Ed Morrissey’s post on the Florida recounts should become required reading. As Ed highlights in his posts, changing the outcome of statewide races is virtually impossible.

In his post, Ed highlights the fact that “According to an analysis by the nonpartisan group FairVote, which advocates for electoral reforms that make it easier to vote, out of 4,687 statewide elections between 2000 and 2016, just 26 went to a recount. Of those 26, just three recounts wound up changing the initial result of the race: The 2004 Washington governor’s race, the 2006 Vermont state auditor’s race and the 2008 Minnesota U.S. Senate race.”

While I don’t have statistics on recounts of legislative races, the odds aren’t high. I have experience with legislative recounts. It isn’t extensive but it’s something. In 2008, I was part of a team working on the recount of a state senate race. In that race, with over 35,000 votes cast, the margin of victory was reduced by 1 vote. In 2010, my state legislator won by 13 votes. That margin didn’t change.

The only way to change the victor is to illegitimately expand the universe of ballots to be counted. Once the Broward County judge ordered the reports published, the Senate recount essentially ended. Based on the reporting, it looked like Marc Elias, Sen. Bill Nelson’s recount attorney, tried doing exactly that. That’s why Rick Scott’s decision to file a pair of lawsuits last week was so important.

Gov. Scott didn’t hesitate like Norm Coleman did in 2008. The importance of those lawsuits, which required Broward County elections supervisor Brenda Snipes to hand over the vote totals reports to authorities, determined how many ballots had been cast. That eliminated the possibility of ‘finding’ additional ballots. Once those reports became public, Bill Nelson and, especially, Andrew Gillum, were sunk.

This video explains why Floridians will be significantly better off after Gov. Scott officially becomes Sen. Scott:

Sen. Nelson hasn’t done much legislatively to help Floridians in his time in the Senate. Good riddance. BTW, now that he’s lost the governor’s race, Andrew Gillum will have more time to meet with defense attorneys in his potential corruption trial.

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