With seven candidates vying to replace outgoing District 3 County Councilman Jack Hayman, Joie Alexander's finish at the top of the pack was not a surprise. The four who have already been eliminated, Ellen Darden of New Smyrna Beach, Bil Benedict of Samsula, Roger Gray of New Smyrna Beach and John D'Hondt of Port Orange, worked very hard and ran with class and distinction. With a weekend ballot recount of the second and third place finishers, George Trovato and Deborah Denys, respectively separated by less than one-half of 1 percent, Trovato appears to be in the driver's seat.
As the term-limited County Council at-large candidate, Alexender, in essence is the defacto incumbent with strong name recognition. Logic dictates that even if Trovato prevails, his will be an extremely uphill battle since Alexander already beat him by a 2-1 margin head to head. Both are Port Orange residents and Alexander has a strong and credible record in county politics. Other than a brief stint as cty attorney of Deltona, Trovato will be on a maiden voyage, assuming he gets past Denys.
In the other race where a recount is under way, that of county judge, Robert Sanders Jr. of Ormond Beach, holds a slim 53-vote lead over 19-year incumbent Mary Jane Henderson in Tuesday's primary after a review of provisional ballots trimmed the criminal defense attorney's lead from 74 votes on primary night.
With provisional balloting out of the way, a machine count will get under way today with 10,261 "under" ballots to be rescanned.
While the county council race will surely go to a runoff, the county judicial will be settled one way or another in the next 24-48 hours, depending on whether the Canvassing Board has to inspect 10,261 "under ballots" where it appeared on the surface that that many voters didn't select either of them on primary night or during early voting.
Here's how this race got to this point, strictly by the numbers.
There were 77,448 total voters, including early voting and absentee ballot submissions. There were 33,618 for Sanders and 33,565 for Henderson with the challenger ahead by 74 votes with all precincts reporting.
With 100 provisional ballots reveiwed, meaning there was something suspect about them, 22 were rejected and the other 78 added to the mix with Henderson picking up 39 of them and Sanders, 28.
That brought Sanders lead down to 53. A machine recount today will determine if the nuumbers add up properly and if there is no appreciable difference, then the next step would be a manual count of 10,261 "under votes" meaning that many voters appeared not to vote for either of them.
So it looks like the judicial race could be decided in the next 24 to 72 hours.
Stranger things have beened in Florida elections as witnessed by Bush-Gore presidential election and the Beckstrom-Vogel sheriff's race of a decade ago with the incumbent, Bob Vogel prevailing over Gus Beckstrom that sent through the courts.
Conceivably, the judicial race could end in a tie, though highly unlikely, which would be settled by a coin toss.
Heads or tails? You call it.
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