Politics

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. 

The  Miami Book Fair International is happening through the weekend , and all week, we're hearing from some of the Florida authors appearing at Miami-Dade College for the fair.

One of South Florida's leading constitutional scholars says U. S. Rep. Allen West is likely to lose his fight to recount the votes in District 18 and regain the seat he appears to have lost to Democrat Patrick Murphy.

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.

Broward County is still tallying up votes in two recounts from last week’s election.  

In Dania Beach's close commission race, Chickie Brandimartie leads Mac McElyea by just 16 votes out of more than 4,000. In Hallandale Beach, it's even closer with Anthony Sanders leading Michele Lazarow by just 6 votes out of more than 7,000.

And the Sun-Sentinel reports that nearly a thousand uncounted ballots were discovered in a Broward warehouse on Monday.

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.