Ed Danko’s Chance of Flipping Result Is Remote as Provisional Ballots and Recount Steps Ahead Are Mapped Out

Ed Danko’s chances of flipping his 40-vote loss to Pam Richardson in a County Commission race is statistically very remote if not close to impossible, based on current numbers and next steps. That’s the case even as 47 provisional and mail-in ballots have yet to be judged as valid or not, and a handful of additional ballots–overcounts or undercounts–will also have to be judged by the Canvassing Board.

Richardson beat Danko by 0.26 percent, winning 7,586 votes to his 7,546. The margin is within the state-mandated requirement of a recount.




Danko, completing his first term as a Palm Coast City Council member, has been remarkably philosophical about it, if not resigned to the outcome. “It’s out of my hands, it’s in the hands of the voters, it’s in the hands of God,” he said early this afternoon, speaking at length–in good spirits and without a hint of rancor. Richardson, though clearly relieved and jovial, this morning said she will celebrate only “once it’s fully achieved.”

The chance of a flip in the race for the District 3 Palm Coast City Council seat is less remote, but also less consequential: Ray Stevens is ahead of Dana Stancel by just two votes. Stevens and Stancel are vying for second place and a spot in the November runoff against Andrew Warner. The Canvassing Board’s actions will confirm who will be the next county commissioner, but it will only confirm who will remain a candidate in the city race.

Every step that the Canvassing Board will take toward the determination of a final number will tend to solidify Richardson’s likely win while reducing Danko’s chance of overturning the result. The same can’t be said of the Stancel-Stevens contest, which hews closer to an even chance of flipping.

As for the school board race between Janie Ruddy and Derek Barrs, which Ruddy won by 288 votes, even Supervisor of Elections Kaiti Lenhart said that “It’s unlikely that the votes counted on Friday will make a difference in the other races.” Simply put, the chance of a change in the outcome of the Russy-Barrs race is near zero.

Here are the next steps toward the resolution of the two races’ outcome, which will include an examination of provisional ballots, a machine recount of all ballots relevant to the two races, and a hand recount of “over” and “under” votes. FlaglerLive’s analysis is based on figures and explanations provided by Supervisor of Elections Kaiti Lenhart this morning.




The Flagler County Canvassing Board next meets Friday at 10 a.m. The board is made up of County Judge Andrea Totten, County Commissioner Dave Sullivan, and Lenhart. The alternate is County Commissioner Donald O’Brien. Neither O’Brien nor Sullivan were in political races this year. Both are stepping down from the commission at the end of their term in November. They are both Republicans (no Democrat serves on the County Commission). If any one member of the board isn’t present, O’Brien will step in.

The board typically sits at a large rectangular table in one of the rooms at the Supervisor of Elections’ office at the Government Services Building in Bunnell. All its proceedings are public. Any member of the public may watch from close range, including candidates. Lenhart has even taken and answered questions from the public, within reason. Of course, any disruptive behavior may lead to the disruptor’s ejection. It is generally not wise to be disruptive when a judge is present.

Friday morning, the Canvassing Board will first determine the validity of provisional ballots and any “referred” mail-in ballots. There are 20 provisional ballots and 27 referred ballots, for a total of 47 ballots not yet counted in the current results.




A ballot is considered provisional when the voter claims to be properly registered, but the registration has not been documented at the time of voting, or when the voter’s registration was recorded after the registration deadline, or when the voter fails to provide proper identification, or when the voter received a mail-in ballot but turned up at a polling without proof that the mail-in ballot hasn’t been filled. In all these cases, the Canvassing Board will review the documentation on file and judge the ballot valid or not. Only if the ballot is deemed valid will it be opened and counted. If it’s deemed invalid, it is discarded, its votes never to be known. The provisional process is like weeding: it reduces the number of eligible ballots.

A referred ballot “are vote by mail ballots that had an issue with the signature, either it was completely missing or the signature provided on the return envelope does not match the voter’s signature on file,” Lenhart said.

All the provisional ballot voters and the vote by mail ballot voters with referrals have until 5 p.m. Thursday to provide their proof of eligibility or to cure any deficiency in balloting regulations with a copy of their ID and an affidavit. The Supervisor of Elections’ office contacts every single one of those individuals on the referred list to alert them of the problem, and give them a chance to cure it. Not every voter will respond. So not every referred mail ballot will make it through. That reduces the overall number from 47, if marginally so.




Even if there is no reduction, not all 47 ballots will apply to the County Commission race or to the Palm Coast race: only Republicans voted in the County Commission race, and only Palm Coast residents voted in the Palm Coast race. The ballots have not been examined yet, so the Canvassing Board doesn’t know how many of those are Republican, Democratic or no-party ballots.

Put another way: while 27,459 ballots were cast in total, only 15,132 ballots were cast in the Danko-Richardson race, or a little more than half of all ballots cast. So the number of provisional ballots and referred ballots that would apply to that race is likelier to be between 25 and 30. If so, statistically, Danko cannot win even if every single one of those ballots went his way.

Almost 19,000 ballots were cast in the Palm Coast race. But five provisional ballots were cast outside of Palm Coast, and seven of the referred mail ballots were cast outside of the city. That reduces the provisional and referred ballots at least to 35 in the Stancel-Stevens race.

Not every provisional ballot will be accepted, and not every referred mail-in ballot will be accepted. In fact, the chance is greater that a provisional ballot would be rejected than accepted, because the laws are clear regarding registration deadlines and other eligibility criteria that may have led the ballot to be categorized as provisional.




Assuming every one of the 47 ballots makes it through, for the Danko-Richardson result to change, at least 41 of the 47 ballots will have had to be votes cast in the commission race, and Danko will have had to essentially run the table with those votes, getting all 41, while Richardson gets none. Neither scenario is reasonable. And every vote that goes Richardson’s way further diminishes Danko’s chance to make up the difference.

But the race would still not yet be decided. Two recounts are is next: a comprehensive machine recount and a selected hand recount.

There will be a machine recount for both races–all precincts, all early votes, all mail-in votes. That recount is expected to take about two hours. As of this writing, it has not yet been scheduled, but Lenhart was trying to schedule it for Friday, because the office is under a drop-dead deadline: the machine recount by law must be completed Sunday. So it must be done either Friday or Saturday. “I’m trying to schedule with our members of the board to see who’s available to be here to do that, because now we’re encroaching on a weekend,” Lenhart said. “It’s been interesting so far.”

The machine recount is not expected to change the total tally: Lenhart’s office has conducted such recounts before, and they have almost invariably produced identical result. That’s in part why the Canvassing Board tests the machines before an election, in an elaborate process–to ensure that sort of reliability, integrity and accuracy in the results.




But the recount will produce (or spit out) another type of ballot that must be re-examined by the Canvassing Board. That’s the hand recount. Those are the ballots that are considered to have either overcounts or undercounts–in other words, ballots on which the voter has either not voted on the specified race, or has voted in an odd way, for example either by voting for two names in the same race, or by circling a name instead of filling in the oval, or by circling two names by mistake, or by filling in an oval then circling a name, as if to telegraph a mistaken intent.

It will then be the Canvassing Board’s role to examine every single one of those votes, literally to decide the voter’s intent. At least two board members must agree on a determination before the determination is official. Most often, it will be an undervote, meaning that the voter will not have voted in that race. If the disputed race is left blank, the ballot has no bearing on the disputed race. The results don’t change. The Canvassing Board moves on to the next ballot. If there are more than one votes or there’s a legibility problem with how the voter voted, the result in that race may then either be discarded as invalid, which is rare, without invalidating all the other votes.

“Typically, the numbers of unders and overs do not affect the results of an election,” Lenhart said. “People skip around on the ballot all the time,” as with judicial races, or in races where voters aren’t sure who to vote for. “If it’s blank, there’s nothing to count. But we will make sure that there is no indication, no arrows, no circles, no other marks on the ballot in those races to make sure that there’s not something that was missed.”

The process can be laborious depending on the number of ballots in play. But that number is usually very small. For example, when Kim Carney–who won her County Commission race Tuesday against Nick Klufas and Bill Clark–ran against Dave Sullivan four years ago, there were many under votes (people not voting in that race) but just six over votes, out of almost 24,000 votes cast. Even if there are twice that many overvotes in the Richardson-Danko race (which drew 10,000 fewer votes than the Carney-Sullivan race), it would not change the outcome.