Category Archives: 2018 Election

Apparently I Didn’t Vote Often Enough

Posted on November 8, 2018 by Michael Froomkin

While outcomes were good very locally–Donna Shalala is going to Congress, Javier Enrique Fernandez beat Javier Enriquez for the state House, state outcomes were bad, but with redeeming features.

Gillum lost a squeaker. Nelson is a hair behind — 21,899 votes or .26 percent of 8.2 million ballots cast — with recount in the offing. Lots of provisional ballots to be counted, could maybe make the difference. All the downballot state Dems lost except maybe the Agriculture Commissioner, where the margin is tiny.

Looks like another roller coaster post-election period for Florida.

All the state Constitutional amendments, good and bad, passed except for Amendment 1. The best news is that 1.2 million Floridians got re-enfranchised by Amendment 4 — although whether implementation will be smooth remains to be seen.

The worst news is that Amendment 5 passed, requiring a supermajority to raise taxes and to close loopholes. This may make Florida ungovernable, worse even then the fiscal straitjacket that hamstrung California after Proposition 13 and other anti-tax measures.

Equally bad is that DeSantis’s first act will be to name three Justices to the state Supreme Court, doubtlessly cementing a conservative-to-reactionary majority for a generation.

Florida really is a sanity-stressing jurisdiction sometimes.

Posted in 2018 Election, Law: Everything Else, Miami | Comments Off

I Voted (At Least Once)

Posted on November 6, 2018 by Michael Froomkin

As of this morning, the Miami-Dade Elections Dept. online ballot checker showed no sign that the Elections Dept. had received my mail ballot — even though I posted it at a local Post Office eight days ago.

So, trepidatiously, I went off to vote. I imagined officious claims that I was trying to vote twice, ending in a provisional ballot. In the event, however, it was all a a happy anti-climax. The official called over someone to explain what to do, which involved punching some buttons, and voilà! I am issued a nice new giant ballot.

Apparently even if they had my by-mail ballot, they would allow me to vote in person as the system is programmed to erase the earlier ballot in that case. Which sort of makes me wonder how that works. As I understand it, the state releases the early vote totals pretty quickly after polls close. That leaves just two possibilities: either (1) they have my name attached to my ballot up until the polls close, and can pull it before they count it; or (2) they have my name attached to my vote even after an initial count, and can deduct my vote from the total before releasing it. Neither possibility suggests that ballot anonymity is preserved very well, does it? Although in case (1) I guess it could be anonymous once it’s counted.