Supervisor of Elections says final results for Naples Mayor will be March 29

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The race for Naples Mayor is so close that state law will require a recount.

“We don’t have recounts in the state of Florida because there’s any kind of issue with an election. It’s because we have a close election,” said Melissa Blazier, Collier County Supervisor of Elections.

Teresa Heitmann and Gary Price finished with less than half a percent of each other’s votes. Heitmann is ahead of Price by only 12 votes.

“What happens on election night is that we issue preliminary results. And that’s because we don’t issue our first unofficial results for the selection until Friday morning,” said Blazier.

Heitmann told WINK News Tuesday night it’s been overwhelming.

“I just don’t think that it’s really about 12 votes. I think that it’s a lot more this community really cares about and appreciate what I have done on their behalf,” said Heitmann.

Collier County supervisor of elections Melissa Blazier said second unofficial results will happen after the machine recount on Saturday. Then, they will issue updated results after a manual recount.

“We will go into machine recounts first for both the mayor’s contest as well as city council; we also have to what is it the number three and the number four candidates that are close enough to trigger to trigger that machine recount,” she added. “Once we have gone through the machine recount for both, we will issue the second unofficial results.”

Blazier wants people to understand the recount is automatically triggered since the difference between the two top candidates is less than half of one percent.

“The official final results for this election actually won’t be until March 29 at 5:05 pm, and that’s because this is a federal election,” said Blazier. “So, we have overseas ballots and those overseas ballots. There’s a special on rule. Those overseas ballots have 10 days after election day where they can still be returned to the office.”

She said she wants voters to understand the recount is automatically triggered since the difference between the two top candidates is less than half of one percent.

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