Hillsborough school tax referendum fails after recount
TAMPA, Fla. - After recounting the votes, nothing changes for the very close school tax referendum and the judge 14 race following the primary elections in Hillsborough County.
Both races came in at less than half of a percentage difference, which triggered the recount.
A canvassing board met Sunday to go over the results.
"The margins didn’t change at all, it remained at the exact same percentage as before the recount," said Craig Latimer, the Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections. "This just does nothing but show how accurate the equipment is, how well the thing counts. These ballots have now been run through three tabulators, the high-speed tabulators, they were tabulated out at the polling sites when people in-person voted, and they’ve all come back here and are fed through our automated auditing system, and they’re put through here again."
There were some slight changes after the recount, but it didn’t change the margins enough to affect the result of the races.
After recounting the ballots, the Hillsborough County school tax referendum did not receive enough votes to pass.
"We had one candidate picked up one, one candidate lost one, the undervotes went down by two and a candidate or the referendum would get one, so in the end, the school board race had one more ‘yes’ vote and both Isaak and Brookins had one more vote each also," Latimer said.
For the school referendum tax, the recount showed 49.87% "yes" votes, and 50.13% "no" votes.
These results are unofficial until they are certified, which will happen at 10 a.m. on Tuesday.