TAMPA, Fla. — A recount is underway as machines work to count the votes in the millage referendum to support Hillsborough County Schools.
“We’re in the process now of we’re going to re-scan 228,800 and some ballots over the next hopefully 18 hours that we’ll be doing this, and then we’ll have our second set of unofficial results,” said Craig Latimer, the Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections.
The Hillsborough County Canvassing Board met on Thursday evening at the Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections Office. The board announced a machine recount for the millage tax increase referendum.
“We expect it to take approximately 18 hours to do this. It could take longer. It could take a little bit shorter. We’re using all the machines that we have to re-scan right now, and of course, plenty of personnel," said Latimer. "We want to get this over with too. We know a lot of people are in suspense about what’s going on, so we want to get this taken care of too, but we’re going to do it in a methodical, slow pace.”
The referendum would support Hillsborough County Public Schools. District leaders said the additional money would pay for salary increases to help retain and recruit teachers. It would also expand art, music, and P.E.
On primary night, voters struck down the referendum that would increase property taxes, but only by a slim margin. State law said a recount is triggered if the measure is defeated by 0.5 percent or less of the total votes cast.
The latest unofficial totals show the no’s are still leading by 591 votes.
“It’s at .26 percent, so we could very well be in a manual recount," said Latimer.
After a machine recount, a manual recount will happen if the second set of unofficial results shows a candidate or issue lost by .25 percent or less of the votes cast.
Latimer explained what's going on behind the scenes right now: officials are running the ballots through, and he said the machines are kicking out the over-votes and under-votes.
Latimer said an over-vote is when someone voted for too many people in a race, while an under-vote is when they didn't vote for anybody in that race.
"We know we've already got those numbers," said Latimer. “The machine will kick those out. We will keep those separated because if we go to a manual recount, that’s what we’re looking at. We’re actually going to physically look at each one of those 24 or 27,000 ballots to make sure that there wasn’t any voter intent that they intended to vote for a candidate or a yes or no on the referendum item.”
The Canvassing Board looked over provisional ballots on Thursday evening. They also reviewed some mail-in ballots with signature issues. Some ballots were accepted, while others were rejected.
"The biggest reason for the rejected is that people are not a registered voter, but they insist on casting a ballot or they may have registered to vote after that 29 day book closing time," said Latimer on Thursday night.
Election officials said official results will be certified no later than Tuesday, August 30.
"The canvassing board is the final decision maker," said Latimer.
