Sun Life Stadium Plan Not Supported in Early Voting

Early Voting, absentee ballots show voters were against stadium referendum

A counting of some of the early voting and absentee ballots cast in the failed Sun Life Stadium renovation referendum show the Dolphins' proposal wasn't very popular with voters.

Out of a total of 60,678 votes, 34,780 - or 57.32 percent - were against the referendum, while 25,898 - or 42.68 percent - were for it, according to numbers released late Tuesday by the Miami-Dade County Elections Department.

The numbers are a partial tabulation and are not official election results, the elections department said.

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The votes were tallied from April 29 to May 3, when the Florida House ended its annual legislative session without passing a bill that would have approved a plan to partially subsidize $350 million worth of renovations to the stadium.

Absentee ballots received after May 3 weren't counted, the elections department said. The special election had been scheduled for May 14, and had been paid for by the Dolphins.

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Under the plan, the team would have paid for roughly 70 percent of that cost, with the remainder coming from state and local funds. After the bill failed, the Dolphins announced they were no longer planning on investing in stadium upgrades.

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