Atlantic Beach, Florida: Recount Ends Tied at 3,162 Votes Each for Commission Seat 4

A recount for Seat 4 on the Atlantic Beach City Commission ended Monday with the race tied. Lisa Herrold and Jennifer Lagner each had 3,162 votes after the Nov. 9 recount, according to the Florida Times-Union.

The recount started the day with Herrold holding a two-vote lead. By the end of the count, that lead was gone and the two candidates were even.

The recount pauses, then restarts Tuesday

Duval County Supervisor of Elections Jerry Holland said the Duval County Canvassing Board paused the machine and manual recount and will restart it on Nov. 10. His office will also be tabulating ballots that come in from eligible overseas voters through the end of the week, so the final tally could still change.

WJXT News4JAX reported the pause on Monday night, and Action News Jax reported the same announcement, that the machine and manual recount for Atlantic Beach Commissioner Seat 4 had been paused.

Herrold and Lagner were among the members of the public watching the recount at the Duval County Supervisor of Elections center on the Northside.

"It's surreal, actually," Herrold said. Herrold, a first-time candidate, said she left her election night watch party last week down by one vote and woke up the next morning up by two votes. "So it's been a whirlwind, exciting, anxious, all those things," she said.

Lagner, who ran for Seat 4 in 2022, said the recount has been a transparent process. "You just have to sit and wait because like anything, it's a process," she said. "It's better for things to take time to make sure it was done right than to rush it through and have it be a problem."

A game of chance is set for Nov. 13 if the tie holds

If the race is still tied, a game of chance scheduled for 5:30 p.m. on Nov. 13 will determine who fills Seat 4, Holland said. Holland will decide what type of game of chance will be used. The Times-Union listed a coin flip, drawing straws or picking numbered ping pong balls from a bag as the kinds of games that could decide it.

The last time that happened in Duval County, in 2014, Holland devised a ping pong ball draw for a Neptune Beach City Council seat. Richard Arthur won by drawing number 12 to Rory Diamond's number 4, from a bag of 20 balls. Diamond now advises Lagner's campaign.

"I think sometimes it's a reflection that they end up getting two very good candidates," Holland said. He said Herrold and Lagner are "very vested in the community and that shows when you have the population about split in two."

How the race got this close

The tie is the second close Atlantic Beach count in four years. Four years ago, Curtis Ford won election as Atlantic Beach mayor by just 11 votes after a recount, and the Times-Union said the city could earn the nickname "Recount City" again.

In the first count reported on Nov. 5, Herrold had 3,156 votes and Lagner had 3,155, a one-vote margin out of 6,311 votes cast in the Seat 4 race. Because the margin was within 0.5 percent, state law required a machine recount, and because it was also within 0.25 percent, a manual review of overvotes and undervotes followed. Seat 4 had no incumbent on the ballot, and Commissioner Candace Kelly's term runs through Dec. 14.

In the mayor's race on the same ballot, Ford won a third term with 3,846 votes, or 55 percent, to Nancy Staats' 3,099, according to unofficial results with all four city precincts reporting.