Tensions are rising in Florida as Sen. Bill Nelson's re-election bid is likely headed for a hand recount. The incumbent Democrat now trails Florida Gov. Rick Scott by just 17,000 votes, easily within the .25% margin required for a hand recount. On November 6th, it looked as though Scott had won a narrow victory over Nelson, but untallied ballots have since trickled in from traditionally blue Broward and Palm Beach counties and called the election results into question.

Of course, Republicans have found a way to blame this new development on Hillary Clinton, claiming that her lawyers are involved in a far reaching conspiracy to claim Florida's senate seat for the Democrats. Rick Scott held a news conference Thursday evening calling for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate the validity of the ballots in Broward and Palm Beach counties, and claimed he filed a lawsuit against top election officials in each county.

"I will not sit idly by while unethical liberals try to steal this election from the great people of Florida," Scott said. "Their goal is to keep mysteriously finding votes until the election turns out the way they want... left-wing activists have been coming up with more and more ballots out of nowhere."

Despite this strong rhetoric, Scott presented no evidence that anything unlawful actually occurred. Characteristically, President Trump soon weighed in with a tweet:

Then, Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giulliani contributed his thoughts on the matter:

On Friday, Trump told reporters during a news conference that Fusion GPS plotted to steal the election in Florida. "Then you see the people, and they were involved with that fraud of the fake dossier, the phony dossier, and I guess I hear they were somehow involved or worked with the GPS Fusion [sic] people, who have committed — I mean you look at what they done, you look at the dishonesty," Trump went on to say, "Look, look — there's bad things have gone on in Broward County, really bad things ... I say this — [Scott] easily won, but every hour it seems to be going down. I think people have to look at it very very cautiously."

A member of Bill Nelson's team, Dan McLaughlin, said in an official statement that "the goal here is to see that all the votes in Florida are counted and counted accurately," going on to say that Scott's call for a criminal investigation "appears to be politically motivated and borne out of desperation."

Indeed, there's no valid legal claim that votes cast in a county that counts votes more slowly shouldn't be counted, and no evidence whatsoever that the issues with vote tabulation in Broward and Palm Beach counties are in any way due to Democrat interference.

Brooke Ivey Johnson is a Brooklyn based writer, playwright, and human woman. To read more of her work visit her blog or follow her twitter @BrookeIJohnson.