*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).
By midday Wednesday, the Dow had plunged roughly 500 points, before rebounding slightly, while the S&P and Nasdaq Indexes were also down.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Wednesday, October 2, 2019.
One man was shot in the chest with a live round by police in Hong Kong on Tuesday during widespread and violent protests that coincided with celebrations across China marking 70 years of the Communist state.
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Rep. Carolyn Maloney, the author of the pending Smithsonian Women's History Museum Act, told Cheddar that it's "difficult to empower women, if you don't even recognize them."
From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, these are the top stories that moved markets and had investors, business leaders, and entrepreneurs talking this week on Cheddar.*
The latest tally represents about a 50 percent surge in illnesses and deaths since the CDC last took stock of the damage. As illnesses mount, regulators have stopped short of issuing a ban on vaping, recommending instead vape users abstain from vaping until the cause of the illness is identified.
The embattled Justice Department's top official, Attorney General William Barr, and the president's personal attorney, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, are now under a great deal more scrutiny.
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