TAMPA, Fla. — The canvassing board met on Thursday night on the Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections Office.
The board introduced a recount for the millage tax improve referendum.
The referendum would help Hillsborough County Public Schools. District leaders mentioned the extra cash would pay for wage will increase to assist retain and recruit lecturers. It would additionally develop artwork, music and P.E.
On main evening, voters struck down the referendum that might improve property taxes, however solely by a slim margin. State legislation mentioned a recount is triggered if the measure is defeated by 0.5% or much less of the entire votes solid.
“In Florida, you can’t request a recount, you can’t pay for a recount. It’s in state law what triggers a recount so we will now put these 228,800 ballots back through our machines and we will count them one more time. We’ve already counted them twice,” mentioned Craig Latimer, Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections.
The most up-to-date numbers present 110, 485 folks voted “yes” to the referendum and 111,976 voted “no.” The canvassing board appeared over provisional ballots on Thursday night. They additionally reviewed some mail-in-ballots with signature points. Some ballots have been accepted, whereas others have been rejected.
“The biggest reason for the rejected is that people are not a registered voter, but they insist on casting a ballot or they may have registered to vote after that 29 day book closing time,” mentioned Latimer.
A recount will occur on Friday at 10 a.m. Results are anticipated over the weekend.
“If it goes below .25 after we conclude with the recount which will probably be Saturday, then we’ll look at the numbers again. The canvassing board will make a decision whether there needs to be a manual recount or not,” added Latimer.
If a person’s poll just isn’t counted for any purpose, the Supervisor of Elections Office notifies them by mail.
“The canvassing board is the final decision maker,” mentioned Latimer.