Florida Seeking Full Recount? Here's the Real Story

A report about a Florida recount is not what it seems.

ByABC News
December 16, 2016, 2:08 PM
Florida voters mark their ballots at the Leon County Courthouse on Nov. 8, 2016 in Tallahassee, Florida.
Florida voters mark their ballots at the Leon County Courthouse on Nov. 8, 2016 in Tallahassee, Florida.
Mark Wallheiser/Getty Images

— -- You may have seen the headline that Florida is looking to have a full recount after the presidential election.

The story was flagged by Facebook users as being potentially false. Here's what we have found.

The story was originally posted Dec. 6 on bipartisanreport.com with the headline 'Breaking: Florida Moves for Full Recount of State Over Massive Voter Fraud (Details)'

The headline is false. The story has some questionable reporting.

ABC News reached out to Bipartisan Report for comment but did not hear back.

Florida has not asked -- and does not plan to ask -- for a full recount

The Florida secretary of state has not asked for any sort of recount. Under Florida law, a recount is automatically triggered if the differential is 0.5 percentage points or less of the total votes cast.

Trump received 4,617,886 votes in Florida, and Clinton received 4,504,975, a difference of 112,911 votes and nearly 2 percentage points, according to the Florida secretary of state.

Otherwise, a court or the Florida secretary of state could order a recount if there’s enough proof of fraud or misconduct to have changed the election results. The secretary of state has not mandated a recount.

Three people are asking for a recount

Three people are calling for a recount, saying the "totals in the certification are wrong because of several factors," including unaccounted votes, illegal votes and lack of integrity of the voting machines, according to a complaint filed December 2.

The suit claims Hillary Clinton would have won Florida if the votes were counted properly.

There have been no reported election issues in Florida, officials say

The original article didn’t go beyond the lawsuit, but there have been no reported election issues in Florida, according to the Florida Department of State spokeswoman.

“We have no indication of an issue,” spokeswoman Meredith Beatrice wrote in an email to ABC News today.

On election night, Secretary of State Ken Detzner wrote in a release, “Overall, we’ve had a very smooth and successful General Election Day here in Florida. We only received a few reports of minor issues from the counties. All the Supervisors of Elections were proactive in addressing any concerns and ensuring all voters were able to vote.”

The release from Detzner did cite problems, including the evacuation of a polling location and disciplinary action against two poll workers, but they did not include any of the ones mentioned in the complaint.

But since he filed the court complaint, attorney Clint Curtis said he has received over 500 complaints about voting issues on Election Day. Before he filed, Curtis said, a couple dozen had come forward.

Update: Bipartisan Report responded Thursday night telling ABC News the article has now been removed."That is actually an old story at this point," the email from Bipartisan Report said. "We removed it from our page altogether."

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