Politico and CNN have done the math and report that incumbent U.S. Senator Bill Nelson cannot win the Florida recount — barring a miracle.
To have both of these far-left outlets, two enthusiastic cheerleaders for Democrats, finally report this painfully obvious truth, is a major blow to Nelson’s ongoing litigation and public relations efforts.
Currently, Republican Governor Rick Scott holds a solid 12,000 (give or take) vote lead over Nelson, and anyone who knows anything about recounts know that recounts do not flip the winner unless the difference is much closer to 1,000.
You can sue and count all the late-arriving ballots (that should not be counted), you can count all the spoiled ballots and count all the ballots that cannot be reasonably discerned, but 12,000 votes is still 12,000 votes and, like it or not, Nelson is not going to win 100 percent of those in a 50/50 state.
The only hope Nelson has is what CNN describes as a “miracle,” which would be a massive tabulating error of some kind, or a huge batch of ballots someone forgot to count or report.
Politico went even further in doing the math. Basically, should Nelson win every single lawsuit he has filed, should he win this legal “royal flush,” as a Politico source put it, he would still come up short:
As of the most recent update, only 7,871 absentee ballots were rejected statewide due to “voter error,” which could include mismatched signatures on the ballots compared with what’s on file with the state. And of them, 35 percent were cast by Republicans, 36 percent by Democrats and 29 percent by independents. Another 10,186 ballots were rejected because their envelopes were unsigned. Of them, 31 percent were cast by Republicans, 44 percent by Democrats and 24 percent by independents.
So if all those ballots were counted, Nelson would have to win 85 percent of them statewide in an election where he couldn’t get 50 percent of the vote so far.
On Wednesday, the state’s elections division director provided more specificity when she testified in Nelson’s signature mismatch suit by revealing that 3,688 mail-in absentee ballots and another 93 provisional ballots were rejected for mismatches by 45 counties, a count that didn’t include the large counties of Miami-Dade or Duval.
What’s more, according to Politico, even if the so-called undervote (the difference between those who voted for governor and senator) in infamous Broward County really is some sort of counting error, even if 26,105 voters were not counted and now are, there are still not enough to overcome that 12,000 margin.
As far as the Florida governor’s race, Republican DeSantis enjoys a 34,000 vote lead over Democrat Andrew Gillum. Because that margin is 0.42 percent, the recount will be a machine recount. The margin in the senate race is below 0.25 percent, o that will be a hand recount.
The deadline for the machine recount is 3 p.m. Thursday. If the margin in the governor’s race stays above 0.25 percent after the machine recount, the recount is over and DeSantis will be certified the winner.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
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