TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- With time running out, Florida's election recount lurched forward Wednesday in a maelstrom of courtroom arguments, broken machines, allegations of irregularities and President Donald Trump's ongoing criticism.
Many counties have wrapped up their machine recounts ahead of today's deadline to complete reviews of the U.S. Senate and governor races, but larger Democratic strongholds are still racing to meet the deadline.
In a key court battle related to the recount, a federal judge said he was unlikely to order election officials to automatically count thousands of mail-in ballots that were rejected because the signatures on the ballots did not match signatures on file. U.S. District Judge Mark Walker, however, did say he was open to giving voters extra time to fix their ballots.
State officials said the matching requirement had led to the voiding of nearly 4,000 ballots, although that figure did not include larger counties such as Miami-Dade.
Republican Gov. Rick Scott agreed to step down from the state panel responsible for certifying the final results. Scott is locked in a tight race with U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson and has already suggested fraud may be taking place in some counties. Critics have said Scott should have no role in overseeing the election given his close contest.
Trump added to the growing partisan firestorm by arguing without evidence that some people unlawfully participated in the election by dressing in disguise.
"When people get in line that have absolutely no right to vote and they go around in circles," Trump said in an interview Wednesday with The Daily Caller website. "Sometimes they go to their car, put on a different hat, put on a different shirt, come in and vote again."
The state elections department and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, both run by Republican appointees, have said they haven't seen any evidence of voter fraud of this sort.
Adding to the fray, however, a top attorney at the Florida Department of State sent a letter last week asking federal prosecutors to investigate whether Democrats distributed false information that could have resulted in voters having mail-in ballots disqualified.
Four county supervisors turned over information that showed Democratic Party operatives changed official forms to say that voters had until two days after the election to fix any problems with mail-in ballot signatures. Under current law, a voter has until the day before Election Day to fix a problem.
Meanwhile, problems continue to arise in Palm Beach County, where tallying machines have overheated. That's caused mismatched results with the recount of 174,000 early-voting ballots, forcing workers to go back and redo their work with no time to spare.
"The machines are old," said elections supervisor Susan Bucher, who said they underwent maintenance right before the election. "I don't think they were designed to work 24/7 -- kind of like running an old car from here to LA. And so, you know, things happen to them."
Right now, the Palm Beach County recount looks like it could miss the deadline, even though Nelson and Democrats filed lawsuits seeking to suspend it.
No less than six federal lawsuits have been filed so far in Tallahassee. Nelson's campaign also has filed a lawsuit seeking public records from a north Florida elections supervisor who allowed voters in GOP-heavy Bay County to email their ballots in apparent violation of state law.
The developments are fueling frustrations among Democrats and Republicans as the recount unfolds more than a week after Election Day. Democrats have urged state officials to do whatever it takes to make sure every vote is counted. Republicans, including Trump, have argued without evidence that voter fraud threatens to steal races from the GOP.
The Republican candidates for governor and Senate, Ron DeSantis and Scott, hold the narrowest of leads over their Democratic counterparts, Andrew Gillum and Nelson.
State law requires a machine recount in races where the margin is less than 0.5 percentage point. In the Senate race, Scott's lead over Nelson was 0.14 percentage point. In the governor's contest, unofficial results showed DeSantis ahead of Gillum by 0.41 percentage point.
Once the machine recount is complete, a hand recount will be ordered in any race where the difference is 0.25 percentage point or less, meaning it could take even longer to complete the review of the Senate race if the difference remains narrow.
If the Senate race does go to a hand recount, the deadline for counties to finish is Sunday.
Information for this article was contributed by Brendan Farrington, Jennifer Kay, Freida Frisaro, Alan Fram, Darlene Superville and Zeke Miller of The Associated Press.
A Section on 11/15/2018