Florida Election Results: Obama Ahead, But All Votes Not Yet Counted
Barack Obama secured a victory in the 2012 president election two days ago, but one high-profile state is still too close to call - Florida.
Election officials in the Sunshine State are still working to count every ballot and deliver a verdict on which candidate carried the state. The winner will take the state's 29 electoral votes, which won't change the outcome of the election at this point, but which would add a significant boost to either candidate's tally.
The Associated Press reported Thursday morning that President Obama is presently ahead in Florida, but only by an incredibly small margin.
"Obama leads the count 49.9 percent to Romney's 49.3 percent. That's a difference of about 47,000 votes out of 8.3 million cast," the AP report said.
About 97 percent of Florida's votes have been counted at this point, but there are still tens of thousands of absentee and provisional ballots that must be tabulated before an official result can be delivered.
Nine counties were still tallying votes Thursday morning, one of which was Miami-Dade County. Election officials there told CBS News that the reasons behind the extended delay are high turnout and the fact that the unusually long ballot in Florida included 11 amendments to the state's constitution.
Earl Lennard, the supervisor of elections in Hillsborogh County, said those factors have slowed down the process significantly.
"There's three pages, front and back, which equals six pages, actually, of ballot," Lennard said. "It takes a long time to process that ballot. It also takes a longer period of time for the voter to vote that ballot."
But even though the election has already been called for Obama and Florida remains the only state who has not delivered its official results in full, Lennard said the state will not allow that pressure to rush the process or risk inaccuracies.
"Every vote does count, and we must count every vote," he said. "We would rather do it right, than have to rush at 2:00 in the morning and not have it correctly done."
