Florida Media Is Adjusting Recount Expectations Downward

Several major Florida media outlets are running stories today explaining that the likelihood of the contentious Florida election recount changing the results of Tuesday’s elections are very small. That is good news for Republicans, bad news for Democrats, on a couple of fronts.

The state’s largest paper, the Tampa Bay Times, reported:

“…a recount that reverses an initial margin of more than a few hundred votes would be unprecedented in the recent history of American elections.

According to an analysis by the nonpartisan group FairVote, which advocates for electoral reforms that make it easier to vote, out of 4,687 statewide general elections between 2000 and 2016, just 26 went to a recount. Of those 26, just three recounts wound up changing the initial result of the race: The 2004 Washington governor’s race, the 2006 Vermont state auditor’s race and the 2008 Minnesota U.S. Senate race. The average swing in those three elections after the recounts? About 311 votes.”

The state’s second largest newspaper, the Miami Herald, ran essentially the same story and statistics. Expect more to follow.

Remember, Republican Gov. Rick Scott has a 12,500-vote lead over Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson and Republican Congressman Ron DeSantis has a 34,000-vote lead over Democrat Andrew Gillum in the governor’s race after official tallies were in. While those are tiny leads in such a big state, they’re huge leads for a recount.

For a recount that does not find a major “error” or corrupted system (Broward County?) there is nothing remotely suggesting that this week’s recount will do more than change a few hundred votes. But even if it changes a few thousand votes, the results would still remain the same.

The difference between this time and 2000 in Florida — and the 2008 Minnesota race for U.S. Senator — is that the margins now are much larger and there are no more votes being added to the total. The uproar raised by Republicans and Republican lawyers to stop Broward and Palm Beach counties from continuing to “find” votes well past the legal deadline were successful in both the courts and the eyes of the public.

So unless some court wrangling and a liberal judge allows Broward to manufacture some more Democrat votes — yes, that sounds cynical but it’s pretty hard not to be — then these are the vote totals. The recount will just find anomalies.

That’s why Gillum was in church Sunday politicking away and demanding every vote be counted, because he knows without more votes added to the total, the recount won’t give him the election.

The fact that the media is running these stories this Monday morning is also an important sign. Their readership is heavily Democratic for obvious reasons, and this acts to adjust expectations as those reporters who actually understand Florida voting laws and history realize the chances of changing the outcome of the two big races are very tiny.

If the recount does maintain these results, the left will still fly into hysterics and rage and march and protest and generally throw a tantrum. But they’ve been doing that almost every day since Donald Trump was elected president anyway.

RELATED ARTICLES:

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EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in The Revolutionary Act.