Seminole County's Canvassing Board Is Back at the Table Today at 9 A.M. — the Last Full Session Before Election Day
The board that has been opening and reviewing Seminole County's mail ballots for two weeks meets again Monday at 9 a.m. at 1500 E. Airport Boulevard in Sanford, with 111,472 ballots already cast in the county — then returns Tuesday at 3 p.m. to canvass through Election Night.
While campaigns make their last arguments today, the machinery that will count Seminole County's votes is already at work. The Seminole County Canvassing Board meets this morning, Monday, November 2, at 9 a.m. to continue canvassing vote-by-mail ballots, under the board's own published meeting schedule for the November 3 general election. The session sits at the Supervisor of Elections office, 1500 E. Airport Boulevard in Sanford, and it is open to the public, as every session on the schedule is.
The board doing the work is the one Florida law builds for exactly this: County Judge Cassandra Buie chairs it, joined by County Commissioner Andria Herr and Supervisor of Elections Amy Pennock, with Judge James DeKleva and Paul Partyka as alternate members. Its members have been opening, reviewing and ruling on mail ballots since October — signature questions, damaged ballots needing duplication, voter intent on ambiguous marks. The scale they are working through is already large: Pennock told the board that 111,472 ballots had been cast in Seminole County as of 7 p.m. on October 30, a turnout running ahead of 2022, as this station filed on Saturday.
Today's session is the last full one before the count becomes public. The board returns Tuesday at 3 p.m. to keep canvassing mail ballots and then canvass the Election Night returns — and, as the board's notice states plainly, no results will be released until after the polls close on November 3, under Florida Statute 101.5614. After that come Thursday's 4 p.m. session for provisional ballots and signature cures and the second unofficial results report, and the official results session on Friday, November 13 at 1 p.m., when overseas mail ballots are folded in. For Seminole voters with a mail ballot still in hand, the board's calendar is the deadline made visible: ballots must be received by 7 p.m. Tuesday to be part of what these sessions count.
