The Miami-Dade absentee ballots have all been counted. And color us blue. That blank on the U.S. map usually known as Florida is now filled in. Mitt Romney has conceded Florida. Miami-Dade County itself turned out for Barak Obama in a big way. The final results are : 62% for the President and 38% for Mitt Romney. Now the attention turns to what took so long and how to prevent a repeat performance. Elections Supervisor Penelope Townsley admits more and larger locations are needed and says her department, along with the mayor's office, will examine what can be done differently.
Riet Steinmetz is working to preserve both the Old Seven Mile Bridge and Pigeon Key.
Credit Arianna Prothero
Pigeon Key is a small, five acre island that housed up to 400 workers at a time. There was very little to do on Pigeon Key except work. Riet says workers didn't learn until they arrived that alcohol was not allowed.
Credit Arianna Prothero
After walking 2 miles over the Old Seven Mile Bridge, you take this ramp down onto Pigeon Key. There are 8 historic buildings on the key, one of which you can stay in.
Credit Arianna Prothero
Riet is walking down the dirt road that the workers call Main Street. Many of the workers came from New York City and named the small alleys on the key after the streets they knew in NYC. There was also a Broadway and 41st Street.
Credit Arianna Prothero
This is a leaf from a pitch apple tree, also called the signature tree. Riet says people used to plant these trees by their front doors so visitors could etch their name or a message into the leaves.
Credit Arianna Prothero
This is just one of the buildings that workers lived in.
Credit Arianna Prothero
Buddy is Pigeon Key's resident cat. No one knows how Buddy got there.
Credit Arianna Prothero
Originally there were four barracks like this one, each housing 64 men. The floors are made of original Dade County Pine. The building is now used as a classroom for marine science camps.
Credit Arianna Prothero
On the right is the Old Seven Mile Bridge which is now closed to cars. On the left is the new Seven Mile Bridge.
Mr. Ducky is Pigeon Key's resident duck. It's also unknown how he got there. If you're wondering, Mr. Ducky and Buddy the cat get along just fine.
Credit Arianna Prothero
One of the historical buildings on the Key. This one now functions as the museum building.
Credit Arianna Prothero
Inside the museum are old photos, artifacts and diagrams explaining how the bridge was constructed.
Credit Arianna Prothero
This is an old photo of the island when it was a work camp.
Visitors are allowed to stay and vacation in one of the historic houses on Pigeon Key.
Credit Arianna Prothero
There's even a hammock- definitely a keys style museum.
Earlier this week we brought to you a story about a community organization trying to restore the Old Seven Mile Bridge.
Part of that story touched on Pigeon Key, where the work camp for the men who built the Old Seven Mile Bridge lived 100 years ago. The entire island is now a museum.
Take a tour of historic Pigeon Key with Riet Steinmetz through these photos above.
The absentee ballot count is over in Miami-Dade County but it will be still one more day before President Obama knows for sure if Florida wanted him re-elected.
Miami Dade County election workers are expecting to finish processing absentee ballots sometime today. Then, they'll be able to tell President Obama whether he also won Florida on election day.
The bags of thousands of ballots are the result of a series of voting snafus related to high turnout and restrictive voting rules that persuaded hordes of local voters to vote absentee rather than wait in line, possibly for hours, at their polling stations.
Just what led to some voting breakdowns in Miami-Dade is still up for debate - not enough resources, too many voters, too long a ballot, too many precincts in one place. About the only thing certain is it will be at least one more day before we know who can claim Florida. One man who is happy with the election results and is Miami-Dade School Superintendent Alberto Carvalho. Voters overwhelmingly approved the $1.2 billion dollar bond referendum to refurbish aging school buildings and also update and install new technology.
The federal lawsuit filed Sunday morning by the Florida Democratic Party over early voting was resolved late Monday afternoon. It stemmed in part from the long delays on the last official day of early voting in South Florida and that was technically on Saturday. The emergency lawsuit was aimed at the supervisors of elections for Dade, Broward and Palm Beach Counties. The legal point is whether people could vote absentee in person -- and the long waits were preventing that. The judge has ruled voter
