A judge ordered some United States Postal Service processing centers in South Florida and other key battleground states to do a sweep for stray election ballots on Tuesday afternoon.
The move was done to ensure that any potentially delayed ballots were immediately sent out to be counted. The South Florida region includes Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade, Monroe, Martin, St. Lucie, Okeechobee, Glades and Hendry counties.
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Other states requiring sweeps are Alabama, Atlanta, Central Pennsylvania, Detroit, Houston, Northern New England and Philadelphia.
According to Reuters, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ordered the inspections to be completed by 3 p.m. and certified by 4:30 p.m. The international news organization wrote that the ruling comes after a lawsuit was brought forth by voting rights organization Vote Forward and Latino community groups.
When the Florida Divisions of Elections tallied the votes after the last early voting sites closed Sunday evening, nearly 9 million votes were cast either in person or had been returned to elections offices. That represents 62% of all registered voters in the state and is 93% of the votes received at this point in the last presidential election.
Records were shattered in both vote-by-mail and early, on-site voting in Florida and ballots cast represent 93% of all votes received in 2016. It is widely expected that Florida’s total vote count when the tallies are completed Tuesday evening (or beyond) will be the highest in history.