“The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is not actively investigating any matters related to Tuesday’s election, a department spokesperson said Friday, after it was informed by the Florida Department of State that there have been no allegations of criminal activity,” CNN reports.

“The announcement comes just one day after Florida Gov. Rick Scott — the Republican candidate for US Senate in the state — requested the state law enforcement agency investigate possible fraudulent activity in Broward and Palm Beach counties as his race against Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson appears headed for a recount.”

Nathaniel Rakich: “Unusually, the votes tabulated in Broward County so far exhibit a high rate of something called ‘undervoting,’ or not voting in all the races on the ballot. Countywide, 26,060 fewer votes were cast in the U.S. Senate race than in the governor race. Put another way, turnout in the Senate race was 3.7 percent lower than in the gubernatorial race.”

“Broward County’s undervote rate is way out of line with every other county in Florida, which exhibited, at most, a 0.8-percent difference… To put in perspective what an eye-popping number of undervotes that is, more Broward County residents voted for the down-ballot constitutional offices of chief financial officer and state agriculture commissioner than U.S. Senate — an extremely high-profile election in which $181 million was spent. Generally, the higher the elected office, the less likely voters are to skip it on their ballots.”

“Something sure does seem off in Broward County; we just don’t know what yet.”

The Tampa Bay Times outlines Sen. Bill Nelson’s (D-FL) path to victory as the race heads to a recount. Nelson trails by just 21,888 votes out of 8.2 million.

1. Not all the ballots have been counted yet in South Florida, a Democratic stronghold. As of Thursday morning, two voter-rich counties were still tabulating an unknown number of ballots.
2. Undervote in Senate race in Broward County. In Broward County, 695,799 people turned in ballots. But only 665,688 voted in the Senate race. That’s a 30,000 difference, a remarkable disparity given the stakes in this race and the name-recognition of these officials. It’s a degree of undervote that is non-existent in the other statewide races on the ballot.
3. Provisional ballots will break hard for Democrats. Voters who forgot identification or showed up at the wrong polling place cast a provisional ballot on Tuesday. In most counties, those ballots still need to be reviewed by the local canvassing board and counted toward the final tally.

Meanwhile, the Tampa Bay Times notes the race for governor is also now in recount range.

“Republican Gov. Rick Scott, claiming south Florida election officials are fraudulently mishandling ballots, ordered the state’s top law enforcement agency Thursday to investigate and filed a lawsuit demanding access to ballots narrowing his lead against Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson,” USA Today reports.

Said Scott: “I will not stand idly by while unethical liberals try to steal an election.”

Democrats have an “army of lawyers” working on the likely recount that will decide the winner of the Florida Senate race, USA Today reports.

“Fewer than 17,400 votes out of more than 8.1 million cast separated Republican challenger Gov. Rick Scott over Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson as of Thursday afternoon. That’s inside the 0.25 point margin that dictates a hand recount of ballots that showed either no vote or more than one vote cast in the Senate race.”

A recount will be conducted in Florida’s hard-fought U.S. Senate race after challenger Rick Scott’s (R) lead over Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) fell below the threshold of half of one percent, the Gainesville Sun reports.

Said Nelson: “We are proceeding to a recount.”