S01E03 Mike Griffin, Politics of Florida
Florida Ready to Count Close Presidential Election
Political Vet of Bush-Gore 2000 Recount Says Winning State Equally Critical
October 18, 2020 –Don’t expect hanging chads and magnifying glasses to decide the upcoming Florida presidential election outcome as it did 20 years ago because the state now operates a uniform system ready to systematically process any recount.
“Because of 2000 and because of the hiccups we’ve had since, I will tell you Florida has probably the safest most secure election system in the country,” said Mike Griffin, former chief political correspondent for The Orlando Sentinel who covered the historic 2000 ballot recount debacle, appearing on Sunday’s weekly Retail Politics Podcast.
The U.S. Supreme Court ended the 36-day recount challenge in which George W. Bush beat Al Gore in Florida by 537 votes out of 6 million cast. The 5-4 vote by the conservative court handed Bush the 29 electoral votes needed to become president.
Griffin pointed to the state’s recount of the Florida governor’s race two years ago, in which Ron DeSantis won by only 34,000 votes, to show that Florida is more than capable of declaring a state presidential victor if the race is close again
“Now the recount is easy,” said Griffin, who operated The Sentinel’s Tallahassee capital bureau. “You take ballots and you run them through the machines. Back then you had canvassing boards with magnifying glasses.”
Griffin, however, said that winning Florida for the presidential candidates will be just as critical. Trump captured Florida four years ago but has already regularly appeared in the state and plans to be back for several more events over the next two weeks.
“If the president was confident he had Florida won, he wouldn’t be coming to Florida,” Griffin said. “He would be going to other battleground states.”
If Democratic challenger and former vice president Joe Biden wins all the states that 2016 presidential challenger Hillary Clinton won, he only needs to win one of the four battleground states Trump upset her in to capture the prize, Griffin said.
“If Florida is decisive on election night, it really doesn’t matter what happens anywhere else,” said Griffin, a Florida native. “The reason Florida was such a train wreck in 2000 was because it mattered.”
No Republican has won the White House without Florida since Calvin Coolidge in 1924, Griffin said.
“Democrats can win without winning Florida,” Griffin said. “Republicans can’t.”
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