Fort Myers Ward 4 candidate seeks vote recount

In the race for Fort Myers city council, Cindy Banyai lost the Ward 4 race to incumbent Liston Bochette by just 77 votes or 1.58% of the vote.

On Thursday, she’s asking voters to make sure their ballots were counted, hoping to find enough discrepancies for a recount.

Supervisor of Elections Tommy Doyle said it would be incredibly rare and he highly doubts Banyai will get a recount because, while 77 votes may not sound like much, Florida law says it’s enough to call the race.

That’s why Banyai is hoping issues at the polls work in her favor.

Banyai’s campaign signs are sitting in her garage. She took them down after losing her race for Fort Myers City Council.

But she’s not giving up on the Ward 4 seat just yet.

“I am just trying to make sure that I leave no stone unturned when it comes to making sure all the votes count,” said Banyai.

The 1.58% is not close enough for an automatic recount in the state of Florida.

“There’s an automatic recount trigger at 0.5% so what we’re trying to do is get some of those additional votes in to move us into that 0.5% range,” said Banyai.

Banyai wants anyone who had a vote by mail signature issue or a provisional ballot to notify the Supervisor of Elections office.

Lee County Commissioner Brian Hamman told WINK a voter gets a provisional ballot when the poll worker has an issue determining if he or she is eligible to vote.

“That ballot will then be separated from the rest of the stack, and they’ll take the ballot back to the supervisor of elections office, and they’ll investigate,” said Hamman.

Hamman is on the canvassing board that examines those ballots. The board is set to meet on Friday afternoon.

“Staff of the supervisor of elections office will then bring us the evidence that shows either, A) they’re eligible to vote or B) we looked into it, and they’re not eligible to vote, and then the canvassing board will make a decision,” said Hamman.

Banyai is crossing her fingers that “a lot of these votes will end up counting.”

Supervisor of Elections Tommy Doyle doubts that.

“We have about 900 provisionals, we’re vetting those now. It looks like only 150 will probably be counted,” said Doyle. “Those 150 may not even be in the City of Fort Myers, and if all 150 are in the City of Fort Myers. They’re all not going to be voting for Cindy Banyai.”

The only way for a candidate to get a recount is to fall into that 0.5%.

The deadline for people who got provisional ballots or had signature issues to reach out to the Supervisor of the Elections office is 5 p.m. on Thursday.

Bochette did not want to comment at this time.