WASHINGTON — Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner on Thursday ordered election workers to recount all ballots by hand in the state’s tight race for US Senate, a move that Democrats hope will uncover thousands of votes in urban areas that tabulating machines may have missed.

That scenario could be a windfall for incumbent Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, who trails his Republican challenger, Republican Gov. Rick Scott, by fewer than 12,603 votes, or 0.15%. That puts their race within a 0.25% margin that automatically triggers a manual recount.



About 25,000 ballots in Broward County showed votes for the governor’s race but not the Senate race, according to preliminary returns last week. Typically, Senate races, which are at the top of the ticket, receive more votes than other contests in midterm elections. Democrats hope these “undervotes” — in which no candidate is selected on a ballot in a given race — are the result of machines simply failing to register votes, while a human inspector could see the voter’s intent.

Marc Elias, the lead attorney for Nelson and Democrats, told reporters Thursday evening that the hand recount “will not only narrow the margin but may reverse it entirely."

He added that a combination of lawsuits — while none of them are a “silver bullet” — may also yield enough votes to close the gap against Scott.

Of the Senate ballots counted in Broward County, voters broke for Nelson by a margin of more than two-to-one, suggesting that any votes uncovered by hand could also tilt heavily in Nelson’s favor.

One analysis found 38,593 undervotes statewide in the Senate race.

There are other explanations, however, for voters skipping the Senate race in the overwhelmingly Democratic county.