Yet beyond identifiable causes that fed snafus inside vote-counting rooms and political theatrics outside, you might be surprised to learn that several Florida counties, including Broward, had vote-count technology in place that could have figured out in “minutes” what was behind the biggest mystery in the first unofficial results—Broward’s 31,000 Senate under-votes (where no one voted), a proportion unique in the state.
“In a matter of minutes,” said Mark Earley, the Supervisor of Elections in Leon County (where Tallahassee, the state capital, is located) and who, with his peers, developed the vote-count auditing technology that was on hand, but could not be used in 2018’s recounts. Why? It was not approved for that purpose under Florida’s election code.