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State Will Recount Votes In Carey-Catlin Judicial Election

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By THOMAS W.  KRAUSE | The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 27, 2008

Updated: 08/27/2008 11:05 am

TAMPA - State officials are expected to call for a recount in the circuit judge election between sitting judge Kevin Carey and challenger Catherine Catlin.

When the votes were tabulated, shortly after 1:30 a.m. today, Carey had lost to Catlin by 0.46 percent. Out of 61,123 votes cast, the difference was 277 votes.

Jennifer Davis, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of State, said a state law dictates that any election closer than half of 1 percent sparks an automatic machine recount.

After that, if the vote disparity is closer than one-quarter of 1 percent, a manual inspection of "overcount" and "undercount" ballots will be ordered. Those are ballots the voting machine did not read because more than one candidate or no candidate was chosen in that race. A manual inspection will help determine whether any of those ballots should be counted.

Hillsborough County Judge James Dominguez, the chairman of the county election canvassing board, said elections officials will begin tabulating provisional ballots Thursday. Provisional ballots were submitted by people who were not on the voter rolls at the precincts but were allowed to cast a ballot anyway. Any of the provisional ballots that are deemed valid will be added to the vote count, Dominguez said. He was unsure how many provisional ballots were cast in Tuesday's election.

Davis said the state will receive the vote count from Hillsborough County by noon Friday. At 5 p.m. Friday, Davis said, the state Election Canvassing Commission will meet to order recounts.

The recount must be completed by 3 p.m. Sunday. Dominguez said the recount will take place in Hillsborough County on Saturday.

The candidate with the fewer votes can stop the process if he or she chooses, Davis said.

"Judge Carey is going to allow the recall process to play out, and we will honor the results," said Carey's campaign manager, Tom Scarritt.

Catlin said, as the votes were coming in, she realized it was going to be close.

"I've lived here for over 20 years, and this is the closest race I can remember," she said today. "I'd like to believe the machines worked and the recount is not going to change the final tally by much."

Reporter Thomas W. Krause can be reached at (813) 259-7698 or tkrause@tampatrib.com.

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