Nelson Asks Federal Court To Throw Out Recount Deadlines

U.S. D-Florida Sen. Bill Nelson is asking a federal court to throw out the state's midterm election recount deadlines, arguing that there isn't enough time to count all the votes.

Nelson's lawsuit, filed Tuesday, seeks injunctive relief to extend the state-mandated deadlines for both the machine and manual recounts.

The deadline for the machine recount is 3 p.m. Thursday. The deadline for the manual recount is noon Sunday.

"Given the extraordinarily compressed deadlines for completing a recount and the large number of races currently subject to machine recount, local elections officials are faced with a difficult task," the lawsuit said.

Under Florida law, if any counties fail to complete a recount by the deadline, the state reverts back to previously reported results.

Unofficial results have Nelson currently trailing Republican challenger Gov. Rick Scott for his Senate seat by 0.14 percentage points.

Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner on Saturday ordered a statewide recount in the Senate race, as well as for governor and agriculture commissioner. 

State law requires a recount for races in which the margin is less than 0.5 percentage points.


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