Hand Recounts Progress In Florida Senate Race

A woman sets up tables for hand counting ballots on Thursday in Palm Beach County.

MICHELE EVE SANDBERG / AFP/Getty Images

Election workers in Florida have been counting remaining ballots by hand in the close U.S. Senate and state agriculture commissioner contests, as a number of lawsuits are still outstanding in the final 48 hours before official election results are due to the state.

If a federal judge declines to extend the state’s deadline, county canvassing boards need to turn in their official results following machine and manual recounts by noon on Sunday.

Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson has asked for that deadline to be pushed back a number of times, most recently in a lawsuit filed Friday, in which he requests Palm Beach County hand-count every ballot that was cast there. He trails GOP Gov. Rick Scott in the Senate race by 0.15 percent, about 12,000 votes, a margin that was unchanged after machine recounts were done this week.