Leon County election workers audit ballots, moving toward election certification


Employees at the Leon County Supervisor of Elections are auditing each ballot cast in the 2024 General Election. Supervisor Mark Earley said they are reviewing provisional ballots and communicating with voters to cure some mail-in ballots. Watch the video to see how Leon County’s process measures up to the rest of the state:

BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:

While Election Day is past us, the work is far from done for Leon County election workers.

Workers are auditing ballots and even receiving new ones from overseas military.

While it won’t change the outcome of any races, I got a first-hand look at the process to certify the election.

Leon County Supervisor of Elections Mark Earley says Election Day,

“For most voters, that’s the big day at the end of the election, for election officials, we still have a lot of details to take care of,” Earley said.

Those details include auditing ballots.

The ballots cast go through this machine to make sure the ballot matches the vote counted.

Florida law requires an audit.

For automatic audits, county election offices must check the accuracy of votes cast at least 20% of the precincts.

Professor of Political Science at the University of Central Florida Dr. Aubrey Jewett said Leon County does a very thorough job.

“Some counties, like where you are at in Leon County when they audit, they do a machine audit of all of the races in all of the elections,” Jewett said.

Auditing is not the only step.

“We still have a lot of provisional ballots to go through, some vote by mail cures where we communicate back and forth with voters to determine whether that is a valid ballot or not,” Earley said.

They first submit unofficial results Friday, November 8.

They certify the election on November 16.

Dr. Jewett said it’s a lengthy process.

“Mainly, it extends because the federal government requires that state and local jurisdictions to accept ballots from military personnel who are stationed overseas,” Jewett said. “If those ballots are postmarked by election day, they have 10 days to get here.”

One thing the office probably won’t have to do: recounts.

Earley said none of the races fell within the half-a-percentage point difference required for a recount.

With more than 80% of Leon County voters casting a ballot, the supervisor said he is happy to see that people came out to vote.

“Any time you get anything over 75 percent turnout, that’s an amazing result,” Earley said.

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