Category Archives: 2018

Florida General Election Recount

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Many have asked about the outcome of the recent Florida elections and true to our state’s proud history (think Gore Versus Bush and the “hanging chads”) of elections there will be a recount of this past Tuesday’s general election for several of offices likely including Florida’s Governor and Agricultural Commissioner and the U.S. Senate race between Scott and Nelson. What this leads to is anyone’s guess but Florida being Florida we’d not have it any other way in the Great State of Denial (I mean Florida).

Given the level of interest, I am going to share an outline and update that Jake Farmer prepared and gave permission to share that describes in detail what will likely take place and when:

2018 Florida Recount Update

Today in Florida we are preparing for the first automatic statewide recount in our history. Below is a brief description of the process that will be followed, which was placed into law after the election in 2000. There are no more hanging chads, and the process to determine a voter’s intent is pretty straightforward and contained in Florida Statutes Chapter 102.166.

There are two basic phases for a statewide recount: an automatic recount by machine and, if needed, a manual recount on under and over votes for the specific races under 0.25 percent. We expect by the weekend we will see the US Senate, Governor, and Agriculture Commissioner all in machine recounts, with the Senate and Agriculture Commissioner race headed to manual. (As of now Gov. Scott still leads the Senate race over Sen. Bill Nelson, but Nikki Fried has passed Matt Caldwell in the Agriculture Commissioner race).

As for the statewide races; we expect to see Senate District 18 (Dana Young vs. Janet Cruz), House District 26 (Elizabeth Fetterhoff vs. Patrick Henry), and House District 89 (Mike Caruso vs. Jim Bonfiglio) in a recount.

The process is outlined in the attached memo from the division, but in short, unofficial returns are due to the state by Saturday at noon. After those ballots are counted, any federal, state or multicounty race that is separated by 0.5 percent or less will automatically be run through the optical scan machines again. Typically with machine recounts, very few changes are typically found, but then again, no one has ever seen this done statewide.

The machine recount is due by 3 p.m. on Thursday, November 15th. Any race that is separated by 0.25 percent or less will automatically undergo a manual recount, which must be wrapped up by Sunday, November 18th.

In the event of a manual recount, the only ballots that will be scrutinized are those where there were either too many or too few candidates selected for the specific race at stake (meaning under or no vote cast in the race and overvotes, meaning more than one decision was indicated or some other error).

The 67 canvassing boards will send their final vote totals for the manually recounted races to the state by November 18th at noon.

The state Elections Canvassing Commission, made up of the governor and two members of the Florida cabinet selected by the governor, will certify the results in a 9 a.m. meeting at the state Capitol on November 20th.

Censorship

Of all the strange and worrisome things that took place in Washington this year perhaps the worst was news earlier this month that the Trump Administration had provided the Center for Disease Control (CDC) a list of seven words or phrases that it does not want used (click here to read the article). In essence, those words and phrases are being censored. Learning this reminded me about deceased comedian George Carlin’s bit about Seven Words You Can’t Say On TV, but nothing, of course, about news that our government has censored scientific words or phrases is funny. In fact, censorship is dangerous.

Personally, 2017 has been a remarkable year that I will never forget. I graduated from high school and late this year finished my first semester at the University of Miami while being selected as an Intern in Dr. Hammerschlag’s renowned Shark Research and Conservation Lab. In between, I was awarded the Miami Herald’s Silver Knight Award for Social Science and the Inaugural National Geographic Teen Service Award, among other honors.

Over the summer I helped enact Florida’s first solar mandate law that made The Sunshine State only the second in America with such a progressive step towards sustainability. And I traveled to New York twice, once for the amazing, humbling, honor to address the United Nations General Assembly on behalf of the UNESCO World Heritage Marine Programme and the Everglades National Park on World Oceans Day, and the second time to work with MTV and former Vice President Al Gore in support of his new book and movie An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power. And speaking of books, my work with The Sink or Swim Project was mentioned in two important books: Truth to Power and Utilizing Innovative Technologies to Address the Public Health Impact of Climate Change.

I was also honored to lecture to thousands of young people this year in elementary, middle and high school, as well as various colleges in Central and South Florida. And this fall I was named a member of the Board of Directors of the CLEO Institute.

But of all the things that I did this year, perhaps the most important in my view was helping conceive, organize and then hosting the inaugural March for Science Miami in April with a group of incredible women. Evidence based, peer reviewed science is the very foundation of discovery and innovation and, thus, the news earlier this month that our federal government would censor the use of scientific phrases is somewhere between sick and scary.

In a democracy where free speech is embraced and cherished as a core, founding value of our country, it is impossible to understand how our government could dictate that these, or any, words or phrases (vulnerable, entitlement, diversity, transgender, fetus, evidence-based, and science-based) be outlawed and this should alarm every American no matter their political affiliation.

But, of course, this does not completely surprise those of us here in Florida were our Governor, Rick Scott, himself a close ally and confidant to President Trump, has outlawed phrases such as global warming, climate change and sea level rise from his administration. And he’s doing this knowing well and good that communities all over our region are being forced to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to begin fighting the exact threats the Governor pretends to overlook. Censorship is not ‘normal politics’, it’s unethical and immoral and it must stop.

So, as the sun sets on 2017 here on No Name Key here’s hoping that science and scientists will be embraced by every American in 2018 and that censorship of any type will never be tolerated.IMG_6756