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Recount could loom as Darryl Rouson holds on to slim win in Senate District 19

 
State Rep. Darryl Rouson spent Tuesday afternoon at his campaign office calling voters in precincts with low turnout, encouraging them to vote in the primary. Rouson holds a 76-vote lead over state Rep. Ed Narain of Tampa in the Democratic primary for Senate District 19. A recount may loom. [CAITLIN JOHNSTON   |   Times]
State Rep. Darryl Rouson spent Tuesday afternoon at his campaign office calling voters in precincts with low turnout, encouraging them to vote in the primary. Rouson holds a 76-vote lead over state Rep. Ed Narain of Tampa in the Democratic primary for Senate District 19. A recount may loom. [CAITLIN JOHNSTON | Times]
Published Sept. 1, 2016

With just 76 votes separating the two leading candidates in the state Senate District 19 Democratic primary, it's easy to fall down a rabbit hole of hypotheticals.

Analysts are looking into anything that could have swung such a closely contested race: traffic, rain, rejected ballots.

And it appears several of those factors lined up in favor of state Rep. Darryl Rouson on Tuesday night.

A day after the primary, the St. Petersburg legislator led state Rep. Ed Narain of Tampa by a slim margin in the race to replace departing state Sen. Arthenia Joyner in the Florida Senate. That's a margin of just 0.2 percent, which is likely to trigger a recount.

More than 37,000 people voted in a district that spans Hillsborough and Pinellas counties on Tuesday. Rouson's 76-vote lead was still unofficial as of Wednesday and doesn't include 27 provisional ballots. Those, which include anywhere a voter did not show a photo ID or whose name was not on the electoral roll for that precinct, will be reviewed today.

They also don't include at least 35 vote-by-mail ballots that were rejected because they either didn't have a signature or that signature didn't match the one on file.

There are other factors that also could have tipped the scales for Rouson and against Narain.

While Narain, former Rep. Betty Reed and lawyer Augie Ribeiro were shaking hands at polling places across the district Tuesday, Rouson was holed up in his campaign office in downtown St. Petersburg methodically calling voters from precincts with low voter turnout.

"This is your neighbor Darryl Rouson," he told one voter, before launching into an explanation of why it was important to vote Tuesday. He estimated that he and his volunteers made several hundred calls the afternoon of the primary.

Rouson said Wednesday that he didn't want to discuss what may or may not happen with the recount, but he said he does think those calls made a difference.

"Our research tells us that by the time a person gets to the polls, the overwhelming majority of them have made up their mind," Rouson said. "Our approach was to get them there and to talk to them before they got there."

The weather may have been another factor. While Rouson was making calls Tuesday, storm clouds rolled into Tampa Bay. Only sprinkles fell through the district in Pinellas, while parts of Hillsborough got up to 2 inches of rain before polls closed at 7 p.m.

"Weather is always a factor with turnout," said Jason Latimer, spokesman for the Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections Office.

Presumably, any bad weather in Tampa would have cost Narain votes in his home turf. But he wasn't ready to blame the weather for falling a few votes short.

"I'm not going to attribute 76 votes to just the rain," Narain said. "I think all of it does play in a little bit, but either way, you're still looking at a small percentage of votes determining the outcome."

That percentage — just one fifth of 1 percent — means a recount is likely for the district. Recounts in Florida are triggered any time a candidate leads by a margin within one-half of 1 percent, a range this race clearly falls into.

It also means it's going to be a long week — or weeks — for Rouson and Narain.

The supervisors of election in Pinellas and Hillsborough will oversee canvassing boards that will review provisional ballots.

Hillsborough will review about 100 provisional ballots at 11 a.m. today, and Pinellas will review 43 provisional ballots at 3 p.m. But only 27 of those ballots were cast by Democrats in Senate District 19.

If the margin is still less than half of a percent once both counties file their results with the state, then it's up to Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner to order a machine recount of all the ballots.

If the candidates are separated by less than a quarter of 1 percent after that recount, a manual recount is required of all overvotes and undervotes — that is, every paper ballot in which an optical machine recorded a voter as having voted for more than one candidate or for no candidates.

The canvassing boards also will review provisional ballots cast in the race, and their decisions are subject to challenge in circuit court, which could delay the result for a long time.

Contact Caitlin Johnston at cjohnston@tampabay.com or (727) 893-8779. Follow @cljohnst.