Election staffers in Duval County wrapped up the first day of recounts in three statewide races Sunday.
Three high-speed readers were hard at work recounting Duval’s 381,754 ballots.
Before the recount began, the canvassing board received a challenge during the logic and accuracy test, which proves the machine is starting at zero and counting ballots correctly.
People can come right up to the tabulator during the test before Election Day, when no ballots are around.
“Someone wanted to be right there next to the machine with us and I’m a little cautious about anyone getting anywhere near my ballots,” Duval Supervisor of Elections Mike Hogan said. “There was some controversy about that at first but I decided to go ahead and let them come in just to get ahead.”
Vote by mail ballots were first – duplicates had to be made for 51 ballots because the originals couldn’t be read by the machines, often because of physical damage.
“They’ve been handled so many times. They’re folded and they’re not pristine like you’d see on Election Day or early voting,” Hogan said.
The canvassing board compared each duplicate with the original on an overhead projector in front of the crowd of representatives from both parties and the public.
Staffers then began feeding early voting ballots.
At one point, a representative for the Democrats raised concern about jams in the machines and whether they caused votes to be missed or counted twice.
The elections director of information services addressed the crowd, saying the machines tell workers exactly what to do in event of a jam and whether the ballots need to be re-fed.
Hogan said representatives from both sides also asked for preliminary results – tallies of the number of mail in ballots counted and the like.
He said his office will release all results when the count is complete.
Hogan said he expects it to take 17 hours to count all the ballots barring any major interruptions.
He estimates they’ll be done on Tuesday – well ahead of the Thursday 3 p.m. deadline.
“We feel like it’s been a great day. We’ve gotten much further along than we thought we might,” he said.
The recount is scheduled to resume at 9 a.m. Monday.