Broward County Completes Its Recount, But Now ANOTHER Florida County Is Acting As The Problem Child

Believe it or not, Broward County completed its machine recount last night. I know, I know. It’s a darn miracle.

#BreakingNews Machine recount is finished in Broward @nbc6 pic.twitter.com/p990hShzXT

— Julia Bagg (@JuliaNBC6) November 15, 2018

Drama over? Nope. There’s a new problem child: Palm Beach County.

Hours away from the #Florida #election #recount. Here at the Palm Beach County tabulation center… silence. Supervisor of Elections said: “We’re doing everything in our human power possible to make this happen.” pic.twitter.com/c0iicm9fl2

— Kara Duffy (@KaraDuffyCBS12) November 15, 2018

Word has it their ballot-counting machines overheated Tuesday and screwed up votes tallies. Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher didn’t seem confident that they’d be able to have the project finished by the deadline (Thursday at 3 pm).

“We’re in prayer mode to finish on time,” she said.

“We’re trying to meet a deadline that really, reasonably shouldn’t be there,” she added.

Deadlines are unreasonable? Really now?

Bucher had already warned that her staff would not be able to meet the deadline to recount votes cast in the governor and agriculture commissioner races and in a Florida House race, but said on Monday that she was confident her staff would complete the recount of votes in the Senate race. Unlike ballot-counting machines in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, where elections staffs expect to finish on time, Palm Beach’s decade-old ballot-counting machines can only recount one race at a time.

Palm Beach County has set aside $11 million to buy new equipment, but it hasn’t yet purchased the machines because the state still needs to resolve a question about voting system compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Palm Beach Post reported.

“We didn’t anticipate that we would have to run 100 percent of our ballots through these old machines,” Bucher said. “We anticipated we would have a pretty quiet midterm election as we used to. I guess that’s not the new norm.”

Just look at all the action. They’re clearly HUSTLIN’ to get this done. //sarc.

Less than 12 hours until the #Florida #recount deadline…. no machines running here at Palm Beach County tabulation center. Where is everyone!? pic.twitter.com/pLn3rvVO0y

— Kara Duffy (@KaraDuffyCBS12) November 15, 2018

We’re less than 24 hours out from the recount deadline, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at the Palm Beach County operation.

I’ve been here since about 11:30am and seen only one machine in use (right side in photo), minimal other activity. https://t.co/9bHPHtpg6y pic.twitter.com/gzdTORxjqt

— Alex Seitz-Wald (@aseitzwald) November 14, 2018

We’ll keep you updated on this hot mess.

h/t Miami Herald