A machine recount is set to begin Monday in the race for Florida’s 27th Congressional District. Republican Maria Elvira Salazar leads Democrat Eliott Rodriguez by just over 1,100 votes.
According to Local 10, Salazar’s lead on Friday evening was 1,103 votes, or 0.44 percentage points. Right after the election, the margin was slightly larger: 1,116 votes, or 0.46 points. In both cases, the result falls within the 0.5-percentage-point threshold that triggers an automatic machine recount in Florida.
Rodriguez, a former television journalist, said after the election that he would not accept the result until the recount is complete. Salazar has served three terms in Congress. She called her lead “impossible to make up.”
On Friday, Rodriguez filed a lawsuit in federal court. In it, he demands that Alina García be removed from the work of the Miami-Dade County canvassing board. García has been the county’s supervisor of elections since 2024. The lawsuit points to a conflict of interest: Robert Fernandez, the attorney representing Salazar during the recount, is García’s son-in-law.
García, a registered Republican, refused to recuse herself. She told reporters that she is not the one counting the votes and assured them that the process is open to the public. On social media, Salazar accused Rodriguez of behaving like an election denier and of trying to turn the process into a political circus.
If the margin falls to 0.25 percentage points or less after the machine recount, state law also provides for a manual recount of disputed ballots. The recount results will decide whether Salazar keeps her seat or Rodriguez wins it. One Local 10 report said the recount would begin Monday or Tuesday morning.
Source: Local 10
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Source: Słoneczne Radio
