Florida Numbers - How many absentee and provisional votes counted?

[soup]

On November 3, 2004, the St Petersburg Times had the following numbers for Florida (according to a nationwide roll-over map graphic):

** 3,955,656 52%
Kerry 3,574,509 47%

and listed by individual state below the graphic, Florida had these numbers with 99% reporting:

** 3,953,263
Kerry 3,571,766

http://www.sptimes.com/election/

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Today, November 15th, I read this:

>The canvassing commission officially certified the results of every state election, from the White House and U.S. Senate campaigns to the circuit judgeships and adoption or rejection of eight constitutional amendments. But Hood only read the numbers for the presidential race - 3,964,522 for President Bush, 3,583,544 for Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.<
http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/news/local/10183593.htm

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** 3,964,522
Kerry 3,583,544

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So, between November 3rd and November 15th the gain in the total reported for Florida was:

according to map graphic:
** +8,866
Kerry +9,035

and according to individual state total listed below graphic:

** +11,259
Kerry +11,778

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In the meantime, an article from November 3rd on the Miami-Dade absentee count includes the following:

>Miami-Dade initially only had three machines equipped to handle tabulation of approximately 97,000 absentee ballots.<

>Elections officials already counted about 41,000 ballots as of Wednesday, and another 56,000 absentee ballots need to be counted, Fernandez said.<

>Several counties resumed counting absentee ballots Wednesday. State officials said Broward County had 7,000 absentee and provisional ballots left to review, and Palm Beach County had about 30,000 of its approximately 70,000 absentee ballots remaining.

Lee County also needed to count an undetermined number of ballots.

Also Wednesday, only hours after President Bush was declared the winner in Florida, a court battle was under way on absentee ballots that were mailed late in two counties.<
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/elections/sfl-113mdabsentees,0,2363058.story?coll=sfla-news-election

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Maybe I should cite more than just that one article - or maybe someone else could (I'm getting a headache).

I don't know how the court battle on the absentee ballots that were mailed late turned out. I do know that the numbers of uncounted absentee ballots presented in the Sun-Sentinel article cited above - for just Miami-Dade and Palm Beach Counties alone - add up to one whole hell of a lot more than the total gain between 11/03 and 11/14.

OK, so I decided to check out the 'Official Results', because
1. the numbers are making my head explode because they just don't add up
2. don't want to be some kind of rumor-mongererererer (somebody stop me)
3. and - well, 'Official' sounds just so much more 'Official'

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So here we go

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The Florida Department of Elections has the following numbers:

First Set of Unofficial Returns Certified 11/04/04:

** 3,953,309
Kerry 3,572,099

PDF document:
http://election.dos.state.fl.us/pdf/canvassing1.pdf

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Now showing these numbers certified 11/14/04:

** 3,964,522
Kerry 3,583,544
http://enight.dos.state.fl.us/

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Which, Officially, gives us the following gains:

** +11,213
Kerry +11,445

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I live in Florida, and it's been a very long time since I've taken a math class, so maybe I'm missing something here. But I'm thinking these numbers just do not add up to bucketfuls of absentee ballots being added to the results.

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>Things were so routine Sunday that the canvassing board members who voted, Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher and Agriculture Commissioner Charlie Bronson, called in from home with their approval.

The third member, Attorney General Charlie Crist, didn't take part. Only two votes were needed.<
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FLORIDA_ELECTION?SITE=FLPET&SECTION=POLITICS&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

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The officials say, "Ho-hum. so routine. Crist didn't even bother to phone in."

soup asks - "How cool is it that Kerry seems to have gained more through absentee ballots than **?" and jumps quickly to "What the hell is going on here?"

so, can anyone throw me some numbers to help me make sense of this?

[MrUnderhill]

1. I think only overseas absentees get added in post-election.

The rest have to sow up by election day and are included in the first figures. Overseas absentee ballots can come in up to seven (ten?) days later and make the final count.

The provisional ballots would not be counted unless a particular race was close enough for them to make a difference.

[soup]

2. Provisional ballot count

Forgive me for saying so, but I believe you are incorrect about counting of provisional ballots only if the results are close:

Hillsborough County:

>The board examined close to 1,000 absentee and provisional ballots, which were then hurriedly tabulated so Johnson could meet a noon deadline to file an initial report of unofficial general election results with the Florida Division of Elections. The board has until Nov. 12 to complete its job, with more than 1,300 absentee and provisional ballots, as well as hundreds of overseas ballots yet to be reviewed.<

Pinellas County:

>The Pinellas County Canvassing Board went through the same routine Thursday, examining 740 provisional ballots, rejecting 627 and accepting 113. The most common reason for turning down a provisional vote was that the person was not registered. That was the case for 280 ballots, with another 81 rejected because the voter was registered elsewhere.<
http://www.sptimes.com/2004/11/05/Hillsborough/Nearly_500_provisiona.shtml

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Regarding your other point about overseas absentee ballots, do you (or anyone) know where I could find a number on the total of those ballots that were sent/returned for Florida?

Thanks for your response, MrUnderhill, and welcome to DU! :hi:

[MrUnderhill]

3. No offense taken... and thanks for the welcome!

Could those counties have local races where the preliminary results are closer than the number of provisional ballots?

But I could be wrong. I know about the federal law that created them on a national level... and I know how Ohio inplemented that law... but I don't know about Florida's rules. Maybe they DO count them all. I read that in the primary, 40%+ of them were disallowed (largely in a few counties). I can't imagine they would have that statistic if they weren't included.

[stella2cat]

4. anyone know FL undervote counts yet?

it would be interesting to compare them to the 2002 undervotes
see http://election.dos.state.fl.us/reports/pdf/03OverUnderVotes.pdf

[newyawker99]

6. Hi stella2cat!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[stella2cat]

7. thanks for the welcome

I finally overcame my paranoia and became a member....this site has kept me sane for the last 2 wks. I've been crunching numbers left and right, trying to figure out how I can help in a real way.

[Eloriel]

5. Also see this thread

FL Dept of State has changed the Election Results Again!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=50961&mesg_id=50961