Florida

Florida Voters Elect Scott and Reject Pot

Election Day has come and gone across the Sunshine State and in the biggest race of them all, Florida Governor Rick Scott won re-election.

In the race for Governor, Democrat Charlie Crist won a little more than 2.7 million votes compared to Republican Rick Scott’s more than 2.83 million. The narrow margin of victory for Scott was forecast by polls that were released in the waning days of the campaign that showed the race a statistical tie.

The race wasn’t without some controversy late on Election Day. The Crist campaign filed an emergency motion late Tuesday evening requesting the polls in Broward stay open until 9 p.m. The campaign said the request was “due to several individual and systemic breakdowns that made it difficult for voters to cast regular ballots.”

The Crist motion was denied a little before 8 p.m. by a Broward County judge. Crist still performed well in the county, capturing 67.83 percent of the vote with all precincts reporting.

The congressional race to watch in South Florida was District 26, where Democrat Joe Garcia tried to hold off Republican challenger Carlos Curbelo. Garcia, who won the spot in 2010, was unable to repeat his success and lost to Curbelo, a Miami-Dade County School Board member.

With 177 of 192 precincts reporting, Curbelo won 52.28 percent of the vote to Garcia’s 47.72 percent of the vote.

The amendment that captured the most attention was Amendment 2, which would have legalized some forms of medical marijuana. Scott was against it while Crist was for the amendment.

Amendment 2 requires 60 percent approval to pass. When the votes were tallied, the Yes votes were 57.53 percent and the No votes were 42.47 percent.

Amendment 1 which dedicates $18 billion in existing real estate taxes to environmental protection over the next two decades was approved by voters. Amendment 3 which was rejected by voters was over whether the outgoing or incoming governor would fill three expected vacancies on the state Supreme Court.

Three Florida Cabinet positions were also on the ballot, but all three Republican incumbents were easily re-elected Tuesday night.

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Copyright AP - Associated Press
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