JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- The day after an election is a busy one for elections offices everywhere.
In Duval County, sorting and counting is the name of the game. "We will be going through those absentee ballots and provisionals and that will probably take us at least 12-14 hours to conclude that," says Duval County Supervisor of Elections Jerry Holland.
And for Florida as a whole, the work of counting ballots is far from over. Unlike other swing states like Ohio and Virginia, it's taken quite a while to sort through ballots in the Sunshine State. Holland says this is because the ballots, state-wide, are so long. In Duval County it was a four-page ballot, and in Southern Florida it was a whopping 10 pages.
The numbers have come through showing a .56% lead for Obama in Florida, which is dangerously close to a recount. "In order to do a recount, you must be within a half a percent. So we're not there yet. If we were within a half percent then the question is would the state be required to do that," says Holland.
He says there are a few options to avoid a recount. First, a candidate who has conceded, can say they don't want a recount done. And the state can also make that call.
And what would this mean price wise for the taxpayer? "It's probably close to $1 million dollars if not a little more than that," says Holland. $150,000 for Duval County alone."
But in this case would a recount really change the outcome of this presidential election? "Typically they don't because of the accuracy of the machines are pretty good. They can, that's why they do recounts, but the likelihood is unlikely," says Holland.
Holland says today, they still have 7,000 provisional and 2,000 absentee ballots left to count.
