ORANGE PARK, Fla. – The outgoing mayor of Orange Park is questioning whether he truly lost his election earlier this month.
Eugene Nix lost the election for Town Council Seat 2 to Alan Watt by seven votes out of 947 votes cast, a 0.73 percent margin. Under Florida law, an automatic recount is triggered when the vote is within 0.5 percent.
Recommended Videos
“When a vote’s that close, you’ve got to wonder if there’s some errors. In this day and age with this technology, sometimes computers make mistakes,” said Nix. “If it was 50 or 100 votes, then that’s a mandate. But seven votes? You’ve got to kind of wonder about it.”
Nix said he is having an independent person review the election results, but he would not specify who is doing the review.
The Clay County Supervisor of Elections Office told News4jax that Nix contacted the Supervisor Chris Chambless about whether anyone from outside the town limits voted in the election.
Robin Conte, a worker at the elections office, said the voter list for Orange Park appears to be up to date and only residents of the town voted in the April 11 election.
“(We) feel confident we have done our due diligence as far as list maintenance,” Conte said.