Ballot Review Doesn’t Change Outcome: Richardson Beats Danko, Stevens Holds 2-Vote Lead

With afternoon recounts still pending, this morning’s review of 46 provisional ballots and questionable mail-in ballots did not change the outcome of Tuesday’s election in the closest contests. Only 11 of those ballots were accepted for inclusion in the election tally.

Pam Richardson’s victory over Ed Danko for County Commission held–and would have held even if all votes from ballots accepted after the canvassing board’s determination had gone their way. But the count didn’t.




Richardson’s victory over Danko narrowed by three votes, with a 37-vote margin. Ruddy’s victory over Barrs was out of reach of a reversal, with a nearly 300-vote margin.

The closely-watched third race is the District 3 race for Palm Cost City Council. Andrew Werner won 34 percent and made it through to the runoff. Dana Stancel and Ray Stevens almost tied for second, with Stevens ahead of Stancel by just two votes. There was a reasonable possibility that even the small number of accepted provisional and referred ballots, after the board’s determination, would change the outcome.

It did not.

Stevens held on to a two-vote lead, with 6,191 votes to Stancel’s 6,189. Werner has 6,484.

In the Richardson-Danko race, Richardson had 7,587 votes to Danko’s 7,550.




The Canvassing Board did not find it necessary to single out the Ruddy-Barrs race for closer analysis, since it was out of reach of any possible change. Barrs, who had been in the room at the beginning of today’s meeting at 10 a.m., was gone by the time the new count was announced.

Will Furry, the school board chair, also left after the numbers were announced. Furry had compulsively endorsed Barrs and Vincent Sullivan in the school board races. His endorsements, which Barrs did not advertise while Sullivan did, likely hurt both candidates, though Furry appears to be tone-deaf about his dubious popularity.

Stancel and Stevens sat together throughout, at times consulting together outside the room. Stancel chuckled about Stevens maintaining his two-vote lead when all ballots were counted.

Richardson was also present, with Kim Carney, the former Flagler Beach city commissioner who won her County Commission race by 1,400 votes over Nick Klufas but turned out today to support Richardson. Richardson was alternately elated and overcome. She remained nervous and unwilling to declare herself the winner even after the provisional and referred ballots were examined, preferring to wait until the outcome of the afternoon’s recounts was in the books.



Danko was not there. Glimpsed at The Anchor having dinner with his companion and a friend from out of town Thursday evening, Danko continued to be in good spirits, saying he wasn’t going to be at the recount since he didn’t expect it to change outcomes

This morning, The board sat at one end of the table–Supervisor of Elections Katie Lenhart, County Judge Andrea Totten and County Commissioner Dave Sullivan, with County Commissioner Donald O’Brien also at the table but not actively taking part in the determinations. He is the alternate, and would step in if any of the board members needed to step out. Assistant County Attorney Sean Moylan was at the table, as were Palm Coast City Clerk Kaley Cook and her deputy, Alison Palmer, and Chris Nakabaale, the supervisor’s operations administrator.

The proceedings were on video, with an overhead camera positioned above the part of the table where the ballots were examined by the three board members. The video was close-circuited to an adjoining room, where members of the public and candidates wandered in and out.

It’s not over: there will be a 2 p.m. machine recount of all 27,000-some ballots cast, as required by law when races are within a margin of less than half a percent. That will take at least two hours.

“I expect the results to be exactly the same as we have certified here today,” Lenhart said.

A hand recount is then required if any races are at still less than a quarter-percent difference, after the machine recount. The Richardson-Danko race is at 0.24 percent difference. The Stevens-Stancel race’s margin is 0.01 percent.

But this is not a hand recount of all ballots: only the ballots that are classified as over-votes and under-votes will be hand counted. It’s still laborious.




There are 891 undervotes in the Richardson-Danko race, and 1,867 undervotes in the Stevens-Stancel race.

There are five over-votes in the Richardson-Danko race, and one in the Stevens-Stancel race.

An undervote is a ballot where the voter has not voted on the race in question: many voters leave races blank. They may not know anything about that race, they may be undecided, or uninterested. But some also make marks that the scanner doesn’t pick up, such as circling the name of a candidate instead of filling in the oval. That would count as an undervote. It will then be up to the Canvassing Board to determine the intent of the voter, and the validity of that particular vote.

Same thing with over-votes: a voter may have filled in two ovals instead of one, or made a cross mark or a checkmark instead of filling in the oval, or may have made a dot in one oval while filling in another, and so on. All those ballots are examined by the Canvassing Board. But the board’s determination are not entirely, or even mostly, subjective: there are standard operating procedures. Lenhart showed some of the candidates present the booklet that outlines the numerous ways voters may improperly fill in ballots, and what counts as a valid or an invalid vote. While there remains some subjectivity on the board’s part, it is limited.

All those ballots will not necessarily be examined one by one. Supervisor staff will sort the undervote ballots in three bins: “Undetermined,” “No definite choice,” and “definite choice.” Only the first two bins’ ballots will go the board. When all the ballots are sorted, there will typically be two or three dozen ballots, at most, that will go to the Canvassing Board for review.

“Basically if it’s not blank, it’s coming here,” Lenhart said, gesturing toward the Canvassing Board table.

Those may yet change the outcome of the Stevens-Stancel race. They are not reasonably likely to change the Richardson-Danko race, at least not if statistical laws still apply.

If when all is done, the Stevens-Stancel race is tied, Stancel and Stevens both move on to the general election in November, when that race will again be a three-way race between Stevens, Stancel and Warner. Whoever wins it by whatever margin is the winner, unless there’s a tie between the two leaders. Then, a coin toss will decide it.

The Canvassing Board adjourned until the afternoon session.