*By Christian Smith*
While President Trump and Florida Gov. Rick Scott continue to claim the recount in three tight Florida races is rampant with abuse, state law enforcement authorities say they have no concrete allegation of voter fraud to investigate.
"There is no allegation of fraud, and there's a legal definition that you have to meet in order for it to be voter fraud," Ana Ceballos, politics reporter for the USA Today Network in Florida, told Cheddar.
Scott, who is running for the U.S. Senate against Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson, has called on the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate claims of voter fraud. The state's Attorney General, Republican Pam Bondi, echoed Scott's calls for an investigation, but FDLE has maintained that there are is no evidence to justify that step.
A mandatory machine recount was triggered in Florida's races for U.S. Senate, governor, and agriculture commissioner due to the razor-thin margins in those results.
According to unofficial results from Florida's counties on Saturday, Scott led Nelson in the senate race by about 12,500 votes, or about .15 percent of the total vote.
The race for governor isn't quite as close. Republican Ron DeSantis led Democrat Andrew Gillum by nearly 34,000 votes, or .41 percent.
The deadline for officials to complete the machine-recount is Thursday.
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/usa-todays-ana-ceballos-discusses-the-controversies-surrounding-the-florida-recount).
President Donald Trump pardoned former chief strategist Steve Bannon in the final hours of his White House term as part of a flurry of clemency action that benefited more than 140 people, including rap performers, ex-members of Congress and other allies of him and his family.
U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams spoke to Cheddar about the need to speed up the vaccination process as more mutated variants of the novel coronavirus present themselves.
Stocks closed higher on Wall Street, recovering some of last week’s losses and pulling closer to their record highs.
A once large caravan of Honduran migrants that pushed its way into Guatemala last week has dissipated in the face of Guatemalan security forces.
The U.S. death toll from the coronavirus has eclipsed 400,000 in the waning hours in office for President Donald Trump, whose handling of the crisis has been judged by public health experts to be a singular failure.
With Democrats taking the White House and Senate while keeping control of the Senate, future stimulus programs may take some burden off of the Federal Reserve.
Cowen managing director and senior analyst Vivien Azer discusses the future of cannabis stocks in the U.S. in light of the recent election changes.
President-elect Joe Biden has tapped Pennsylvania Health Secretary Rachel Levine to be his assistant secretary of health, leaving her poised to become the first openly transgender federal official to be confirmed by the Senate.
The completed "Field of Flags" display on the National Mall in Washington DC was lit up by powerful beacons on Monday.
David Quinalty of Waymo spoke to Cheddar about the company's hopes that the Biden Administration will continue the bipartisan work with the DOT in promoting autonomous driving technology.
