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Weather: A good day for an election: Mostly sunny. Highs in the mid 80s. East winds 10 to 15 mph. Tuesday Night: Mostly cloudy with a slight chance of showers and thunderstorms. Lows in the lower 70s. East winds 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 20 percent.
- Daily weather briefing from the National Weather Service in Jacksonville here.
- Drought conditions here. (What is the Keetch-Byram drought index?).
- Check today’s tides in Daytona Beach (a few minutes off from Flagler Beach) here.
- Tropical cyclone activity here, and even more details here.
Today at a Glance:
Election Day today, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. You may vote at your own precinct only. Find your precinct here. According to Florida law, every voter must present a Florida driver’s license, a Florida identification card or another form of acceptable picture and signature identification in order to vote. If you do not present the required identification or if your eligibility cannot be determined, you will only be permitted to vote a provisional ballot. Don’t forget your ID. A couple of secure drop boxes that Ron DeSantis and the GOP legislature haven’t yet banned (also known as Secure Ballot Intake Stations) are available at the entrance of the Elections Office and at any early voting site during voting hours. See a sample ballot here. See the Live Interviews with all local candidates below.
Palm Coast Mayor
Cornelia Manfre
Mike Norris
Palm Coast City Council
Ty Miller, Dist. 1
Jeffrey Seib, Dist. 1
Ray Stevens, Dist. 3
Andrew Werner, Dist. 3
Backgrounders
Manfre’s and Norris’s Final Clash
Temper and Temperament at Tiger Bay Forum
Stevens and Werner Sharpen Differences
The Flagler County Canvassing Board meets today several times at the Flagler County Supervisor of Elections office, Government Services Building, 1769 East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell. The meeting is open to the public. Check the time in the sidebar or in this chart, which includes the full year’s meeting schedule (the pdf schedule does not include the dates and times of required Canvassing Board meetings which may be necessary due to a recount called locally or statewide.) The board is chaired by County Judge Andrea Totten. This Election Year’s board members are Supervisor of Elections Kaiti Lenhart and County Commissioner Dave Sullivan. The alternates are County Judge Melissa Distler and County Commissioner Donald O’Brien. March-April meetings are for the presidential preference primary, such as it is. See all legal notices from the Supervisor of Elections, including updated lists of those ineligible to vote, here.
The Flagler Beach Library Writers’ Club meets at 5 p.m. at the library, 315 South Seventh Street, Flagler Beach.
The Bunnell Planning, Zoning and Appeals Board meets at 6 p.m. at the Government Services Building, 1769 East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell. The board consists of Carl Lilavois, Chair; Manuel Madaleno, Nealon Joseph, Gary Masten and Lyn Lafferty.
Random Acts of Insanity Standup Comedy, 8 p.m. at Cinematique Theater, 242 South Beach Street, Daytona Beach. General admission is $8.50. Every Tuesday and on the first Saturday of every month the Random Acts of Insanity Comedy Improv Troupe specializes in performing fast-paced improvised comedy.
 Keep Their Lights On Over the Holidays: Flagler Cares, the social service non-profit celebrating its 10th anniversary, is marking the occasion with a fund-raiser to "Keep the Holiday Lights On" by encouraging people to sponsor one or more struggling household's electric bill for a month over the Christmas season. Each sponsorship amounts to $100 donation, with every cent going toward payment of a local power bill. See the donation page here. Every time another household is sponsored, a light goes on on top of a house at Flagler Cares' fundraising page. The goal of the fun-raiser, which Flagler Cares would happily exceed, is to support at least 100 families (10 households for each of the 10 years that Flagler Cares has been in existence). Flagler Cares will start taking applications for the utility fund later this month. Because of its existing programs, the organization already has procedures in place to vet people for this type of assistance, ensuring that only the needy qualify. |
Notably: “But what I am thinking of at this moment,” Orwell wrote in The Road to Wigan Pier, “is the Fascist attitude of mind, which beyond any doubt is gaining ground among people who ought to know better.” Wat I am also thinking at this moment, with a little caveat about the first clause, is what Billy Currington is singing below, since that fabulous appearance on letterman: God is great, beer is good and people are crazy.
—P.T.
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The Live Calendar is a compendium of local and regional political, civic and cultural events. You can input your own calendar events directly onto the site as you wish them to appear (pending approval of course). To include your event in the Live Calendar, please fill out this form.
Flagler County Drug Court Convenes
Flagler County Canvassing Board Meeting
Story Time for Preschoolers at Flagler Beach Public Library
Flagler Tiger Bay Club Guest Speaker: Carlos M. Cruz
Model Yacht Club Races at the Pond in Palm Coast’s Town Center
Free For All Fridays With Host David Ayres on WNZF
Scenic A1A Pride Meeting
Blue 24 Forum
Acoustic Jam Circle At The Community Center In The Hammock
For the full calendar, go here.
“I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to.”
–From Bill Bryson’s The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America (1989).
Wallingford says
Election Day is here thank goodness!!
JD Vance calling Kamala Harris TRASH last evening at a rally in Georgia shows how much, or really how little, respect the Republican Party has for Women. He and his women abusing running mate have no business being in the White House and we should vote accordingly
Jim says
But, as a counter point…. JD Vance is an expert on trash – after all he stares at a large pile of garbage every time he looks in a mirror…
Ray W, says
This just in. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a Trump appointee, voluntarily stepped down today, pending replacement.
Four years ago, Mr. DeJoy was named by a federal judge a month before the 2020 election in a ruling on post office issues.
Here is the AP’s take on the ruling:
“U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan concluded that Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s actions delayed mail deliveries and that he acted without obtaining an advisory opinion from the Postal Regulatory Commission.”
The reporter then wrote:
“DeJoy restricted overtime payments for postal workers and stopped the agency’s longtime practice of allowing late and extra truck deliveries in the summer of 2020. The moves reduced costs but meant that some mail was left behind to be delivered the following day.
“Those delays and the removal of many mail-sorting machines were among actions that led New York and several other states to sue — claiming the actions amounted to voter suppression.”
Yes, a Republican appointed by Trump to lead the post office ordered removal of mail-sorting machines in the months before the 2020 election. Mail delivery delays increased.
I checked my mail again, 18 days after my wife called the Volusia elections division to seek delivery of a mail-in ballot. Still no ballot. She went with me to early vote in person. I was told last Friday during a call to the elections office before we both went to vote that vote-by-mail ballots were going out.
I found an article about how certain regions throughout the country are experiencing greater mail delivery delays than others. Atlanta, for example, reportedly has 36% of mail being delivered more than seven days after entering the postal service process.
I comment on this because I have been receiving a number of texts from Republican operatives about how so many Republican vote-by-mail ballots have not yet been returned in Pennsylvania: 199,619 as of Sunday. This morning, it was 124,876 missing ballots. This afternoon, the “Ballot Chasers” … are “running on fumes.” They need my money to keep going.
I wondered why the Republican operatives were focusing on postal service delays when their own appointment to head the post office had taken so many sorting machines out of operation? Republicans caused the problem. It makes no sense for them to highlight their own shortcomings.
Make of this what you will.
Me? I smell a con coming on. They think they might lose Pennsylvania, so they are setting up a new “Stop the Steal!” campaign if they do.
Ray W, says
A Trump-appointed Georgia-based federal judge dismissed a last-minute RNC-filed challenge today. State and national Republicans had filed the claim.
The RNC argued that seven blue-leaning Georgia counties illegally accepted by hand a total of 2,000 absentee ballots between November 2 and 4.
“Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, … wrote on X … ‘Under state law, election officials can receive absentee ballots in person at govt facilities if the county chooses. Several counties have chosen to do this. We are working with the counties to ensure this is done transparently and within Georgia law.”
Instead of challenging all of the Georgia counties that had chosen to accept absentee ballots by hand, the RNC had challenged only democratic-leaning counties. Of this choice, the judge said that the RNC was attempting to “tip the scales of this election by discriminating against [counties] less likely to vote for their candidate and he asked Republican lawyers to not “take us any closer to that ledge.”
He also said, the reporter wrote, that the Republicans appeared to ‘cherrypick’ certain counties more likely to go blue by omitting from the claim red-leaning counties that did the same thing.
Had he done what the Republicans asked, the judge said he would have had to break state law, the Constitution and his oath.
Make of this what you will.
Me? In 2000, the Gore national team of lawyers asked for recounts in only three of Florida’s 67 counties. Volusia County’s canvassing board voted to recount the fourth county. Eventually, the USSC ruled that by not seeking recount in all 67 counties, the recount effort violated the Equal Protection clause. It seems that the RNC lawyers did not learn this lesson. They chose to cherry-pick. They lost.
Judge Baker said:
“There’s no supporting facts. There’s no supporting law. That parade of horribles is factually and legally incorrect.”
It’s hard to imagine losing any worse than the RNC lost.
FlaPharmTech says
I guess I was delusional with the hope that Floriduh would be at least purple.
I’m sick to my stomach and aghast at my fellow Floridians.
Ken says
I would bet that would be all 4,669,481 (by last count) of you liberals. The same way all 6,099,686 (by last count) conservatives have felt the last four years. Not blue, not at least purple, but bright red. To put that in perspective, that’s equivalent to 21,346 people/votes per Florida county (67)….just for scale..