Nearly 3,000 votes effectively disappeared during the machine recount of Florida?s midterm races, according to election records, calling into question whether officials relied on a flawed process to settle the outcome of three statewide contests.
With extremely narrow gaps separating candidates in the still-undeclared races for both governor and United States Senate, the results of the machine recount of all votes cast in the Nov. 6 election, posted by the Florida secretary of state?s office, showed 900 fewer votes than those reported in the original statewide tally.
The discrepancy was expected to grow by an additional 2,000 votes when updated numbers from Broward County, whose results initially were disqualified because they came in two minutes late, are added to the statewide results on Sunday.
None of the discrepancies would be enough to affect the outcome of the three statewide and three local elections that are still waiting for a winner to be called. But they come as at least three Florida counties ? two of them Democratic strongholds whose results could be decisive ? have reported problems counting their shares of the more than 8.1 million ballots cast across the state.
