Despite 2,000-vote defeat, Charles Smith reviews ballots for error in Palmetto race
In search of ballot-counting errors in his 2,000-vote Election Day defeat, Charles Smith reviewed ballots Monday morning in the race for Palmetto mayor.
By 9 p.m. on election night, it was clear that Mayor Shirley Groover Bryant had won re-election, earning 3,480 votes, or 58.9 percent of the vote. Smith earned 1,410 votes or 23.9 percent of the vote. Groover Bryant was sworn-in for her fourth term on Nov. 16.
But on Monday, the last day to contest election results with the state of Florida, Smith reviewed vote-by-mail ballots at the Supervisor of Elections Office, arguing that there was a discrepancy with those votes.
“What we wanted to do was make sure the ballots and the votes that were cast were accurate,” Smith said once the three-hour review session was completed. “We’ll count and find out if it was accurate or not. We wanted to see the vote.”
According to Supervisor Michael Bennett, Smith paid $3,000 to review the ballots, which does not qualify as an official recount. The office also offered to allow Smith to review electronic images of the ballots, but Smith preferred to see the physical copies because “electronic copies won’t hold up in court.”
To allow for ballot review, elections office staff sat at a table across from Smith’s ballot observers, as well as an observer on behalf of Groover Bryant. Jonathan Davis, who placed third in the mayoral race, did not have an observer present.
As staff held up the nearly 3,000 vote-by-mail ballots, Smith’s team tallied each vote. The official results filed with the state show that Groover Bryant overwhelming won the vote-by-mail vote, earning 1,663 votes to Smith’s 615. Davis won 382 vote-by-mail votes.
The pursuit of a recount appeared to stem from Smith’s concern that the vote tallies had been updated even after election night. He said he was concerned to hear that, during Palmetto’s swearing-in ceremony, the vote counts didn’t match what had been reported Nov. 3.
“We still had vote-by-mail, overseas and ballots to be corrected,” Bennett told Smith, explaining why the numbers may have shifted after preliminary results.
But Smith was also concerned that Groover Bryant performed so well in vote-by-mail ballots. Based on name recognition, Smith argued that he felt he should have performed better than he did.
Reached for comment Monday afternoon, Bennett said he was confident that the review would not yield any major differences.
“Every election has a possibility of fraud, but the probability of having the kind of turnover that Charles Smith is looking for ain’t gonna happen,” Bennett said.
A similar ballot review took place in 2018, when Bill Sanders defeated former councilman Bemis Smith. In that case, Smith, who lost in a landslide, reviewed ballots from two precincts and was not forced to pay a fee. Monday’s review was more involved, Bennett said, because it required his staff to sort through more than 100,000 ballots to find the vote-by-mail ballots at the four Palmetto precincts.
In an interview with the Bradenton Herald, Smith said he hasn’t determined whether or not to challenge the results of the election. The next step, he explained, is to count the vote-by-mail tallies and determine any inaccuracies.
“We haven’t decided anything we’re going to do. Right now, we’re going to look at the numbers to see how far they are off,” said Smith. “We haven’t looked at the early vote or the day of the election. If they’re extremely off, we’ll have to take a chance at looking at the other votes that were cast.”
“If we find a 400- or 500-vote shift, then it raises more flags, but we can’t verify that until we count what we have,” he added.
According to Smith, he did not expect the review tally to show that he won the election but hoped to inspect the count for any errors. He said he may also inspect early votes and Election Day votes in the future.
This isn’t the first time Smith has raised questions about an election loss. When Commissioner Reggie Bellamy defeated Smith by just 180 votes in the Democratic primary in 2018, Smith contested those results, too, arguing that Bellamy had intentionally hidden a campaign finance expense.
The Manatee County Sheriff’s Office investigated the complaint and found no evidence of wrongdoing. The case was closed without any criminal charges filed.
Smith most recently served on the Manatee Board of County Commissioners, representing the District 2 seat that includes parts of Palmetto, Bradenton and Ellenton. He also served on the Palmetto City Commission.
This story was originally published November 23, 2020 at 1:33 PM.
