Tensions Rise and Accusations Fly as Florida Barrels Toward a Recount

Contest for Senate draws competing lawsuits as the Republican’s lead narrows.

A legal fight deepened over the outcome of Florida’s U.S. Senate race as local election officials raced to meet a Saturday deadline to report voting tallies that are expected to trigger a recount.

Preliminary results since Tuesday show Republican Gov. Rick Scott unseating three-term Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson. But the race has tightened, as election officials count more votes, to show Mr. Scott leading by just over 15,000 votes, or 0.18 percentage point, down from roughly 56,700 on election night.

That narrowing gap has evoked the heated 2000 Florida presidential recount and spurred charges of wrongdoing by the Scott camp and GOP allies, including President Trump. Successful lawsuits by Mr. Scott forced officials in two populous, Democratic-leaning counties to release more information about remaining uncounted ballots. Mr. Nelson, in his own suit, maintained that state election officials could short-circuit the vote-counting process in the nation’s largest battleground state.

Mr. Nelson’s campaign initially appeared to concede but has since called for a recount, brought in top election lawyers and issued nationwide fundraising appeals. Florida law requires a machine recount if the margin is a half percentage point or less, and a hand recount if the spread shrinks to a quarter percentage point, which appeared to be the case.

The Florida governor’s race was also on the verge of a recount because of a similarly close margin, despite initially appearing to go to Republican Ron DeSantis over Democrat Andrew Gillum.

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