The Florida Division of Elections will not be calling for a recount in the Special Election for Senate District 14, a decision that had been limbo amid a vote difference between the winning candidate, Democrat Brian Nathan, and trailing Republican, Josie Tomkow.
The notice was sent to the Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections Friday afternoon.
“The percentages on the Florida Election Watch website are rounded, giving the appearance of exactly .5% difference between 49.75% (Tomkow) and 50.25% (Nathan). The election results software that the Division has always used for calculating recounts does not round numbers,” Assistant Director of the Division of Elections under the Florida Department of State Amber Marconnet wrote in the email, emphasis hers.
Whether there would be a recount had been unclear. Florida law governing mandatory recounts requires a machine recount when the vote margin is at or below a half-percentage point.
As Marconnet noted, the vote appeared to meet that threshold based on percentages in unofficial results that rounded to the nearest hundredth decimal. But if you look beyond the hundredths decimal, the difference is actually more than half a percentage point, at 0.5058.
According to the Division of Elections, a recount would have been triggered had the raw vote difference between Nathan and Tomkow been at 400 votes or fewer. After the first unofficial results were certified, Nathan led Tomkow by 405 votes, exceeding the threshold for a mandatory machine recount.
Next, the Canvassing Board is set to certify official results and conduct a post-election audit verifying results on April 6.
Tomkow conceded the election on Tuesday, but in doing so announced she will be running again this year in the regular election for the district, where she will again face Nathan.
