Local officials are re-elected, but some will be getting their pink slip

With ballots representing 48-out-of-48 precincts reporting, Historic City News editor-in-chief, Michael Gold, stood by as the Supervisor of Elections in St Johns County, Vicky Oakes, posted her Election Day results at about 9:17:01 Tuesday night.  This is the last year Gold plans to witness the process.  He has completed the task every-other year for the past 20-years since he founded Historic City News in March 2000; but, this year, twenty-years later, he is excited to also report that he is retiring.

In an arcane routine that was labor intensive and kept everyone in the Elections Office, sometimes until as late as midnight or 1:00 a.m., Gold says that he has seen everything that can happen, happen. 

“Not uncommon at all for a poll deputy transporting the paper ballots from the polling place to the Elections Office, to break down, stall on the bridge, or get sidetracked along their route by an uncooperative cow, horse, or one year, a very protective mother alligator,” Gold recalled.  “Today’s data collection methods are 100% more secure, can be accomplished in a fraction of the time, and can be transmitted from point-to-point in a matter of minutes, not hours.”

As manual counting continues, both by staff and by an ad hoc committee like the St Johns County Canvasing Board, the individual pieces of the puzzle come together until the Election results are able to be certified by the local Supervisor of Elections to the Florida Division of Elections in Tallahassee.

The numbers we are reporting now are deemed “un-official results” and have yet to be certified.  The unofficial results include precincts reporting partial vote-by-mail, early voting ballots, and election day voting, but does not include ballots that were voted provisionally.

Of St Johns County’s 210,059 eligible registered voters, with 48-out-of-48 precincts reporting, the 2020 General Election is the result of 177,557 ballots being cast and counted.  This represents an 84.53% voter turnout; a success for the Elections Office who would have normally seen far less — even for a Presidential Election.