After a primary election night victory that had District 3 County Commission candidate Paul Waldron ahead of Jerry Cameron by just nine votes, a Sept. 1 recount secured Waldron’s primary victory, albeit by an even slimmer margin of just seven votes.
Unofficial election results on Aug. 30 had Waldron ahead, with 12,469 votes to Cameron’s 12,462. The slim margin of victory triggered an automatic recount, as Florida law mandates that a machine recount be conducted any time a candidate is defeated or eliminated by 0.5 percent or less of the votes cast in the race.
Following the initial machine recount, Cameron picked up two votes due to the inclusion of a provisional ballot that initially had not been counted and a second ballot that went uncounted due to a machine jam. With an even smaller margin between the candidates, election officials proceeded to manually examine the thousands of ballots recorded as either under votes or over votes before confirming Waldron as the winner.
Due to the entry into the race of write-in candidate Sheamus McNeeley, Waldron’s name will appear on the Nov. 8 general election ballot.
