NORTH PORT -- At Seat 4 City Commission candidate Jim Blucher's election night party, his younger brother, Paul, said he would make an excellent commissioner, sooner or later.

And it might be at least a week.

Blucher is just one of several candidates waiting on final vote tallies. But Wednesday added more stress through a convoluted series of events stemming from glitches in the election process.

Even though there has been concern about the dependability of voting machines, the heart of post-election anxiety came after learning about the substantial delay in tallying the South County votes.

When asked if her office had many complaints about the voting machines, Kathy Dent, Supervisor of Elections for Sarasota County, said poll workers are instructed on how to assist voters with the machines.

But the procedure for transferring that voting information from the machines to election headquarters in Sarasota initially failed. Reportedly, early votes from machines in North Port were not properly recorded on electronic cards, and had to be retrieved again.

"Every election is conducted with due diligence," Dent said. "The element of human error is always the unknown factor. We plan and we are prepared but you can't account for human error."

The poll workers are trained to instruct voters and, in some cases, switch out voting machines, to make sure all votes are recorded properly. The poll workers are also instructed to write incident reports on all voting machine malfunctions. The incident reports, if any, are public record and will eventually be available for review.

Wednesday morning, Blucher was tired. He stayed up until 1 a.m. waiting on election results.

"I feel good, but it's still not official, and we probably won't know for a couple of days," he said Wednesday.

The preliminary count for North Port commission seat 4 has Blucher receiving 5,633 votes to 5,422 votes for David Garofalo.

An election recount cannot be requested by the candidates; it depends on Florida laws.

"A recount is decided by law. If a race has a difference of more than a half of a percentage point, there is no recount," Dent said.

According to Florida statute, "If a candidate for any office is defeated by one-quarter of a percent or less of the total number of votes cast, the board responsible for certifying the results of the race shall order a manual recount of all votes cast in the entire geographical jurisdiction... ."

"I have never had an election recount in the time I have been in office, since 2001. This is, indeed, a first," Dent said.

Because of the need for a recount in the Senate race between Vern Buchanan and Christine Jennings, Blucher will be waiting more than a couple of days for a certified result.

Dent said, "Because the local elections in North Port and Venice piggyback on the general election race, I cannot certify (all results) until the eleventh day following the end of the election."

There are still provisional and military ballots to be counted. Federal law requires states to accept overseas ballots for up to 10 days after election day. According to Dent, there are approximately 200 provisional ballots and 300 military ballots countywide.

"I would venture to say that all numbers in North Port will hold as they are now," Dent said. "But I do not feel these will impact North Port's elections."

The Election Canvassing Committee in Tallahassee will notify all five counties involved of the need for a machine recount. The counties will have until 3 p.m. Wednesday to complete this process. On Thursday, the ECC will notify the counties to do a manual recount.

"By Florida law, this must be completed and certified by Saturday, Nov. 18 at 5 p.m.," Dent said.

Blucher's opponent, David Garofalo, was feeling positive Wednesday morning.

"You know, I have the most wonderful wife, most wonderful family, and I live in the most wonderful city," he said. "I'm a winner no matter what. I did not ask for a recount. I will run again. I have time to talk to thousands more citizens now."

Because the election results have not been officially certified, a winner has not been decided. Dent's office is confident that the upcoming recount will not impact the winner of North Port commission seat 4.

Garofalo said he will continue to attend city commission meetings and keep himself informed about events around North Port.

"I'll be here two years from now," he said, intimating he'd consider running for city commission again.

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