The totals Seminole County posts Tuesday night are the start of the count, not the end of it. Under Florida law and the schedule published by the Seminole County Supervisor of Elections Office, results arrive in stages over the following 10 days, and an audit follows that.
Before polls close
Florida lets a county canvassing board begin processing mail ballots once its voting equipment has passed a public test. Seminole ran that logic and accuracy test Oct. 9 at the elections office on East Airport Boulevard in Sanford, feeding pre-marked ballots through its precinct and early voting tabulators, central count scanners and ballot-marking devices to confirm the machines produced the expected totals.
The board began canvassing mail ballots the same day and has sessions on its calendar for 9 a.m. Sunday and Monday.
No results may be released until polls close at 7 p.m. Tuesday. A domestic mail ballot has to reach the supervisor's office by then to count; a postmark is not enough.
Election night
State law gives the supervisor 30 minutes after polls close to report all early votes and tabulated mail ballots to the Florida Department of State. Precinct results then have to be updated at least once every 45 minutes until they are all in. Provisional ballots are not part of those updates.
Seminole posts its returns on the Live Results page at voteseminole.gov, and statewide numbers appear on the Division of Elections site.
The next 10 days
A voter whose mail ballot was set aside for a missing or mismatched signature has until 5 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 5, to file a cure affidavit. Voters who cast provisional ballots have the same deadline to give the supervisor written proof that they were eligible.
The canvassing board meets at 4 p.m. that Thursday to handle provisional ballots and cures and to issue a second set of unofficial results.
Counties must send unofficial returns for federal, state and multicounty races to the state by noon on the fourth day after the election, under state law.
Ballots from overseas voters still count if they are postmarked or dated by Election Day and arrive within 10 days. Seminole's calendar sets overseas ballots and official results for 3 p.m. Friday, Nov. 13. State law requires county returns to be filed by noon on the 13th day after the general election.
When a race is close
If unofficial returns show a race decided by half a percentage point or less, Florida law orders a machine recount.
If the second unofficial returns show a margin of a quarter point or less, the law calls for a hand review of overvotes and undervotes across that race, unless the trailing candidate declines in writing or there are too few such ballots to change the result.
The secretary of state orders recounts in federal, state and multicounty races; local races are handled by the county board.
