The Primary election takes place on August 30th. There are four ballots depending on your party status: Republican, Democrat, Libertarian and Nonpartisan.
There will be early voting for the primary August 20th through August 27th from 9am to 6pm. There are two early voting locations in Spring Hill and two in Brooksville. The Spring Hill locations are the Supervisor of Elections Office at 7443 Forest Oaks Blvd and Spring Hill Library 9220 Spring Hill Dr. The Brooksville locations are the South Brooksville Community Center 601 E. Dr. Martin Luther King Blvd. and East Hernando Library 6457 Windmere Rd.
There are four different ballots because in a primary election, voters according to party decide who will represent them in the November elections. The ballots will all include the nonpartisan elections and the constitutional amendment.
The Nonpartisan elections are the school board and county judge elections.
In the school board elections there are two of five members up for election. In the district 2 school board election you have Mario F. Littman, Linda K. Prescott, and Steven Van Gorden vying to replace current School Board Chairman Matt Foreman, who chose not to run for the seat. You can read candidate statements for school board district 2 here.
In the district 4 school board election you have Michael Angelo Gordon, Gus Guadagnino, and William James Vonada running for the seat currently held by Gus Guadagnino. You can read their candidate statements here.
There is only one county judge election on the ballot, it is between Donald M. ‘Sonny’ McCathran, Jr. and Kristie Ruppe who are seeking the judgeship currently held by Judge McCathran. You can read candidate statements by Kristie Ruppe and Judge Sonny McCathran here.
The constitutional amendment seeks to encourage investment in solar infrastructure for a home or business by exempting solar improvements from being included in property value assessment. This will mean that adding solar panels to your house would not increase the property taxes. The exemption would take effect January 1, 2018 and expire December 31, 2037.
This amendment should not to be confused with Amendment 1, a different solar amendment, which will be on the November 8th ballot. Amendment 1 deals with the purchasing of solar power by the power companies and has received a majority of its financial support from power companies.
If you are a registered Democrat:
You have nonpartisan elections and the constitutional amendment plus the opportunity to elect one of four US Senate Democratic Candidates to run in the November election for the seat currently held by Marco Rubio. The Democrat candidates are Alan Grayson, Patrick Murphy, Roque “Rocky” De La Fuente, Pam Keith and Reginald Luster. The frontrunners in this race are Alan Grayson and Patrick Murphy.
If you are a registered Libertarian:
You have nonpartisan elections and the constitutional amendment plus the opportunity to elect either Paul Stanton and Augustus Invictus to represent the Libertarian party in the US Senate election to represent Florida in the seat currently held by Marco Rubio.
If you are a registered Republican:
You have the nonpartisan elections and the constitutional amendment plus five partisan elections. There are four candidates, Carlos Beruff, Ernie Rivera, Marco Rubio, and Dwight Mark Anthony Young, seeking to represent Republicans in the US Senate November election for the seat currently held by Marco Rubio. There is more about Beruff and Rubio here
There are two candidates Daniel Webster and Justin Grabelle seeking to represent District 11 (Hernando, Citrus, Sumter, and parts of Lake and Marion County) in the US House of Representatives, a seat currently held by Richard Nugent. In the local Republican races there are two county commission offices and a Republican state committeeman to represent Hernando. Both Grabelle and Webster met with us to talk about their platforms. You can read about our discussion with Justin Grabelle here. You can read about our discussion with Daniel Webster here here.
There are three Republican candidates vying to represent Republicans in the election for District 1 County Commission Michael LaRocca, Nick Nicholson, and Joseph Swilley, Sr. The winner of this election will face the Democratic Candidate Jimmy Lodato in November. County Commission District 1 candidate statements can be found here.
There are two candidates vying to represent Republicans in the election for District 5: Steve Champion and Dave Russell. The winner of this election will face Paul Douglas (D) in November.
The final race is for Republican State Committeeman to represent Hernando between Blaise Ingoglia and Roy Martin. They are both seeking to replace Tom Hogan as Republican State Committeeman.