Election blogging

Just like I did in Sepetember, I'll be live blogging the election results today, with the emphasis on Florida races. This post will remain at the top of my blog all day.

8:30 a.m.- Dear Wife and I went and voted this morning. We left the house at 7:20, attended Catholic mass and stopped at the polling place(A Lutheran Church) on the way home. There was no line at the polling place but about half the voting machines were in use.

Some of my votes-

Charlie Crist for Governor
Clay Shaw for Congress(Florida 22nd)
I voted for neither Bill Nelson or Katherine Harris for the Senate. Instead I voted for one of the independents.
Alex Sink for State Chief Financial Officer
Skip Campbell for Attorney General
Charles Bronson for Agriculture Commissioner
Rob Sidlecki for State House 85
I did a write-in for State Senate Race 30. Guess who? LOL
I voted no for retention of all Judges on the ballot.
I voted No for all Statewide Referendum except measure #3.
Pete Carney got my vote for PB County Tax Collector

TFM didn't vote a straight party line, two of my votes were cast for Democrats.

I'll be posting more updates as the day goes on.

7:15 Update- I'm set up for the night. CNN is on television and I'm surfing the net. Most polls in Florida are closed. A few counties in the panhandle are in CST and therefore won't close till 8 p.m. my time.

A quick check of Florida Department of State website shows no results in yet. It is early.

I'll be concentrating on Florida races. The 13th, 16th and 22nd Congressional races in particular.

7:30- Results are trickling in. Nelson and Crist are leading state-wide. No surprises. As of the congress races worth watching, no results in yet. It could be a long night if Palm Beach County is late again.

Interesting news so far- All six of the statewide referendum are trending yes so far. The only yes vote I made this morning was for measure #2.

8pm- First congressional results in-

13th- Buchanan 2292 Jennings 2185
16th- Negron 10,127 Mahoney 9,276
22nd- Shaw 12,886 Klein 14,362

But here is an interesting one-

8th- Keller 58,387 Stuart 54,306

While Keller is leading, this is closer than expected.

820- This is ugly.
Shaw 19,728 Klein 24,277

845- FL 16th- Negron 20,249 Mahoney 21,500 Only 10% of the precincts in. This race could be an all night affair.

Crist 919,292 Davis 748,902. This is going about as expected.

915- Votes are coming in slowly for the interesting Florida races. There hasn't been an update on the FL 13th in over an hour.

Bye Bye Katherine

Harris 807,132 Nelson 1,303,256

Nearly a million people can vote for nut and crook? I guess some people can only vote the party instead of the brain.

945- Fl 16th with 59% of the precincts reporting
Mahoney , Tim Dem 67,727 49.40
Foley-Joe Negron , Mark GOP 65,622 47.86

All the statewide referendum look sure to pass. The lowest yes % is 57%.

My State House Representative Shelley Vana(D) is going to be re-elected. 14,368-9198

Ted Deutsch leads almost 8 to 1 in the Florida 30th Senate race. Where is the write-in vote I made?

As to the Cabinet races

Bill McCollum is leading 1,469,786 1,359,330 for Attorney General
A;ex Sink is leading 1,543,566 1,306,930 for Chief Financial Officer
Charles Bronson is leading 1,571,001 1,239,214 for Agriculture Commissioner

I voted for Sink and Bronson.

1015- Right now I'm feeling very tired. I'll try to keep going for one more hour.

The Sun-Sentinel has more vote tallies than the Florida State website. Is the Sentinel's coverage accurate? There is a wide swing in the FL 16th from one site to the other. In each case Mahoney leads.

The Florida 13th continues to drag but Buchana(R) leads 7,046 5,922

I checked the PB Post website. Their results on Negron-Mahoney are almost in sync with the Sentinel. Mahoney has a lead of less than 1.500 votes.

1040 pm- Klein 87,207 to Shaw 80,364. With 76% of the precincts in, I'm ready to call that as a Klein victory.

If a post mortem is ever done to determine why Shaw lost, I think the almost totally negative campaign the congressman ran would be the biggest cause.

1055 Update- I'm getting a bit of a second wind. About an hour ago I was ready to go to sleep. I feel wide awake right now.

From the "Didn't I tell you so" department

MURTHA, JOHN P. (DEM) 63,376 63.8%
IREY, DIANA (REP) 35,922 36.2%

That's with 1/3 of PA precincts reporting.

1105pm- The Sun-Sentinel has declared Ron Klein the winner in the FL 22nd.

Florida 16th has Mahoney clinging to a 2,200 vote lead with 90% of the ballots in.

11:40 Update- My last of the night. The Palm Beach Post is declaring Tim Mahoney a winner in the Fl 16th. Oops Negron has conceded.

The Democrats have won back the house. I suspect a great deal of wailing is taking place among conservative bloggers. TFM and a few other moderate conservative bloggers refused to drink the koolaid. Even this knucklehead can be right once in a while. LOL.

Good night.

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