Charles C.W. Cooke lays out where things stand in Florida as deadline passes (Hint: NOT looking good for the Dems)

A deadline in Florida has come and gone:

The deadline has passed. Noon was the deadline for each county to have its unofficial vote count to the Secretary of State. https://t.co/Fp2hKD9gNp

— News4JAX (@wjxt4) November 10, 2018

And with that deadline passing, National Review editor Charles C.W. Cooke shared some details about where it all stands:

It's noon on Saturday. The deadline for Florida's counties to report votes has now passed. Ron Desantis has a 34,509 vote lead over Andrew Gillum. Rick Scott has a 13,407 vote lead over Bill Nelson.

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018

One caveat: It is unclear whether Palm Beach and Broward Counties have actually done this. The Florida elections website shows that they are still behind, but this may merely be a failure to update. pic.twitter.com/c9pPaWg703

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018

Update: Broward has now reported its final vote totals, and in so doing cut DeSantis's lead to 33,684 (a reduction of 825), and Scott's lead to 12,562 (a reduction of 845). pic.twitter.com/zSyWVg0PIV

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018

Palm Beach County is still showing as unfinished. Given that the deadline has passed, it's unclear what this means or what the consequences will be. pic.twitter.com/dfmJ2SJevL

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018

Florida update. All 67 counties have now reported, and we have an unofficial vote tally. As it stands, DeSantis leads Gillum by 33,684, and Scott leads Nelson by 12,562. That will precipitate an automatic recount for DeSantis, and a manual recount for Scott. (1)

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018

There are now two things left to do statewide: First, count yet-to-arrive overseas/military ballots; second, proceed to those mandatory recounts. All being equal, neither step looks as if it'll be enough for either Gillum or Nelson. (2)

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018

Around 20,000 overseas/military ballots have yet to be returned. Deadline for their return is the 16th. In reality, a lot of these will never be returned, will arrive too late, or will be rejected. (3)

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018

For the sake of argument, though, let's assume they're all returned—every last one. From what I can gather, we’re looking at ~5,000 military ballots, and then ~15,000 others from around the state. (4)

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018

Given that voters with no party also vote, the best we can do is apply known military registration rates to military data, and apply the results in each county thus far to the county data. If we do this, we get a net increase for both Nelson and Gillum of ~1600 votes. (5)

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018

That would yield a DeSantis lead of ~32,000, and a Scott lead of ~11,000. Which would require the recounts to flip, *net*, 16,000 votes to Gillum and 5,500 votes to Nelson. (6)

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018

Remember, that’s a generous estimate because we’re assuming every single outstanding overseas ballot comes in. But, for the sake of argument, let’s make it *more* generous, and assume these votes are twice as Democratic as has been the case thus far. Let's make it ~3,200. (7)

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018

Even in that generous scenario, DeSantis keeps a lead of 30,484, while Scott keeps a lead of 9,362. That means Gillum would need 15,242 votes to flip, and Nelson would need 4,681. That seems unlikely—although nothing is impossible. (8)

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018

Which brings us, finally, to Marc Elias's theory that the machines in Broward have undercounted the Senate line on the ballot by around 25,000 ballots. I doubt this—and Broward says it's not correct—but, arguendo, let's add it to our previous assumptions. Then what? (9)

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018

If we subtract the number of votes for Senate in Broward from the number of votes for Governor, we get 24,992. Assuming that these votes go as did the others, that adds just over 9,000 votes for Nelson. (It doesn't affect DeSantis.) Which leaves Scott with a lead of ~200. (10)

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018

That would be a small enough lead that a recount could potentially change the result. But to get to that point we have to make a lot of pro-Democrat assumptions, and to assume facts not in evidence. It seems unlikely to me that either of these results is going to change. (11)

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018

Which is to say that, as it stands, Ron DeSantis is the next governor of Florida, and, barring some catastrophic errors in tabulation, or some remarkably creative lawyering, Rick Scott is Florida's next Senator. But it's Florida, so . . . (12/12)

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 10, 2018

Stay tuned!

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