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Highlands Today

Results Show Obama, Mahoney, Grimming Won Few Precincts

Jasmina Meyer/Highlands today

From left: Supervisor of Elections Joe Campbell and Assistant Supervisor of Elections Norma Stokes organize the elections office on Wednesday including boxing up secrecy sleeves before a meeting of the Canvassing Board to examine provisional ballots at the Highlands County Government Center in Sebring.

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By GARY PINNELL

Highlands Today

Published: November 6, 2008

An examination of the precincts where ballots were cast in Highlands County reveals a wide diversity in Democrats to Republicans, precincts where Congressman Tim Mahoney's affairs apparently didn't matter to voters, and precincts where Ron Grimming or Barack Obama won.

The Democrats carried only four of 25 precincts: Precinct 2 Avon Park Tax Collection Office, Precinct 7 Sebring Elks Lodge, Precinct 9 Sebring Boys & Girls Club, and Precinct 21 South Florida Community College.

But in those precincts, Republicans were trounced. In Precinct 9, for instance, McCain received only 4 votes. McCain won the county by a 58-40 percentage.

Barack Obama carried all four precincts. Precincts 2 and 9 are predominately black, Precincts 7 and 21 are racially mixed with large percentages of blacks, white and Hispanics.

Those are also the only four precincts carried by Mahoney. Tom Rooney won the county by a 63-37 percent margin.

In his race for sheriff, Ron Grimming collected more than $50,000 in donations, about a third more than incumbent Susan Benton, but he won only five precincts: 3 Community Bible Church in Avon Park, 12 Lorida Community Building, 13 First Baptist Church of Lake Placid, 14 Venus Clubhouse, and 22 Marantha Village in Sebring.

Benton won by a 55-45 percent margin.

The numbers are unofficial, said Supervisor of Elections Joe Campbell, until the canvassing board counts the 96 provisional ballots cast on Tuesday, and waits 10 days for absentee ballots to arrive from overseas. The canvassing board met at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday.

There were few problems in this election, said Assistant Supervisor Norma Stokes. "One machine went down in Precinct 16 (Avon Park Lakes Clubhouse). We took another machine out there, switched, and carried on."

Highlands County also didn't see the lines that formed in other Florida cities, Campbell noted.

"I couldn't have done it without the early voting workers and the poll workers. They're the ones who made this thing go smoothly," Campbell said.

The turnout in Highlands County was 68.6 percent of the registered voters.

"I predicted 75 percent," said Campbell. "I guessed a little bit high. The weather wasn't bad yesterday. I don't know how to explain it."

According to unofficial results from the State Elections Commission at 3 p.m. Wednesday, Obama won Florida, 4,073,207 to 3,872,553.

In Congressional District 16, Republican challenger Tom Rooney beat Tim Mahoney 208,271 to 138,510, or 60 to 40 percent.

In the District 17 state senate race, J.D. Alexander won by a similar percentage, 103,944 to 71,717.

The margin was even wider in state representative District 77, where Denise Grimsley won a third term by trouncing Democrat Elton Gissendanner 35,324 to 17,592, or 67 to 33 percent.

Highlands County supported Constitutional Amendment No. 2, defining marriage as between one man and one woman, by a 77 to 23 percent margin. Constitutional Amendment No. 3, 4 and 6 also carried in Highlands by greater than 60 percent margins. Local voters turned down Amendments 1 and 8.

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