Ashley Lopez

On Election Day this year, Florida went from having zero openly gay lawmakers in the state Legislature to two.

David Richardson won a seat in the Florida House representing Miami Beach and Joe Saunders won a seat representing a part of Orlando. Both men are openly gay.

Up until last week, Florida was the biggest state in the U.S. to have never elected an openly gay person to office in their state legislature. 

Chuck Wolfe, president of the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, says that Florida was actually part of a national trend.

Gov. Rick Scott-- the man who spent his own money traveling the country in an effort to stop health care reform-- has announced he is actually going to work with the federal government to implement the health care reform law in Florida.

Since the 2010 health care law was passed, Florida officials and Scott have dragged their feet in implementing the health care law here. They have even turned away millions of dollars allocated through the law that would go to programs that help low-income women and children.

However, things have since changed.

In this past election, only three of the 11 proposed changes to the Florida Constitution on this year's ballot actually passed.

The ballot measures covered issues like tax cuts, the Florida Supreme Court, abortion and public funding of religious groups.

There are a lot of theories as to why this happened: a historically long ballot might have fatigued people by the time they got to the ballot measures, the amendments themselves were lengthy and confusing, lines were too long and polling places were chaotic, etc.

Following this year's close presidential election here in Florida, there were reports that Obama had won the Cuban vote, or at least he had gotten a record share of it.

However, some political researchers and professors here in South Florida don't agree that this election represented a historic shift for South Florida's Cuban-Americans -- a population that has historically voted in favor of the GOP. 

Last week, Floridians voted down Amendment 1 -- an amendment that basically added anti-health care reform language into our state Constitution. Specifically, the amendment would have made it illegal to implement the individual mandate portion of the Affordable Care Act in Florida.

However, many experts said that even if it did pass, Florida's Amendment 1 simply could not overrule a federal law, which was also upheld as constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Florida may have been a laughingstock on the heels of this presidential election because of its continued inability to conduct an election without a flurry of snafus -- but it's important to note, folks, that we aren't the only state that took a long time to count ballots this year.

The Supreme Court says its going to review whether Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional. Section 5 requires that certain states and counties receive federal pre-clearance of laws that could potentially impact minority voting rights.

The Hill reports, 

President Obama may have not technically won the Cuban vote -- but he did manage to score the biggest share of this historically Republican vote that any Democratic presidential candidate has ever gotten.

The Miami Herald reports,

Just before Veterans Day, the results of November's election provided some relief for veterans and their spouses in Florida.

Among the many measures up for vote on this year's long and complicated ballot, were two tax exemptions aimed at helping out military families. Those two measures were among three that actually passed last week. There were 11 ballot measures in total.

The Latino vote has been changing in the past few years in Florida, but it looks like it's mostly been shifting towards Democrats.

And looking at Tuesday night's results, that's particularly true.

For decades, Florida's Latino population has been its mostly Cuban-American residents in South Florida. As we all know, Cubans here lean Republican when they vote.

However, more Latinos of different nationalities are coming to Florida and are effectively shifting its voting trends.

Miami Dade elections officials are blaming absentee ballots -- and particularly their length -- for the county's ballot count hold-up.

Christina White, a spokeswoman for the supervisor for Miami Dade, says that the sheer volume of absentee ballots are to blame for the fact that Miami-Dade still hasn't finished counting ballots.

"Approximately 20,000 absentee ballots are being tabulated right now," White says.

All of the county's 829 precincts closed around 1:30 a.m. last night -- but the counting isn't over. 

Big things happened with some items on the top and bottom of your ballot last night. First, 8 of the 11 ballot measures failed this year.

Only three of these ballot measures passed:

8:27 Ballot Measure and Big Races

Here are some things that happened at the top and bottom of the ballot last night.

First, 8 of the 11 ballot measures failed this year.

Only three of these ballot measures passed:

Any expert will tell you that this election comes down to a few swing states, including Florida.

However, within those key swing states is the all-powerful Latino vote, and experts say that this voting population could very likely cost Mitt Romney the election.

The Hill reports,

It was a last minute announcement made by Miami Dade Elections Officials, but somehow hundreds of voters showed up to vote this Sunday.

According to voters lined up that day, they have Facebook to thank for finding out about that impromptu voting day.

Last year, state lawmakers cut down early voting days and controversially eliminated the Sunday before Election Day.

Florida may be center stage for this year's election, but its also a largely complicated and interesting place to outsiders during non-election years.

From 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. today you can vote at the Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections office.

Here is a press release from the Miami Dade Elections office,

In an effort to continue serving eager voters on the final Sunday before Election Day, the Elections Department is opening its doors to voters.

While state law does not permit Early Voting today, we are permitted to provide and accept absentee ballots.

Florida-- including South Florida--could finally be getting the millions of dollars it won in a settlement with big banks over bad mortgages and foreclosures. 

In the past several months about $300 million dollars given to Florida has been locked up in a battle between Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi and the state Legislature. Each party claims that they have the authority to decide how the money is spent.

Here's a break from the relentness news about this year's election.

For those of you not stuck in a long line on the last day of early voting on Saturday, you can distract yourself at the Miami Science Museum's Reptile Day.

Among the many activities they are putting together is a "live python animal presentation," a turtle race and an "eat like a reptile cooking demonstration."

Yes. You read right. There will be food served that is typically eaten by lizards.

Here at WLRN, we've gotten a report of at least one person was allowed to vote in South Florida because officials did not believe the signature on his ballot was indeed his.

A Broward election official said situations like this could be remedied by a voter simply updating their signature in person at the supervisor of elections office in the county they vote in.

Besides a contentious presidential election, Floridians are also voting on key congressional races this year. 

Among those races is former congressman Alan Grayson's possible return to the U.S. House, as well as Rep. Allen West's, R-Florida, re-election where he faces off newcomer Patrick Murphy.

Right now, Grayson is (very) well positioned to win his race. West has out-raised Murphy by millions of dollars and has an edge in the polls.

As you all head to the polls between now and next Tuesday, be vigilant for voting scams and general shenanigans.

The Associated Press reported yesterday that voters in Florida have been inundated with some foul play this election season.

Obama might have a sizeable lead among Hispanics nationwide-- but that doesn't seem to be the case in Florida.

Here, Obama's lead is razor thin. As Marc Caputo at The Miami Herald reports, that's because of Florida's Cuban population, which votes heavily Republican.

Dan Christensen of Browardbulldog.org reported last week on some of the interesting characters that were (sort of) part of a privatization deal between the Department of Children and Families and a company in Broward.

DCF put out a bid several months ago to privatize the management of mental health and substance abuse services in Broward County.

A non-profit group called Broward Behavioral Health Coalition eventually won the $45 million deal from DCF.

Well, Happy Halloween everyone.

In the spirit of today's festivities, here is a video from Florida New Majority (they have an office here in Miami) that warns Floridians that the only way to avoid a "Romney Zombie Apocalypse" is to vote.

The group says:

In a state plagued by natural disasters, exploding pythons, and the strangest politics on the planet, Florida voters are bracing for the latest horror -- zombie apocalypse! 

Palm Beach County has seen yet another printing problem during this election.

According to The Palm Beach Post, "Elections Supervisor Susan Bucher said Monday that she has been forced to send new absentee ballots to about 500 county residents because of a new printing error."

A fire in the First Church of God in Broward (1242 N. Andrews Ave, Fort Lauderdale) has closed that polling location for Election Day.

Everyone who is assigned to that location will now be voting at Thurgood Marshall Elementary School located at 800 NW 13 Street.

This is a temporary change, which means no one will be issued a voting card for that precinct. Every voter in that precinct should have received a letter notifying them of this change.

If you have any questions or concerns about this change, voters are encouraged to call 954-357-7050. 

This weekend, thousands of early voters in Miami stood through some very long lines.

And it looks like the line hasn't let up.

On Monday afternoon, a workday, lines where still up to four hours in Miami Dade.

At North Dade Regional Library the wait was three-and-a-half hours. At Coral Reef and West Dade Regional Library it was about three hours, as well. However, the longest lines in the county were at North Dade Regional Library, where the wait time there was a grueling four hours. 

Besides the 11 proposed amendments to the state Constitution, Miami-Dade dwellers will also be deciding the fate of 8 proposed charter amendments.

 These charter amendments are significantly shorter than the state-level changes, but there are quite a few of them-- and like most ballot measures, they can be kind of confusing. However, here is our breakdown created with the help of The Florida League of Women Voters' 2012 Voting Guide. 

There are reports flying around in Broward County that a lot of people are not getting their absentee ballots.

However, there is no reason to worry.

Broward County is not having any problems getting absentee ballots out-- there is just a lot people requesting ballots (more than usual) and the county is working to get those out.

Broward County is one of the biggest counties in the state-- so, even if just a small percentage of people haven't gotten their ballots, yet, it turns out to be a lot of people.