A razor thin victory Tuesday by Genece Minshew over incumbent Vice Mayor David Sturges now hinges on a count of provisional ballots and cure affidavits by the Nassau County Supervisor of Elections office.
Minshew won the City Commission Seat 2 race by just 19 votes out of 9,235 votes, cast a margin of just 0.2%.
Supervisor of Elections Janet Adkins said state statues mandate a recount of all votes if the margin of victory is .5% or lower. Not included in the final vote tally are 231 provisional ballots and cure affidavits, but not all of those ballots are from city voters. Adkins said her office is beginning to inspect those ballots to determine how many were cast by Fernandina Beach voters.
"We (the Canvassing Board) will be meeting at 4 p.m. Thursday to deal with cure affidavits and provisional ballots," Adkins said. "We don't know the number of ballots in the city that need cures, but we will determine that."
A cure affidavit is a document used by the elections office to address issues with a voter's ballot that might otherwise cause it to be rejected. In Nassau County, voters can "cure" a ballot if it has been flagged for a problem, such as missing a signature or if the signature doesn't match what is on file.
If a voter's mail-in or absentee ballot is deemed invalid due to such issues, Adkins said the voter is notified and given the opportunity to "cure" the ballot by submitting an affidavit or additional documentation to resolve the discrepancy. The affidavit typically includes a statement from the voter explaining or confirming their identity, along with the required corrective action (e.g., a valid signature, proof of ID).
"They give me a copy of their I.D. and verify the signature on the affidavit with the signature on the I.D. to make sure it's the signature on the ballot," Adkins said. "We'll also deal with the provisional ballots."
The deadline for a voter to validate their cure affidavit is 5 p.m. Thursday. Adkins said one problem is that the elections office needs the voters' telephone number to contact them.
"Obviously, if we send them a letter, they won't get them before the deadline," she said.
Adkins said provisional ballots are used in situations where there are questions about a voter's eligibility or where their registration status cannot be immediately verified at the polling place. This can happen for various reasons, such as if a voter’s name does not appear on the voter rolls, if there is a discrepancy with identification, or if a voter goes to the wrong polling location.
Following the election, Nassau County election officials will review the provisional ballots to verify the voter’s eligibility. If the ballot is confirmed to be valid, it will be counted; if not, it will be rejected. Provisional ballots ensure that individuals who are eligible to vote have the opportunity to cast a ballot, even if there are issues with their registration or other circumstances on Election Day.
Adkins said her office has been contacted by the Sturges campaign.
"They've asked questions about trying to figure out how many outstanding votes are left to be counted and is there 19," she said. "I don't know the answer to that. I've got to first find these provisional ballots and run through them and figure how many of them are actually in the city."
Once the provisional ballots and cure affidavits are resolved the recount of recorded votes will begin.
"So, we'll be doing the research today and tomorrow and presenting our findings to the Canvassing Board tomorrow (Thursday) at 4 p.m.," Adkins said.
On Friday, Adkins said her staff will begin sorting through the 66,142 ballots cast in Nassau County and retrieve 9,869 of those ballots by Fernandina voters.
"Because during early voting, people could go to any location (in the county) we'll have to go through every single early ballot to pull out precincts 11.1, 12.1 and 13.1. And the same thing for the vote by mail ballots," Adkins said.
On Tuesday, Adkins said the ballots would be recounted with the elections office tabulating equipment.
"The hardest part is finding and extracting (city ballots) finding the needle in the haystack. We have to first find those 9,000 (plus) ballots," Adkins said.
The final tabulations will be reviewed and be unofficially certified for a second time by the elections Canvassing Board comprised of Nassau County Judge Higginbotham, Nassau County Commissioner A.M. “Hupp” Huppmann, and former Fernandina Police Chief James Hurley.
Final certification by the Canvassing Board of the city election will take place on Nov. 15.
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