But as the process of recounting eight million ballots by Thursday continues, a judge has urged both major political parties to be careful with unsubstantiated fraud allegations – including those made by Mr Trump himself. In a situation uncannily similar to the infamous “hanging chad” fiasco which engulfed the US state after the Presidential election of 2000, in which George Bush took the state from Democrat Al Gore by just 537 votes, leads for the Republican candidates in the races for a seat in the US Senate and for the governor’s office have shrunk as more ballots were tallied after last Tuesday’s election. State law mandates recounts in elections where margin of victory is within 0.5 percentage points.
Mr Trump called for an end to the recount even though state rules allow election officials to wait 10 days for absentee ballots submitted by registered voters living outside the United States, including active-duty military personnel.
A machine recount began over the weekend in the race between outgoing Republican Florida Governor Rick Scott and Democratic US Senator Bill Nelson, with another recount underway for the Florida gubernatorial race between Republican Ron DeSantis and Democrat Andrew Gillum.
Republicans are eager to cement victories in a key battleground state after maintaining their control of the US Senate in last week’s midterm congressional elections, while Democrats are eyeing another possible state governorship win. Both parties accused the other of trying to subvert democracy.
Mr Scott on Sunday had asked a Broward County judge to issue an emergency injunction calling for law enforcement to seize all voting machines, tallying devices and ballots when they are not being used until the end of the recount and any related litigation.
The judge rejected that request on Monday, according to Marc Elias, an attorney representing the Nelson campaign. The Scott campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Broward County Circuit Judge Jack Tuter urged both sides to be restrained in their public statements as the state faces a repeat of its dramatic role 18 years ago.
He told a hearing: ”I am urging the lawyers to tamp down the rhetoric.
“We have to be careful about what we say.”
Mr Trump repeated his complaints over the Florida races in a Twitter post today.
He instead called on state authorities to go with the initial vote count totals, alleging voter fraud had taken place, without citing any evidence.
He wrote: “The Florida Election should be called in favor of Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis in that large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged. An honest vote count is no longer possible-ballots massively infected. Must go with Election Night!”
Responding to Mr Trump’s tweet, Mr Gillum simply said: “You sound nervous.”
Studies have found no evidence of large-scale voter fraud in the United States, though through the nation’s history courts have found evidence of policies intended to suppress voting by minorities.
Mr Nelson today tweeted: “There’s zero evidence backing up claims by Republican extremists that Democrats are trying to steal the election.
“What we’re trying to do is make sure every lawful vote is counted.”
Mr Nelson also called on Mr Scott to recuse himself from playing any role in overseeing the recount.
Florida law gives local election officials until the Saturday after an election to submit their first round of unofficial election results. It is common for elections supervisors to process results well after election night.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which has said it will review allegations of criminal fraud, stated that it had no active investigations as of late Friday.
Mr Scott has said he won the Senate race even as the ballots are tallied again, telling Fox News on Monday: “I want to make sure there’s a free and fair election. But there’s laws. Comply with the laws.”
Neighbouring Georgia’s gubernatorial race also remains undecided, as does the US Senate contest in Arizona. Several US House of Representative races are also still too close to call. Democrats seized control of the House in last week’s election.
The Democratic National Committee and veterans’ advocacy group VoteVets Action Fund filed a new lawsuit on Monday asking a federal judge to order state officials to accept all mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day, rather than only those received by 7 pm that day, the same time that polls closed.
The lawsuit noted that nearly 875,000 of the 3.5 million vote-by-mail ballots requested this year had not been counted as received by the November 6 deadline.
The lawsuit noted that voters had no control over potential mail delays resulting from US Postal Service delivery changes, or from an October bomb scare which evacuated a distribution centre in a small and heavily minority community outside Miami.