Peter Schorsch
Last Call – A prime-time read of what’s going down in Florida politics.
First Shot
Election Day is here, and Florida’s Secretary of State says everything is going well, and plans are in place should something go awry.
“We have federal law enforcement on site here in the building. We are in contact with a lot of our Supervisors of Elections, our 67 Sheriffs. We have a cybersecurity team in place,” Secretary Cord Byrd said.
“So we are prepared for any type of election interference, but so far, early voting and vote-by-mail went very well, and we don’t anticipate any issues on Election Day.”
However, one issue did crop up — the state’s Voter Information Lookup webpage was down for hours, showing an error message when voters entered identifying information to see if they were registered. The outage drew criticism from Democrats, including Party Chair Nikki Fried.
The Department downplayed the downtime, emphasizing that voters can still check their registration status through their county Supervisor of Elections website.
“The state’s courtesy website is encountering record-high traffic. Any voter having difficulty utilizing the state courtesy lookup webpage should go to their county SOE webpage for the same service,” says Mark Ard, the external affairs director for the Secretary of State’s Office.
As Last Call hits your inbox, there is about an hour left before polls close for counties on EST. Polls will close in Florida’s westernmost counties an hour later.
Preliminary unofficial election results will be available on FloridaElectionWatch.gov once all polls close — or 8 p.m. EST.
Evening Reads
—“How the election could unfold: Four scenarios” via Nate Cohn of The New York Times
—”Election officials brace for ‘little fires everywhere’ if Donald Trump loses again” via Amy Gardner and Colby Itkowitz of The Washington Post
—“Election workers are facing immense pressure to back Trump’s lies” via Justin Glawe and Asawin Suebsaeng of Rolling Stone
—”How Trump used the ‘red mirage’ in vote counting to deny his 2020 loss” via Bonnie Berkowitz, Szu Yu Chen and Mark Berman of The Washington Post
—“Five reasons to expect a Kamala Harris win — and four to expect a Trump victory” via Eric Levitz of Vox
—“Final Silver Bulletin 2024 Presidential Election forecast” via Nate Silver of the Silver Bulletin
—”11 things I believe about this election” via Chris Cillizza of So What
—”More than 81 million Americans cast a ballot before Election Day” via Alyssa Fowers and Hannah Recht of The Washington Post
—”How to watch the election results” via Derek Thompson of The Atlantic
—”When to expect results in each state on Election Night, and beyond” via Alicia Parlapiano and Lazaro Gamio of The New York Times
—”Watch these counties for early clues to Election Night” via Dante Chinni, Stephanie Stamm and Anthony DeBarros of The Wall Street Journal
Quote of the Day
“Just like when the unemployment site went down during COVID. It is designed to crash.”
— FDP Chair Nikki Fried, on the state’s Voter Information Lookup website going down.
Put it on the Tab
Look to your left, then look to your right. If you see one of these people at your happy hour haunt, flag down the bartender and put one of these on your tab. Recipes included, just in case the Cocktail Codex fell into the well.
Election Day is here. Grab a seat, tune in and order Zero Hour — we’re in for another close one.
Here’s where 2024 campaigns celebrate (or lick their wounds) … and here’s a list of top-tier election night cocktails.
The state Division of Elections’ webmaster gets a Crash & Burn for allowing the Voter Information Lookup page to error out.
Breakthrough Insights
Tune In
Lightning look to snap losing skid
The Tampa Bay Lightning look to snap a two-game losing streak as they continue a four-game road trip in St. Louis against the Blues (8 p.m. ET, FanDuel Sports Network-Sun).
Tampa Bay (7-5-0) enters the game tied with the Toronto Maple Leafs for second place in the Atlantic Division, trailing the Florida Panthers by five points. On the current road trip, the Lightning defense has been lacking. Tampa Bay allowed 12 goals in the past two games, and there were losses to the Minnesota Wild and Winnipeg Jets.
St. Louis (6-6-0) snapped a three-game losing streak on Saturday with a 4-2 win over Toronto. Colton Parayko scored twice in the game for the Blues.
So far this season, Tampa’s attack has been led by Nikita Kucherov. Last year’s Art Ross Trophy winner scored 10 goals and tied for the league lead while contributing 10 assists. Only three players have more points this year entering tonight’s game.
After the Lightning conclude the road trip, they will return home for three straight games, including a Thursday meeting with the Philadelphia Flyers. Seven of Tampa Bay’s remaining 10 games in November will be played at home.
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Last Call is published by Peter Schorsch, assembled and edited by Phil Ammann and Drew Wilson, with contributions from the staff of Florida Politics.
