Outstanding ballots have left a handful of Central Florida contests too close to call.
The Republican primary for Florida’s 9th Congressional District is tight, but probably not close enough for remaining ballots to prevent Dan Green from winning the nomination.
And two local elections in Osceola County will probably be close enough to trigger recounts this weekend.
Congressional District 9
Under its new boundaries that state lawmakers approved in a special session earlier this year, Congressional District 9 now stretches 120 miles from Kissimmee to Okeechobee to give Republicans an edge for the seat that Democrat Darren Soto has held for nearly a decade.
Seven candidates are running for the Republican nomination, Dan Green led Ben Butler by less than 600 votes.
But Kari Ewalt with the Osceola County Supervisor of Elections says there probably aren’t enough outstanding ballots to change the outcome in District 9.
“I am not worried about having to do a recount for that race at all,” said Ewalt.
In Osceola County, there are 76 mail ballots that voters could “cure” to fix errors that election officials found with their ballots.
Another 15 provisional ballots with potential errors were cast in the county on election day.
But most voters won’t submit corrections by the 5:00 p.m deadline on Thursday, Ewalt said.
And even if they do, nearly all of those ballots would need to go to Butler to affect the outcome.
Recounts likely
Two local elections in Osceola County will likely come down to a close finish.
The nonpartisan race for St. Cloud’s fifth city council seat will head to a runoff in November, because none of the candidates got an outright majority of the vote in the primary.
Former deputy police chief Kirk Zilke found the most support in the contest with 40% of the vote. He’s guaranteed to appear on the ballot this fall.
But it’s a tight contest for the second spot: Alex Rodriguez leads Jim Moore by just three votes, or 0.04% of the vote.
Florida law mandates recounts for close races. If the margin is less than 0.5%, they can be conducted quickly with tabulation machines.
If it’s less than 0.25%, the recount must be conducted by hand.
“Statistically, it's highly likely that the St. Cloud race will go to a manual recount,” said Ewalt.
Another race is likely to see a recount.
In the nonpartisan race for the District 3 seat on the Osceola School Board, Alyssa Noel leads Natalie Guzman by a mere 29 votes — a lead of four-tenths of a percent.
In Osceola County, there are 76 mail ballots that voters could “cure” to fix errors that election officials found with their ballots.
Another 15 provisional ballots with potential errors were cast in the county on election day.
On Friday, the county canvassing board will review and tally ballot “cures” and ballots with errors. If either race is still within that half-percent margin after that, it will go to a recount on Saturday morning. It will be open to the public.
