Broward Elections Workers Begin Sorting Ballots Ahead Of Recount
Follow CBSMIAMI.COM: Facebook | Twitter
LAUDERHILL (CBSMiami) -- Workers at the Broward Supervisor of Elections Office started sorting 715,000 ballots Sunday morning.
"That's going to take us approximately about 35 hours to sort," Joseph D'Alessandro said.
D'Alessandro serves as the director for election planning and development. He spoke during the canvassing board meeting Sunday and said some of the ballots are as long as seven pages.
"When we go later on to do tabulation for everything, we will only be tabulating page one," D'Alessandro said.
Page one has the governor's race, the senate race, and the agriculture commissioner's race. The Florida Secretary of State has directed canvassing boards to recount those statewide races by machine and results are due at 3 p.m. Thursday.
In Broward, since there are four local races that also fits in the margin for a recount, they too will be done at the same time. Workers at the office said those races which include the Pompano Beach and Plantation mayoral races along with a water district race and a West Park council seat race. Those races, according to workers, are also on the first page of the ballot.
Workers are on shifts to cover the recount process 24 hours a day. But there was a late start for the sorting process Sunday. Following a state required test, there was an issue with one machine. So, sorting didn't start until 11:30 Sunday morning, four hours after the scheduled start time.
Each one of the ten machines reads 5,000 pages per hour. Two more are expected to be added Sunday night or Monday morning bringing the total to 12.
Once recounting gets underway, CBS 4 did the math, and that means it could take about 12 hours to go through about 715,000 pages for the machine recount.
Broward's election office is no stranger to the spotlight. Governor Rick Scott and President Trump have made claims of election fraud in Broward after Democratic candidates continued gaining more mail-in votes than Republicans after Election Day in Broward. However, they never gave any evidence of fraud.
Sunday, Florida Attorney Pam Bondi sent a letter to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. She stated she is "troubled" the commissioner, who is a Scott appointee, has not opened an investigation into the governor's claims.
She also sent to the Florida Division of Elections reminding it to report any and all criminal activity.
FDLE and The division of elections have told CBS 4 there's no evidence to support claims of fraud. FDLE has not opened an investigation as of Sunday night and the DOE continues to have two monitors in Broward and they've seen no criminal activity.
