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Joe Scott Wins Broward's Democratic Primary For Supervisor Of Elections

Supervisor of Elections flier
Caitie Switalski
/
WLRN
A mailer from candidate Chad Klitzman during the campaign, inset is a Black Community Voter's Guide that some voters received ahead of the Aug. 18 primary election promoting candidate Joe Scott.

The recount for the race between Joe Scott and Chad Klitzman began Friday. By Saturday afternoon, Joe Scott was declared winner of the Democratic primary for the Broward County supervisor of elections position and will face Republican candidate Catherine McBreen.

Editor's Note: This story was updated Saturday, Aug. 22, at 6:45 p.m. with the results of the recount.

The Broward County elections office has concluded a recount to determine who won the Aug. 18 Democratic primary in the race for the county's next supervisor of elections.

Joe Scott claimed victory Saturday evening over opponent Chad Klitzman by 624 votes.

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Scott took home 24.84 percent of the votes for the race, while Klitzman received 24.54 percent of the votes.

If the margin between the candidates had fallen below a quarter of a percent, a hand recount would have been triggered Sunday. Since the machine recount didn't get that close, Scott will move on to face Republican candidate Catherine McBreen in the November general election.

Scott told WLRN Friday he wanted to learn from the recount, and even though he anticipated winning, he didn't plan to take the general election for granted.

"We are going to run a vigorous general election campaign that will be focused on general outreach to voters and educating voters, and trying to see if we can increase turnout in Broward County," he said.

For the August primary election, unofficial results from the county elections office show voter turnout was at 25.94 percent, or 317,160 votes out of more than 1.2 million registered voters.

After the recount finished, Scott posted a video on his campaign Facebook page:

"I am deeply, deeply grateful and honored for the trust that the people of Broward County placed in me," he said. "I am looking forward to getting to work."

His opponent Klitzman told WLRN, after a stressful few days, he would be trusting of the outcome — no matter the result.

"A lot of people think that if a recount happens, it means something went wrong," Klitzman said. "It's really a way for the voters to have increased confidence in the eventual outcome. Because when the margins are this close, it's important to double check."

Klitzman said, before the recount concluded, that if he were to lose he might consider another run in the future.

"I can't rule anything out," he said.

He said he plans to continue to try to make an impact on the community in some form.

"You don't have to be Supervisor of Elections in order to make a difference on those issues," he said of elections and voting. "It's something I'm always going to be passionate about."

Caitie Muñoz, formerly Switalski, leads the WLRN Newsroom as Director of Daily News & Original Live Programming. Previously she reported on news and stories concerning quality of life in Broward County and its municipalities for WLRN News.
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