Slamming GOP Attempts at Election-Meddling, Gillum Rescinds Concession Speech as Florida Heads for Recount

As his gubernatorial race headed for a recount, Florida Democrat Andrew Gillum withdrew his concession speech from last Tuesday, noting that while his fate in the election may not change after the votes are recounted, the integrity of the country’s democratic process will be severely undermined if Republicans succeed in ending the process of counting every vote cast by Floridians.

“I am replacing my earlier concession with an unapologetic and uncompromised call to count every vote,” Gillum said in a news conference Saturday afternoon. “We don’t just get the opportunity to stop counting votes because we don’t like the direction in which the vote tally is heading. That is not democratic and that is certainly not the American way.”

Secretary of State Ken Detzner officially called for recounts of Florida’s gubernatorial and Senate races after a noon deadline passed for all 67 of the state’s counties’ unofficial vote tallies, with both races deemed too close to call.

As of the noon deadline, Republican Rick Scott—currently the Florida governor—led Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson by only .15 percent, with about 12,500 more votes in the race fior Nelson’s seat. In the gubernatorial election, Republican Ron DeSantis led Gillum by .41 percent of the vote.

Both margins of victory triggered an automatic machine recount, to be completed by this coming Thursday. Should either race still have less than a .25 margin after the first recount, a manual recount will be completed.

Andrew Gillum: "Let me say clearly: I am replacing my words of concession with an uncompromised, and unapologetic call that we count every single vote." (via ABC) pic.twitter.com/0yDZfotcNk

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) November 10, 2018