As of Nov. 6, Lisa Herrold had 3,160 votes and Jennifer Lagner had 3,158, according to the Duval County Supervisor of Elections. The razor-thin margin triggered a mandatory recount under Florida law, which requires a machine recount when the difference is 0.5% or less.

"Obviously this race is within a quarter. But everything within a half a percent or less, we must do an entire machine recount," said Jerry Holland, Duval County supervisor of elections.

The recount is taking place at the 1 Imeson Center, the county's vote processing center on Jacksonville's Northside. Election workers wearing gloves fed thousands of paper ballots through high-speed scanners, tallying each vote one by one as the public and candidates looked on.

Officials expected to learn the results of the machine recount by noon. After that, under-votes and over-votes will be counted. There are 875 under-votes in the race, where voters left the ballot option blank or marked more than one candidate. Those results were expected by 7 p.m.

Herrold, who is running a nonpartisan campaign, said she was anxious but confident in the process. "I'm feeling just a tad bit anxious actually, but I trust the process and I'm waiting for the process to complete," she said.

Her platform focuses on preserving the city's quality of life and addressing infrastructure, traffic, transparency, and green space. "I want to preserve our quality of life; I want to address infrastructure, traffic," she said.

Herrold noted that she has experienced a close race before. "I have seen a vote this close. There's a vote a number of years ago, over a decade ago, when they had to pull ping-pong balls out of a bag in Neptune Beach," she said.

Lagner declined to be interviewed.

Final results are expected Friday at 5 p.m. If the vote remains tied after all ballots are counted, the winner will be determined by a game of chance, such as a ping-pong ball draw or a coin flip, as required by Florida law.

The recount underscores the importance of every vote in local elections, where a handful of ballots can decide representation on issues ranging from development to environmental protection. Duval County's recount process relies on electronic machines and paper ballots, a far cry from the hanging chads of the 2000 presidential recount.

Holland said the purpose of the recount is redundancy, to ensure the count is accurate. "It's just to make sure the count is accurate," he said.