The Miami-Dade Elections Department on Wednesday shot down a request from the campaign of losing mayoral candidate Alex Otaola to recount the votes in the race for county mayor after he questioned incumbent Daniella Levine Cava’s landslide victory.
Otaola, a pro-Trump social media influencer who finished a distant third in Tuesday’s election, told supporters at a watch party that same night that he didn’t trust the results and would demand a recount. Otaola’s campaign manager Andy Santana wrote in an email to Miami-Dade’s elections department later that evening that a recount was “essential” to ensure the accuracy of the outcome “given the close nature of the results” — though Levine Cava earned nearly three times the votes of her closest competitor.
In a response sent Wednesday afternoon, Vanessa Innocent, an assistant deputy supervisor of elections, declined the Otaola campaign’s request, pointing to state laws that trigger a recount only when a candidate is defeated by half a percentage point or less. Levine Cava finished more than 34 percentage points ahead of her closest competitor.
“Recounts are not conducted by request,” Innocent wrote in her response.
READ MORE: Miami-Dade’s Democratic mayor won big this week. Is a run for Florida governor next?
Unofficial results show Otaola received 33,252 votes on Tuesday night, amounting to less than 12% of the vote. That put him more than 10 percentage points behind second-place finisher Manny Cid and 46 percentage points behind Levine Cava, who earned a second four-year term in office.
Otaola is widely known as a Republican YouTube host and staunch supporter of former President Donald Trump, whose baseless claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen have sown doubt in the integrity of U.S. elections among a wide swath of his supporters.
At a festival-like election results party at the candidate’s farm in Homestead on Wednesday night, Otaola questioned the veracity of the Miami-Dade election results. He said he would not accept them until there was a vote-by-vote recount.
“It’s impossible, impossible that Daniella Levine Cava, who has done an awful job over the last four years, got more votes than when no one knew her,” he said, adding that internal exit polls placed him in a runoff and that Miami-Dade County’s “electoral health” depended on it.
The crowd screamed “fraud” and “it was stolen.” Some volunteers cried upon hearing the primary’s results. Many supporters in attendance at the rally also echoed their candidate’s doubts.
Many in the attendance at the party were Cuban supporters who said they supported Otaola because his anti-communist messaging resonated with them. Born in Cuba, Otaola pledged to make Miami-Dade a “communist-free zone,” one of his main campaign policies. There was also overlap between Trump and Otaola supporters, and many at the election party in Homestead viewed both politicians as wronged by a rigged system that favors mainstream politicians.
By Wednesday evening, Otaola’s campaign had not released any further official statements about the election results. However, his campaign’s Instagram page amplified messages from supporters alluding to fraud in the county elections and requesting recounts.
Responding to the Otaola campaign Tuesday night, Miami-Dade Deputy Supervisor of Elections Roberto Rodríguez said “the results are what they are,” adding that the elections office is open to the public for people to come see the tabulation process.
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