Andrew Gillum back in the race as deficit narrows, calls for ‘every single vote’ to be counted

“Let me say clearly: I am replacing my words of concession with an uncompromised and unapologetic call that we count every single vote,” Gillum said at a news conference Saturday.

 

On Tuesday night, even as there were still thousands of votes outstanding, Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum was told that his best bet was to concede defeat to Ron DeSantis. It’s funny what can happen in five days.

Since late Tuesday night, the gap between Gillum and DeSantis has narrowed to 0.41 percent, which triggered an automatic statewide machine recount. On Saturday, Gillum withdrew his concession.

READ MORE: Andrew Gillum campaign keeps eye on Florida election totals for possible recount in governor’s race

“Let me say clearly: I am replacing my words of concession with an uncompromised and unapologetic call that we count every single vote,” Gillum said at a news conference Saturday. “And I say this recognizing that my fate in this may or may not change.”

Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner officially announced that the results would be recounted. Concession speeches are often a courtesy given to opponents, but they are often not legally binding.

Florida law requires a machine recount in races where unofficial results show a margin of 0.5 percentage point or less. If the margin is 0.25 points or less, the ballots will be recounted manually.

Results in the Florida Senate race between Republican Gov. Rick Scott and Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson have narrowed to a margin of just 0.15, setting up a manual recount.

In what has become a typical move by Republicans, as the vote gap narrowed, Republicans – including Scott – have started to allege make claims of “rampant fraud.” Scott even called the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate the recount in Broward and Palm Beach counties.

READ MORE: Bernie Sanders says white people who ‘aren’t necessarily racist’ felt uncomfortable voting for Andrew Gillum and Stacey Abrams and Black Twitter is not pleased

Republican Sen. Marco Rubio and Donald Trump, seemingly not understanding how recounts work, also joined in with unfounded claims of voter fraud. Trump even suggested that there would be federal intervention in the state’s recount.

Gillum wasn’t hearing any of it, pointing out that you don’t get to arbitrarily stop the count.

“We don’t get the opportunity to stop counting votes because we don’t like the direction in which the vote tally is headed,” Gillum said Saturday. “That is not democratic and certainly is not the American way. In America, we count every vote regardless of what the outcome may be.”

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