's hearing in federal court, Judge Walker was frustrated by how little information he'd been given about Palm Beach County's progress, and whether there was any sort of timetable for the county to complete its recounts.

"You're seeking relief, how do I fashion relief? I just have an open-ended order and when you're done you just let us know?" Walker asked an attorney representing Nelson's campaign. "It seems like everyone is working overtime to diminish our faith in our institutions."

After the morning hearing, Walker did call another hearing for 4 p.m. ET to hear from Bucher.

"This Court requires evidence from Defendants Supervisor Bucher and the Palm Beach County Canvassing Board on the status and expected completion dates of the various ordered recounts," wrote Walker in his order.

The Judge could still delay Sunday's deadline for official returns.

Not only does Palm Beach County need to recount the three statewide races, but a race there for a seat in Florida's House of Representatives was decided by less than 50 votes, so it needs to be recounted as well. Democrat Jim Bonfiglio, who trails Republican Mike Caruso, in that House race is the plaintiff in the lawsuit requesting the deadline to be pushed back.

The Florida Elections Canvassing Commission (which Gov. Scott recused himself from this week) is scheduled to meet Nov. 20 to certify the results of the election.

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