Today was Primary Election Day and for many candidates a precursor for the General Election in November. Still, some were running with no opposition party candidate and were declared winners in their respective races.
An issue arose shortly after the polls closed Tuesday night when almost all county supervisor of elections web sites were slow to update and most even stopped working.
A note on Charlotte County's web site said "The likely cause is an overloaded background task, database or application, stressing the resources on your web server." The Collier, Lee, Sarasota, Glades and Hendry county election sites were all nonworking.
Most of the county election sites were switched shortly after 8 p.m. to a statewide site that was compiling results.
Lee County
As of 8 p.m., nearly complete results from Lee County showed no major upsets or surprises but incumbent candidates had a solid showing in most of the races.
Supervisor of Elections Tommy Doyle won the seat for the third time Tuesday night with a commanding lead earning some 80% of the votes. The position pays $189,252 annually.
This win, comes just days after news broke that Doyle had a three-year-long affair with subordinate dating back to his first and second terms in office.
The woman told WGCU she filed and equal opportunity employment complaint against Doyle after being placed on a performance improvement plan in 2019. She admitted to having difficulties focusing on her job because of the affair and what she described as being forced into isolation and leaving work repeatedly to meet with Doyle at her home during work hours. Doyle has not denied the affair and in a statement last week said he deeply regrets it.
Months after filing the federal complaint, she rescinded and agreed to a separation agreement where she was paid her regular salary over the next 20 weeks, according to records kept by the woman.
WGCU is not naming the woman. She said the affair continued after the left Doyle’s employment.
Doyle, 72, earned more than 80,000 votes, most of them in early voting -- 9,484 and mail-in voting, 62,125. Still on Tuesday he managed to best his opponent with more than 8,700 votes to Michael “Mick” Peters some 6,000 votes on the final day of vote counting. All told, Peters won some 19, 328 votes.
WGCU News spoke with Peters prior to the polls closing Tuesday. He said he had already contacted the Florida Department of Law Enforcement as well as Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd asking that they investigate Doyle’s actions.
In other Lee County races, incumbent Matt Caldwell decidedly won with more than 70% of the votes against political neophyte Stephen Cunningham for the position of Lee Property Appraiser.
Caldwell, a 7th generation Floridian served in the Florida House of Representatives from 2010 until 2018. He was named Lee property appraiser in 2020. He has decades of experience in real estate and property appraisals.
Lee County Commissioner Mike Greenwell won the Republican Primary but still has one more race to determine if he keeps his District 5 seat after a hard-fought race against Republican Amanda Cochran.
With nearly all precincts reporting, Greenwell had a 10 percent lead over Cochran.
Greenwell was appointed to the seat by Gov. Ron DeSantis nearly 18 months ago after long-time politician Frank B. Mann died in office. Greenwell will face Democrat Kizzie Fowler in November.
Kevin Ruane of District 1 was also reelected after running unopposed.
David Mulicka easily beat Matthew Thornton for the Lee County Commissioner District 3 race. Incumbant Ray Sandelli did not run for reelection.
Mulicka will now face off in the November election against write-in candidate Jake Cataldo. Cataldo has not actively campaigned or raised any money.
The Lee County school board race for an at-large seat will go to a run-off in November. Vanessa Chaviano had about 47 percent of the votes, and it appeared she will face off against Sheridan Chester, who had about 31 percent. With nobody over 50 percent, the contest goes to November.
Bill Ribble and Kaitlyn Schoeffel were locked in a super-tight race for Lee School board, District Three. Ribble was leading by just a fraction over one-half percent. There may have to be a re-count in the race, if it's determined that the lead is one-half or less. All precincts have reported in this race.
Cape Coral voters will decide several city council races in November. Four districts had packed fields, and nobody got more than 50 percent of the votes in any contest.
In Fort Myers, the race for a city council seat in Ward Two likely will go to a run-off. One precinct out of six has not reported, but none of three candidates topped 50 percent.
Collier County
It appears the balance of power on the Collier County School Board will stay the same, as two incumbents have won their races.
Board member Stephanie Lucarelli won over Pamela Cunningham by about five-thousand votes, all precincts reporting.
And board member Erick Carter won his race over Tom Henning by about seven-thousand votes, with all precincts reporting.
Collier Republican activist Alfie Oakes had endorsed Cunningham, in an attempt to gain a third vote on the five-member board. Henning was also endorsed by Oakes.
Collier Commissioner William McDaniel easily won re-election, besting a challenger 63 to 37 percent. With all precincts reporting.
And Commissioner Burt Saunders will be the Republican nominee in November. Saunders turned back three challengers. He will face a non-party candidate in November.
Elections Supervisor Melissa Blazier also will be the Republican nominee in November. She has defeated two Republican challengers. She will face a write-in candidate in the general election.
Charlotte County
Charlotte County Sheriff Bill Prummell won handily over challenger Ryan Barber by an 22,658 to 5,527 margin.
For Southwest Florida, here are the supervisor of elections links:
(Due to sporadic issues with various elections websites Tuesday night, the following link also has local election results: https://vrcdn.electionsfl.org/FloridaENR.html)
- Collier — www.CollierVotes.gov
- Lee — https://www.lee.vote/
- Charlotte — https://www.soecharlottecountyfl.gov/
- Sarasota — https://www.sarasotavotes.gov/
- Hendry — https://www.hendryelections.org/
- Glades — https://www.voteglades.com/
- DeSoto — https://www.votedesoto.com/
VOTER GUIDE and other information
Vote results (As of 9 p.m. Tuesday)
Charlotte County: 152,064
Unofficial Voter Turnout 34,716
Percent Turnout 22.82%
Collier County: Active Eligible Voters 258,528
Unofficial Voter Turnout 64,465
Percent Turnout 24.95%
DeSoto County: 19,434
Unofficial Voter Turnout 3,475
Percent Turnout 17.85%
Glades County: Active Eligible Voters 6,864
Unofficial Voter Turnout 2,780
Percent Turnout 41%
Hendry County: Active Eligible Voters 15,075
Unofficial Voter Turnout 4,280
Percent Turnout 28.39%
Lee County: Active Eligible Voters 475,602
Unofficial Voter Turnout 109,611
Percent Turnout 23.05%
Sarasota County: Active Eligible Voters 326,826
Unofficial Voter Turnout 102,918
Percent Turnout 31.49%
Fewer than 1 in 4 registered voters turned out for Tuesday’s primary elections.
The News Service of Florida reported that with nearly all precincts reporting statewide, the turnout was 22 to 23 percent, according to data posted on the state Division of Elections website.
State election officials pinned the low turnout on the lack of statewide elections on the ballot.
The data showed five rural counties — Baker, Calhoun, Lafayette, Liberty and Taylor — topping 50 percent turnout.
In Southwest Florida, turnout was under 40 percent and mostly in the 20 percent level. Glades county topped the region with 41% followed by Sarasota with 31.49%, Hendry with 28.39, Collier at 24.95%, Lee at 23.05, Charlotte with 22.82 and DeSoto with 17.85%.
With the end of early voting this weekend, more than 1.9 million Floridians cast ballots in Tuesday’s primary elections, according to data posted Monday morning on the state Division of Elections website.
The data showed 1,263,127 voters had cast ballots by mail, including 553,520 Democrats, 515,532 Republicans, 177,603 unaffiliated voters and 16,472 third-party voters.
Also, 656,110 people cast ballots at early-voting sites, including 392,386 Republicans, 211,503 Democrats, 47,251 unaffiliated voters and 4,970 third-party voters.
WGCU staff members Michael Walcher, Eileen Kelley, John Davis, Molly Capaiga, Emma Rodriguez, Tori Foltz, Joseph Lyshon III, Amanda Inscore Whittamore, Andrea Melendez and Michael Braun contributed to this report. WGCU is your trusted source for news and information in Southwest Florida. We are a nonprofit public service, and your support is more critical than ever. Keep public media strong and donate now. Thank you. The News Service of Florida Contributed to this report.