{"id":1628729,"date":"2022-08-31T17:51:06","date_gmt":"2022-08-31T21:51:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1628729"},"modified":"2022-08-31T17:51:09","modified_gmt":"2022-08-31T21:51:09","slug":"blue-county-blunders-left-gop-voters-in-florida-county-without-ballots-seeking-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/blue-county-blunders-left-gop-voters-in-florida-county-without-ballots-seeking-investigation\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue County Blunders Left GOP Voters in Florida County Without Ballots, Seeking Investigation"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fblue-county-blunders-left-gop-voters-in-florida-county-without-ballots-seeking-investigation%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1628729&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p class=\"p1\">LAKELAND, Fla.\u2014<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-florida\">Florida<\/a>\u2019s Alachua County school board in 2020-21 repeatedly tangled with Gov. Ron DeSantis in a bitter battle over local school board autonomy versus the state\u2019s preemptive authority in managing responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">It was one of two Florida school boards\u2014along with Broward County\u2019s\u2014where members\u2019 salaries were docked by the state and the districts fined hundreds of thousands of dollars for imposing mask mandates, in defiance of a DeSantis executive order and a state Department of Health rule that banned such actions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">While the fines were rescinded in court rulings, the Alachua board\u2019s actions sparked controversy, which invited scrutiny. One of its five members was removed by DeSantis because she lived outside her district. His appointee, Mildred Russell, then cast the deciding vote when the board fired Alachua School Superintendent Carlee Simon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">With four Alachua board seats on the Aug. 23 ballot\u2014two open seats and two incumbents, including the governor\u2019s appointee\u2014area Republicans seized on the parents\u2019 rights movement, hoping to generate enthusiasm in support of three conservative candidates and Russell.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">DeSantis has certainly been riding parents\u2019 anger over pandemic mask mandates and critical race theory. For the first time ever, a Florida governor formally issued endorsements in non-partisan local elections, backing 30 candidates in 19 school districts and campaigning on behalf of several before the Aug. 23 elections.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Among those 30: Russell, who was being challenged by Diyonne McGraw, who she had replaced on the board after McGraw\u2019s home was found to be 328 feet outside the district she was elected to serve in 2020.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">But enthusiasm among Republican voters can only be so efficacious in Alachua County, where the University of Florida dominates its largest city, Gainesville. It\u2019s one of just 15 of Florida\u2019s 67 counties where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans\u2014and, in this case, significantly so.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">According to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>LAKELAND, Fla.\u2014Florida\u2019s Alachua County school board in 2020-21 repeatedly tangled with Gov. Ron DeSantis in a bitter battle over local school board autonomy versus the state\u2019s preemptive authority in managing responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was one of two Florida school boards\u2014along with Broward County\u2019s\u2014where members\u2019 salaries were docked by the state and the [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":509,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1628729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1628729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/509"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1628729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1628729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1628729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1628729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1628729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}