The Collier County Supervisor of Elections is conducting automatic and manual recounts Saturday for the neck-and-neck races for the Naples mayoral and City Council seat that involve slim margins.
Mayor Teresa Heitmann won by a mere 12 votes against former Vice Mayor Gary Price on Tuesday night, but those numbers don’t include provisional and overseas ballots. Heitmann garnered 3,257 votes, while Price won 3,245 votes, according to unofficial election results from all seven city precincts that showed the mayor earned 38.1% of the votes to Price’s 37.97%.
Under state law, a machine recount occurs when the margin is less than or equal to 0.5% of the total votes. If the machine recount returns a margin of defeat less than or equal to 0.25% of the total votes, then the Supervisor of Elections must conduct a manual recount.
On Friday, March 22, the Collier County Canvassing Board will issue its first unofficial results after verifying provisional ballots for the Republican Presidential Preference Primary and order a recount of the city of Naples mayoral and City Council races, the Supervisor of Elections office reported Wednesday. Provisional ballots involve voter registrations that couldn’t be verified at the polls, improper identification, or a voter failing to bring an absentee ballot that was issued to the polls.
The county canvassing board will meet Saturday, March 23, for election recounts, including public testing of the tabulation equipment at 10 a.m., a machine recount of the Naples mayoral and City Council races at 11 a.m., a second unofficial results and manual recount determination at 4 p.m., a manual recount of the Naples mayoral race at 4:15 p.m. and a manual recount of the Naples City Council race at 5 p.m. All canvassing board meetings, including the machine and manual recounts, will occur within public view at the Supervisor of Elections office, 3750 Enterprise Ave., East Naples.
The official certification of this week’s election won’t occur until Friday, March 29, when the county canvassing board meets at 5:05 p.m. to count overseas vote-by-mail ballots.
Council member Ted Blankenship, the third mayoral contender, won 2,044 votes, or 23.9% of the total, according to unofficial results. Blankenship, who was backed by local farm and grocery magnate Alfie Oakes, stepped down from his Council seat to run in the three-way race.
In the six-way race for three open Council seats, Bill “Coach” Kramer won 4,277 votes and former Council member Linda Penniman garnered 4,160 to win two of those seats. For the third seat, Berne Barton earned 3,677 votes, edging out Tony Perez-Benitoa, who won 3,644 votes, but the slim 33-vote margin requires a recount.
Council candidate Nicholas Del Rosso garnered 3,372 votes, while Garey Cooper trailed with 1,894 votes in the nonpartisan race.
“We’re going to sit on pins and needles for another couple of days,” Barton said Wednesday. “It will keep it interesting for everybody.”
It was the first race in the city’s 100-year history that was marked by negativity and misinformation distributed by political action committees, prompting confusion and anger among voters and candidates.
Heitmann, who was surrounded by more than 100 family members, friends and supporters at her Aqualane Shores home on election night, said she was confident that once ballots are examined, she’d win—and possibly garner even more votes.
“But it was close,” Heitmann said. “Of course, it was a three-way race and could have gone any way. Even though it was close, I think our community really spoke out. They worked very hard.”
“They were there every day, at every polling place,” she added. “We didn’t pay one person to volunteer. This was a grassroots effort. Our community really supported our campaign, our leadership, moving forward and making Naples just Naples in the perfect and simple elegance that it is.”
Her first order of business Wednesday was to thank all her supporters and then thank City Hall employees.
“This city staff is truly the heartbeat of the community so I’m going to thank them for serving the city and I look forward to working with them for the next four years on behalf of our community,” Heitmann said.
At a post-election gathering Tuesday night at Cosmos Ristorante & Pizzeria, Price said he planned to call for a recount. Although recount requests are prohibited in Florida, Price got his wish with the automatic recount. He didn’t respond to requests for further comment and hasn’t posted on his Facebook election account since Tuesday morning, when he invited supporters to his election night party.
Former President Donald Trump overwhelmingly won the Republican Presidential Preference Primary, with 81.2% of the vote, while Nikki Hailey, who backed out of the race, earned 13.9% of the vote. Gov. Ron DeSantis, who backed out before Hailey, garnered 3.7% of the Florida vote.
