ORLANDO, Fla. – Extremely close races in Orange, Osceola and Flagler counties may all go to recounts on Friday. What happens next could be decided by just a few votes.
Only five votes separate the results in the Orange County Commission District 1 race.
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In Osceola County, the race for Kissimmee mayor is expected to go to a runoff, but only four votes separate the second and third-place winner right now.
In Flagler County, 40 votes separate the candidates in the Flagler County Commission District 5 Republican primary. The race for Palm Coast City Council District 3 is expected to go to a runoff, but only two votes separate the second and third-place finishers.
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It may only take a few ballots to change the fates of these races.
Voters who had a vote-by-mail ballot that required a signature to be fixed or “cured” have until Thursday at 5 p.m. to get a special affidavit into county supervisors of elections offices. An approved affidavit means those votes would now count towards the final vote totals, and could end up changing the fate of these elections.
Florida requires everyone who votes by mail to sign the envelope the ballot used to mail it back to the county elections office. That signature is matched to whatever signature the office has on file.
Signatures change over time as voters age. They may have health issues that can change signatures too. Plus, there is the issue of cursive vs. printing, especially with younger voters, election officials say. These things are taken into account when looking at a signature.
If the signature is missing or does not match the one on record, the elections office mails the voter a cure affidavit and also contacts them using whatever information is on file.
The voter has to sign the cure affidavit and provide a copy of an approved form of voter identification and send it back to the county elections office. The office must receive the affidavit by 5 p.m. on the Thursday after the election, otherwise the vote will not count.
The affidavit also requires the person to affirm that they are a qualified voter who is registered in the county and that they have not voted more than once. Here is what the cure affidavit looks like in Orange County.
We’ve reached out to the Orange, Flagler and Osceola elections supervisors to find out how many vote-by-mail ballots need to be cured.
In Kissimmee, there are 17 vote-by-mail ballots that need to be cured.
We will post the other responses as we get them.
If there aren’t enough cured ballots to change the vote margins in these races, they could go to machine recounts starting Friday.
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