(Bloomberg) -- The deadline for Florida to recount ballots will remain at 3 p.m. on Thursday, a federal judge ruled, in a blow to Democratic Senator Bill Nelson as he fights to retain his seat.
U.S. District Judge Mark Walker in Tallahassee issued his order shortly before the deadline to complete a machine recount that has captured the nation’s attention. Nelson has sued to get all of the ballots counted unless the state could prove they were invalid. He trails Republican Governor Rick Scott by about 12,600 votes out of 8.2 million cast.
Walker said it’s not fair to treat voters differently based on the county they live in but that he can’t grant an injunction Nelson sought because he doesn’t have enough information.
"There is a complete dearth of evidence before this court concerning the status, progress or expected completion of the ordered recounts in Palm Beach County,” he said. "This court does not and will not fashion a remedy in the dark."
In a separate case, Walker ruled earlier on Thursday that the state’s law for handling ballots with mismatched signatures was applied unconstitutionally and ordered the state to give voters two more days to prove their identity and ensure their votes are included. He told Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner to give voters whose mail-in or provisional ballots were rejected until 5 p.m. on Nov. 17 to “cure” any deficiencies in their signatures.
(Updates with judge’s reasoning.)
To contact the reporter on this story: Erik Larson in New York at elarson4@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Peter Jeffrey
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