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Update: A Look At Voting Today, Big Races In Florida

Voting was steady Tuesday across Florida, with no serious problems reported at polling places, according to the Florida Secretary of State’s office.

Weather, too, was generally good, with vote-rich South Florida clear, sunny and warm, while some rain fell in the Tampa Bay-area shortly after Democrat Alex Sink voted in the governor’s race and just before her opponent, Rick Scott, arrived to wave signs at a crowded intersection.

The fevered pace and bruising tone of the campaign, which polls show is a virtual dead-heat, wearied many voters.

Lynn Burnette voted – but said he was glad it was all over.

“I hate the mudslinging,” Burnette said after casting a ballot at Fellowship Mason Lodge No. 265 in Tampa.

Burnette said he voted for independent Charlie Crist for the U.S. Senate, and though he picked the Republican, Scott, for governor, he didn’t like either of his choices in that race.

Voters in Fort Lauderdale, where Scott’s election night party is to take place at a waterside hotel, also were more glad the campaign was over than happy to be participating.

“It seems to become just a lot of bashing at the end, by everybody on both sides,” said Denise Chembri, 42, after casting her vote at a union hall near U.S. 1.

Theodore Jackson, 45, a warehouseman voting at the same Fort Lauderdale precinct, said he had voted a straight Democratic ticket – but didn’t feel any particular motivation in a year where Republicans are expected to make gains in congressional races and statehouses across the nation.

“You vote – and you never know what you’re going to get once people get in office,” Jackson said.

The lack of enthusiasm appears shared, if late polling is accurate. A poll this week from Connecticut-based Quinnipiac University showed Scott, if elected, could start out as governor with half of Florida voters saying they have an unfavorable opinion of him. For Sink it’s a little better, but not much. Forty percent of respondents said they don’t like her.

Sink spent many of the final hours of the campaign at events across the critical Interstate-4 corridor – attending a late Monday night rally in Orlando with former President Clinton.

She voted early Tuesday in her Hillsborough County hometown, Thonotosassa, with husband Bill McBride and their son, Bert. Scott cast his ballot in his hometown, Naples, with his wife Ann, and accompanied by mother, Esther, who has campaigned with him in the homestretch but is a registered voter in Kansas City, Mo.

“We’re going to win,” Scott assured before flying to Jacksonville and Tampa for events before turning to Fort Lauderdale for his final stop of the campaign.

Sink was equally upbeat, saying she felt “fantastic” about her chances.

“We’ve been calling all around the state, the turnout is good, so we’re confident,” Sink told reporters in the Tampa area.

Asked about the feeling of weariness expressed by a number of voters, Sink said she wasn’t negative.

“What the people of Florida have been hearing from me is a positive message out how my plan is going to turn our economy around, get people back to work and we’re going to support public education,” Sink said. Her campaign has, however, run a number of ads taking on Scott’s business background and problems at his former company, Columbia/HCA.

The small-scale appearances marking the campaigns’ close constrasted sharply with the enormous spending that has made the Florida governor’s race the most expensive in state history.

Scott has poured $73 million of his own money into his campaign, while Sink has spent close to $12 million raised from donors.

The Florida Democratic and Republican parties have each raised about $31 million for the campaign’s homestretch, with much of it earmarked for the governor’s race. Outside organizations, like the Florida Police Benevolent Association, which is backing Sink, and business groups including the Florida Chamber of Commerce, behind Scott, also have poured millions of dollars into TV advertising.

With the prospect of a much closer race than when Crist beat Democrat Jim Davis in 2006 or when former Gov. Jeb Bush defeated McBride, Sink’s husband, in 2002, both parties have legal teams in place if prospects of a recount emerge.

Florida law requires a machine recount if returns show a candidate defeated by one-half of one percent or less of the votes cast. In such case, ballots are run through the machines again across all 67 counties after election officials assure the machines are working properly.

If the machine recount yields a race with a victory margin within one-quarter of 1 percent, local election officials must conduct a manual recount of questionable ballots such as those which failed to detect any vote for a particular race despite votes elsewhere on the ballot.

If 5 million people turn out to vote, as is generally expected, a race would have to be decided by 25,000 votes or less to trigger a machine recount. A manual recount would take place if the gap closed to under 12,500 ballots.

Florida Republican Party Chairman John Thrasher, a state senator facing a stern Democratic challenge himself, said Tuesday he felt confident about the prospect for both his own race and for the party. But he conceded, little more could be said until the votes are actually counted.

“The missiles have left the silos,” Thrasher said.

Thrasher, though, said he was counting on a Republican advantage going into Election Day, with 270,000 more registered Republicans than Democrats having cast ballots in early voting or by absentee. Florida Democrats, were hoping for a turnout surge Tuesday to offset that likely disadvantage going in.

“I think it’s going to be a good night for Republicans,” Thrasher said, with polls showing the party likely to win at least three Florida congressional seats now in Democratic hands, while sweeping Cabinet races and making gains in the state Legislature.

Floridians were also treated to a bruising three-way Senate race between Crist, and Republican Marco Rubio and Democrat Kendrick Meek. Rubio was ahead of most polls going into Election Day, threatening to bring a stunning halt to Crist’s political career – though not necessarily a permanent one.

Just two years ago Crist was a front runner to be a candidate for vice president of the United States, and Tuesday he appeared on the verge of being out of a job, after having left the Republican Party in May.

Crist, acknowledged by many in politics to have had a keen sense for which way political winds blow, missed the rise of an angry rightward reaction to policies in Washington this year, said state Sen. Dave Aronberg, a Democrat who is also on the verge of being out of work. Aronberg left his Senate seat to run for attorney general and lost in the Democratic primary to Dan Gelber.

For Crist, called a “raging moderate” by Aronberg, it just “was the wrong year.”

Meek never gained traction and faced the added hardship of losing Democratic voters to Crist, who openly courted Democrats saying he had a better chance of keeping Rubio – who is a staunch conservative – out of the Senate than Meek did.

Sink looked to be the only Democrat in a statewide race for whom a win wouldn’t be a big surprise. All three Cabinet races had Republicans ahead in late polling.

Sink said if she wins and ends up having to work with an overwhelmingly Republican Legislature and an all-GOP Cabinet, it won’t limit her effectiveness.

“I’ve always been able to work across party lines, I have many voters and many, many supporters, a number of Republican elected officials, and sheriffs and state attorneys have come out and publicly endorsed me, so I know I’ll be able to put together a coalition of both Republicans and Democrats and independents to do what’s right for Floridians,” she said at a stop in Tampa for sign waving on Tuesday.

Potentially driving turnout higher, despite the nastiness, were some particularly competitive congressional races, far more than usual. Republicans thought they had a good chance to flip four seats, with Democratic incumbents Allen Boyd in north Florida, Alan Grayson and Suzanne Kosmas in central Florida and Ron Klein in South Florida all seen as vulnerable to challengers.

Democrats held a glimmer of hope in two other congressional races, including in central Florida’s District 12 where operatives thought Democrat Lori Edwards had a chance to beat Republican Dennis Ross in a seat being vacated by the GOP’s Adam Putnam, who is running for agriculture commissioner. Edwards was being given a shot in this Republican-trending year because of the presence in the race of Tea Party candidate Randy Wilkinson who was expected to peel votes away from Ross.

Democrats also were hoping that Joe Garcia might have a shot at winning a Miami-area seat, though late polling showed Republican David Rivera ahead in the race for House District 25.

Also on the ballot were four controversial ballot initiatives, one requiring local referenda before certain changes to local growth plans, two dealing with the rules for redistricting and one giving school districts flexibility in meeting class requirements, allowing them to use averages rather than actually capping the number of students in a class.

By John Kennedy and Keith Laing
The News Service Florida