LJ Idol Presents:

Happy Florida Recount Results Eve! Probably. Maybe.

There's a court order saying that they need to be extended. But who knows what appeal might overturn that this afternoon. It's a rollercoaster, with an unprecedented 3 statewide races and several county-wide races (in some areas) going to the automatic recount for the first time since 2000. (when there wasn't a system in place for this, so really this is the first time the system has ever been tested and as a result, the cracks are showing where the machines in place aren't what they should be)

The Commissioner of Agriculture race is almost certainly going to a manual recount (where the overcount and undercount ballots are examined) and it's likely that the Senate race might head that way as well.

(Agriculture being the only race where I think this recount is actually going to end up changing the unofficial results)

Overcount ballots are strange to me - where people mark more than one selection on the ballot or where there is a stray mark. You know - when you say "fill in the oval" and someone decides to circle the name of the candidate instead.

Undercounts are the ones that make me a little mad - because again, they aren't processed until there is a manual recount. What are undercounts? Where the number of filled in ovals doesn't match the number of questions on a ballot.

So if you decide "I don't know anything about this Water Conservation District, I'm going to skip it", that's an undervote, and it goes into a separate pile. Sometimes it's an "I'm going to skip it" and other times the ballot is just set up in such a way that the specific race isn't easy to see.

Voting is complicated, and messy.

There's also a complicated and messy vote recount happening HERE as well - one of our own is going to be leaving this today: https://therealljidol.dreamwidth.org/1012013.html it's complicated because all of them are good. It's messy because who wants to lose any of them? But it's going to happen. Because that's what happens when you vote.

Decisions get made. And they get made by the people who show up to make them.

So if you have an opinion - and you *should* - you need to get to the poll! If you don't, then you should get to the poll anyway and read some cool entries. There are only 4. You can read 4 entries today. None of them are very long! Stop being a slacker.

***

With the offer I put out yesterday - the question was (kind of) asked - "Does Gary read everything?" The answer is when things are posted and I have a few minutes, I read them to keep up-to-date and because I like getting a preview of what is going to be coming out of you guys this week. That continues until maybe the day before the poll. The day of the poll I skim-read everything as I'm putting everything up to make sure they are actually entries. :D During the voting period I get back to reading anything I might have missed. The last day I read what's on the bottom again, to refresh my memory and see if I can figure out what isn't connecting with the voters. "

That said, when people ask me about a specific piece, it's better to send me a link - because I have over a decade of entries rolling around in my head, and they all start looking alike to me after awhile. :D