Government

Voters in portions of Lee and Collier Counties will chose a new representative for Florida’s Congressional District 19th seat Tuesday/today.  Current Congressman Curt Clawson is not seeking a second term.  WGCU’s John Davis reports, voters will primarily be choosing between two candidates who have not previously held public office.

Stuart Whiddon is stepping down as Glades County Sheriff, and three people are competing to replace him Tuesday.

Charlotte County residents will decide Tuesday whether or not to re-elect their current sheriff, Rep. Bill Prummell. He’s completing his first term. Prummell is being challenged by local Dem. Jim Melo.

“You guys are a checkmate state,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) told the crowd of several hundred at the Lee Campus of Florida SouthWestern State College Saturday afternoon.

The vice presidential candidate’s visit to Fort Myers came at the tail end of his nine-day-long Florida tour for Sec. Hillary Clinton’s campaign and follows former president Bill Clinton’s stop in adjacent Immokalee the week prior. Clinton spent her Saturday campaigning across the state in Pembroke Pines.

Charges of rigged elections and voter fraud are flying this election season. In rallies across Florida, Donald Trump supporters have told reporters they fear the election could be fixed. Both elections officials and civic organizations, however, said recent incidents of voter fraud in Florida are the exception, and not the rule.

This week a Central Florida couple learned their absentee ballots had been stolen from their mailbox, but by the time they learned what had happened, the pilfered ballots had already been cast.