Gov. Rick Scott on Monday dropped his motion to impound voting machines in Broward County, after a judge said he could find no evidence for the improper activities that would justify such a step.

As legal and political skirmishes continued over Florida’s unresolved elections for governor and senator, county elections chiefs tried to implement recounts and a national spotlight continued to shine on Broward County’s embattled elections office.

Although the statewide deadline is 3 p.m. Thursday, Broward is still sorting the first page from ballots and has not started recounting them. In Palm Beach County, which started recounting votes Saturday afternoon, the elections chief continued to warn it’s possible she’ll miss the recount deadline.

Miami-Dade County also started recounting over the weekend, and elections officials said about half the ballots were counted by Monday. Some counties, including Orange, didn’t start until Monday.

Three of the state’s biggest races — governor, U.S. Senate and agriculture commissioner — are close enough to require a recount. All three races are on the first page of the ballots.

The governor had accused “unethical liberals” of trying to “steal” the Senate seat he claimed to have won in last Tuesday’s election.

Supervisor of Elections in Broward County makes manual recount deadline with 52 minutes to spare. (Joe Cavaretta) (Joe Cavaretta)

But in court Monday in Fort Lauderdale, Broward Circuit Judge Jack Tuter urged Scott’s lawyers to tone down rhetoric that is undermining public confidence in the election and the vote counting process.

“If someone in this county has evidence of voter fraud, they should report it to their local law enforcement officer,” he said. “We need to be careful what we say. Words mean things.”

Attorneys for the governor, the Democratic Party, Sen. Bill Nelson’s campaign and the supervisor of elections negotiated a temporary resolution to their dispute over the security and handling of ballots in Broward, a Democrat-rich area where Nelson and Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum hope to find some of the votes to overcome the leads of their Republican opponents.

Under the agreement, Scott’s motion was denied but can be raised again at a later time. In addition, the judge entered an order recognizing the supervisor’s current security plan but adding three deputies who do are not part of Broward elections chief Brenda Snipes’ original security plan.

One deputy will monitor the on-site cameras, another will monitor the storage of the USB drives with the election results, and a third will supervise.

Andrew Meyers, that attorney representing county administration, said the county commission is likely to approve funding for the assignments.

Joe Cavaretta/Sun Sentinel U.S. Representative Ted Deutch addresses reporters Monday, Nov. 12, 2018 outside the Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. U.S. Representative Ted Deutch addresses reporters Monday, Nov. 12, 2018 outside the Supervisor of Elections office in Lauderhill. (Joe Cavaretta/Sun Sentinel)

Appearances matter when it comes to assuring the public that the recount is being conducted properly, Tuter said.

“I don’t think I have any evidence to enter a mandatory injunction,” Tuter said.

The supervisor’s office already contracts with the sheriff’s office to have multiple deputies on site, but attorneys for the Scott campaign were concerned that they are somehow under Snipes’ direction. Attorneys disputed that characterization, and the Sheriff’s Office denied it explicitly in an e-mail Monday, but the assignment of additional deputies appeared to relieve the concerns of Scott’s lawyers in court.

In Broward County, elections staff need to sort through more than 3.5 million pages of ballots before they can start the actual recount — a task estimated to take up to 35 hours, said Joseph D’Alessandro, director of election planning and development. Broward started on Sunday, but both Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties started the process Thursday, allowing those counties more time to get the job done, according to WLRN-FM.

Despite the amount of work involved, Snipes said she was confident the recount would get done by Thursday.

“We will meet the deadline,” she said Monday.

In Palm Beach County, Elections Supervisor Susan Bucher said Monday that it would “almost impossible” for her county to meet the Thursday deadline because of outdated laws and outdated equipment certified by the state.

Marc Elias, a lawyer for the Nelson campaign, said it shouldn’t be surprising that larger counties would have trouble making the deadlines, since they’re counting so many more votes. He said the deadlines should be extended for any counties that can’t make them, to ensure a complete count.

“They ought to take the time they need,” he said.

If any county misses the recount deadline, the unofficial results sent to the state on Saturday will stand — likely prompting more lawsuits.

The ballots are supposed to be run through scanning machines in Florida’s 67 counties. Any ballot that cannot be read for any of the recounted races will be put aside.

If a race's statewide margin falls below 0.25 percentage points after the machine count, the state will order a manual recount in each county. At that point, only the rejected ballots for that race will be examined by counting teams to determine if the voters' intentions were obvious. For example, some voters circle the candidate's name instead of filling in the ballot properly and some cross out their vote and then mark another candidate.

If either side objects to a counting team's decision or the team can't make one, the ballot will be forwarded to the county's Canvassing Board, with the three members voting on the final decision.

Nelson called Monday for Scott to recuse himself from any involvement in the recount, saying Scott was “using his power as governor to try to undermine the voting process.”

“He’s thrown around words like voter fraud without any proof,” Nelson said. “He’s stood on the steps of the governor’s mansion and tried to use the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate the Broward elections chief.

“The reason he’s doing these things is obvious,” Nelson said. “He’s worried when all the votes are counted, he’ll lose the election.”

On Monday, Nelson's re-election campaign sued Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner, claiming that the state is disenfranchising voters by not accepting mail-in ballots received after Election Day.

About 8.2 million total votes were cast in the statewide election.

Information from Sun Sentinel staff writer Susannah Bryan and the Associated Press was used in this report.