KISSIMMEE, Fla. – UPDATE: A recount on Friday determined that John Cortes will move on to a runoff in the Kissimmee mayor race this November.
The Osceola County Supervisor of Elections office released a statement to WKMG-TV on Friday afternoon.
“We completed both a machine and manual recount (Friday). John Cortes remained in second place after the recounts. John Cortes and Jackie Espinosa will move on to the run off in November,” the statement said.
Cortes held off Olga Cariño, who trailed him by four votes after Tuesday’s election. Espinosa led with 1,444 votes. securing her spot in the runoff.
The runoff is necessary due to the fact that no one earned 50% of the votes.
ORIGINAL STORY: We know there’s going to be a runoff for the Mayor’s seat in Kissimmee, but we don’t know who’s going to make it to the last dance.
“Four people. If they had made it to the polls, it might have been a different story,” said Osceola County Supervisor of Elections Mary Jane Arrington.
Osceola County Supervisor of Elections Mary Jane Arrington says no candidate won 50% of the votes, triggering a runoff.
[RESULTS 2024: Osceola County election results in the Florida Primary on Aug. 20, 2024]
Jackie Espinosa led with 1,444 votes. securing her spot in the runoff. A four-vote difference between John Cortes and Olga Cariño placed them in limbo.
The four votes fall within one-half of 1%, which allows a recount according to Florida law.
“(Friday) we’re going to do the canvassing board will meet at nine to go through the provisional ballots that we have and cure affidavits from for mail-in ballots where people either forgot to sign their ballot or their signature didn’t match. They had the opportunity to cure that,” said Arrington.
Arrington said there are three provisional ballots and 17 uncured ballots.
“I don’t expect it to change much is still gonna be within that 1/2 of 1% that triggers a runoff. Starting at 10 a.m. we will do a machine recount and if the end of that machine recap if there are enough what we call overvotes and undervotes to make a difference, then we will manually go through the overvotes and undervotes to determine if there are votes in there that were not counted,” said Arrington
If nothing changes, then the winner will be the one who is in second place right now.
Arrington says election staff are preparing for a recount.
She says anybody from the community is welcome to attend Friday at the supervisor of elections office in Kissimmee.
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