Results in this week’s US elections hung in the balance on Thursday, two days after polling, with accusations flying of voter fraud and corruption, as several races appeared headed for recounts.
The Republican challenger in Florida’s closely fought US Senate seat said he was suing two election officials as his apparent lead in the contest narrowed.
“The people of Florida deserve fairness and transparency,” Rick Scott told reporters. “Every Floridian should be concerned, there may be rampant fraud happening in Palm Beach and Broward counties.”
Scott, who is the state’s sitting governor, said he was ordering an official investigation into his own race.
The announcement prompted a tweet from US President Donald Trump alleging a “big corruption scandal,” while US Senator Marco Rubio accused Democrats of a coordinated effort to “steal the election.”
Both Scott’s race for the Senate — against Democrat incumbent Bill Nelson — and the state’s governor election appeared headed for mandatory recounts.
Polls closed on Tuesday in the midterm elections, which saw Democrats seize control of the US House of Representatives, while Republicans maintained their grip on the Senate.
Scott’s lawsuits alleged a lack of transparency over the counting process and asked that further details be made public, as his lead shrank to about 15,000 votes.
“Law Enforcement is looking into another big corruption scandal having to do with Election Fraud in #Broward and Palm Beach,” Trump tweeted.
“Florida voted for Rick Scott!” he wrote.
Unusual voting discrepancies were reported in Broward County.
The South Florida Sun Sentinel said it analyzed voting patterns and found that of Broward ballots already counted, 24,700 residents voted for a governor candidate, but did not pick a candidate for the Senate.
The pattern appeared in no other Florida county, the newspaper reported.
Meanwhile, in governors’ races, Andrew Gillum in Florida and Stacey Abrams in Georgia saw the contests tilt in favor of their Republican rivals.
Unofficial results showed Gillum trailing Republican Ron DeSantis by 38,515 votes out of 8.1 million cast, or 0.47 percentage points, while Abrams was threatening legal action to ensure all votes were counted in her contest.
Since the election, “it has become clear there are many more uncounted ballots than was originally reported,” Gillum spokeswoman Johanna Cervone said, amid reports that ballots had yet to be counted in Broward County.
Gillum is “ready for any outcome, including a state-mandated recount,” she said.
State law says a recount is mandatory if the difference in a race is within 0.5 percent. If the margin is within 0.25 percent, as it stood on Thursday in the Senate race, a hand recount — slower and more thorough than by machine — is ordered.
Another Senate race in southwestern Arizona that was previously called in favor of a Republican candidate was tilting toward the Democrat on Thursday night, official results showed.
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