Nearly a month after Donald Trump's largely unexpected presidential election win, plenty of upset voters and groups are hoping to poke holes in the legitimacy of his victory before he's inaugurated January 20.
Here in Florida, where he (however surprisingly) handily won, a couple of lawsuits filed Monday are calling for a recount of the state's votes.
One suit, filed in Leon County by residents of Osceola and Volusia Counties, calls for a hand recount of all ballots cast in the state due to possible "hacking, malfunctioning voting machines and other problems."
Attorney Clint Curtis, who's representing the plaintiffs, said there's been a "deluge" of reports of polling place mischief on Election Day — voters being told they already voted and the like — but that the Florida Division of Elections is ignoring it. And even if the state does not respond, which doesn't look particularly likely as the clock runs out, Curtis said he hopes Trump's unpredictable streak will kick in and he'll call on the state to do the right thing (not that he has in any other case).
The other suit filed in Florida on Monday came from Rocky De La Fuente, a Reform Party presidential candidate who is challenging a state law that mandates a recount in the incidence of a margin between two candidates of .25 percent of the votes or less.
He said that the suit "encourages" mass-scale voter fraud to create a margin so big that the law wouldn't apply and therefore a recount wouldn't be required.
“Effectively, Florida’s statute says, ‘If you’re going to cheat, cheat big,’ he said in a press release. "You just need to make sure your margin of victory is more than .25% to block any chance of a recount. That’s ridiculous, and it fails to protect the rights of Florida’s voters.”
It's unclear whether either suit will gain traction, but it seems unlikely. Trump beat Democratic rival Hillary Clinton by 114,000 votes, which was largely due to Election Day turnout rather than early and by-mail voting, which was the inverse of what most close observers had expected.
