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By all accounts, the Governor’s Race is too close to call. But the state says it is prepared if the race really is to close to call.

Poll after Poll calls the race between Charlie Crist and Rick Scott a dead heat, or too close to call. Flash back to 2000, when 537 votes in Florida decided who would be President.

Since 2000, the standards for a recount have gotten smaller. The state will only re-tabulate machine results if the margin between two candidates is less than a half of a percent. And actual ballots won’t be counted unless the margin is less than a quarter percent…Still, Secretary of State Ken Detzner says he is ready if the margin is that close. “We have the knowledge, The law is good, and I’m very confident we can do a good job with it…it will be challenging, don’t get me wrong, but we’re prepared.”

With a fifty percent turnout, the race would have to be within thirty thousand votes to trigger a recount and within fifteen thousand votes to actually go back and look at the ballots.

FSU Political Scientist Lance DeHaven Smith says the margins for a recount are so low that voters are disenfranchised. He cites this state report, which found one of every 135 votes wasn’t counted in 2012. That’s 63 thousand votes that weren’t counted because a  race was left  blank, or too many boxes were checked.  “That’s just people who were putting a stray mark on it and sometimes it misreads it, or  they select two candidates and x one out because they changed their mind, and it won’t read it” says DeHaven Smith.

And because overseas ballots are allowed another ten days to be returned, it could take that long to call a really close race.”

The recount law was changed after the 2000 election. There are at least two congressional races and a handful of legislative races, as well as the Governor’s race, which are considered toss ups.

One of the firsts of this Gubernatorial race is that the two top candidates have each held the job for four years and each man has given an inaugural address outlining what they wanted to achieve. Mike Vasilinda has a unique look at what Rick Scott and Charlie Crist said in their premier speeches and how they followed through.

It was January 2007 when Charlie Crist stood on the steps of the State Capitol, took the oath of Governor, and promised that the best days of Florida were still ahead. Fast forward four years and two days, Rick Scott Stood on the same steps, said he was going to get Florida back to work, and then read a laundry list of things that were wrong with Florida that he was going to change.

It’s never happened before

Two men, running against each other, who have each taken the oath of office to be Governor. On his first day on the job in 2007, Crist made just two promises. “Item one on that agenda must be to reduce the burden on our people from the spiraling cost of property insurance and property taxes.”

Two weeks later a special session of the legislature froze Citizens Insurance rates.

Crist’s second promise: “And the time has come to expand Florida’s homestead exemption, as a shield against burdensome taxes.”

Later that first year, lawmakers approved a constitutional amendment doubling the homestead exemption. 2 out of three voters said yes.

Fast forward to 2011 and Rick Scott is gving his inaugural address.  “Under my plan we’ll eliminate the business tax and reduce the property tax.

Rick Scott has cut corporate taxes dramatically, ended sales taxes on manufacturing equipment…but property taxes have not gone down.  400 million in growth this year is being used to fund schools.

Rick Scott also made a promise during his inaugural address on school choice. “We will have an education system that allows the maximum amount of choice.”

The number of students in private schools using scholarships has gone from 40 to 68 thousand under Rick Scott.

But Rock Scott’s biggest mandate has been his mantra: “The people of Florida elected me to get this state back to work.”

And under Scott, the workforce has grown by 392 thousand workers, unemployment has almost been cut in half, doing lightly better than the national average.

And the only certainty in Tuesday’s outcome is that one of two men who has stood on these steps and taken the oath of Governor, will do it again, come January.”

We are less than 24 hours from Election Day in Florida, and as Matt Galka tells us, there’s no clear cut leader for the Governor’s race and plenty of last day drama.

Soon, the ads will stop dominating the airwaves. Either incumbent Governor Rick Scott or former Governor Charlie Crist will be declared the winner after tomorrow, but right now it’s too close to call.

The final Quinnipiac poll released Monday gives Crist a 1 percent edge heading into Election Day, but it’ll all come down to turnout.

Record breaking early voting gives Republicans about a 100,000 vote advantage. Political scientist Carol Weissert says that the Dems are in a pretty good position.

“I wouldn’t take it to the bank at this point, Republicans do like to vote absentee or early voting more than Democrats. It’s one sign but I wouldn’t take it as the only sign,” she said.

Neither side is comfortable. The Governor and his wife ponied up about 12 million of their own money into the campaign. The money comes from a blind trust fund – investments the Governor is unaware of but money he has access to.

In a statement, the Governor responded to using his own money by saying “We needed to offset the $15 million dollar smear campaign against me by a radical, liberal, out-of-state billionaire.” He was referencing a California environmentalist who has been donating to Crist’s campaign.