A Leon County circuit judge is poised to extend the recount deadline for Palm Beach County, Fla., to next Tuesday, a new report states.
According to the Palm Beach Post, Judge Karen Gievers is preparing to issue an order that would advance the recount deadline from Thursday at 3 p.m. to Nov. 20. The new deadline would apply to Florida’s U.S. Senate race, gubernatorial race, agriculture commissioner’s race, and the 89th House District state legislature race as the contests are undergoing recounts.
Democrat Jim Bonfiglio, who is running against Republican Mike Caruso for the Florida House seat, filed a lawsuit earlier this week in an attempt for the recount deadline to be pushed back.
Regardless of what Gievers determines, Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher predicts that the order will be challenged in the federal courts by the Florida secretary of State.
Bucher said Monday it would only be possible to finish the recount for the U.S. Senate race by Thursday at 3 p.m., and pointed to technological limitations, given that the county uses eight machines and cannot calculate multiple races simultaneously.
“We asked the vendor if we could get, we would fly equipment in from anywhere in the United States and they do not have any other equipment,” Bucher said, according to WPTV. “This is all the equipment, they don’t make it anymore, nobody has spares.”
In the event that the counties could not recount all the races’ votes by Thursday afternoon, the final vote tallies would be submitted instead.
