ORLANDO, Fla. – The dreaded “R” word was not uttered at the Orange County Canvassing Board Thursday night, according to one official, in the Orange County Commission District 1 race.
The dreaded word being “recount.”
Only five votes separated incumbent Commissioner Nicole Wilson from challenger Austin Arthur on Tuesday night. Wilson had 14,052 votes while Arthur had 14,047.
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The preliminary vote percentage was small enough to trigger a machine recount on Friday.
The canvassing board on Thursday went through vote-by-mail ballots that needed to be cured and provisional ballots. After those were added, Wilson’s lead dwindled to just two votes.
However, 15 write-in votes had to be accounted for too. Stephen Davis, a former Orange County fire battalion chief who was fired for refusing to get the COVID vaccine, filed to run as a write-in candidate.
The 15 write-in votes meant that, because the vote margin was so tiny, no candidate got more than 50% of the vote.
That means Wilson and Arthur will once again face each other, this time in the November general election.
District 1 on the Orange County Commission represents areas like Horizon West, Winter Garden, Oakland and Windermere.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
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