Florida voters cast ballots in record numbers in Tuesday’s general election, with election officials pointing to an efficient vote count that wrapped up quickly on Election Day and business owners expressing concern over a minimum wage hike backed by attorneys.
While vote counts in other swing states such as Georgia and Pennsylvania dragged on through the end of the week, Florida posted comprehensive numbers Tuesday from 11 million voters at 6,000 precincts statewide. Voters gave President Trump the state’s 29 electoral votes.
“Florida’s supervisors of elections’ and their staff were prepared, ready, equipped and organized to face whatever challenges were thrown their way throughout this year,” Secretary of State Laurel Lee said in a statement emailed to the Florida Record. “I extend my gratitude to those supervisors and their staff who ensured that voters had what they needed to cast a ballot throughout this entire election cycle and who timely and efficiently provided unofficial election results.”
The Florida Chamber of Commerce expressed general satisfaction with the election results, with one major exception: the passage of a constitutional amendment bankrolled by attorneys that will bump up the state’s minimum wage to $10 an hour by fall of 2021 and get it to $15 an hour in 2026.
“The idea was, and is, bad for Florida, but I’d be the first to congratulate the trial lawyers behind the mandate as they invested big, stayed focused and they ultimately fooled voters with their efforts -- and they played by the rules,” an emailed statement from chamber President and CEO Mark Wilson says. “The potentially true intent of the amendment, to turn out Florida votes for a preferred presidential candidate of one super donor, ultimately failed, however.”
Amendment 2 garnered 60.8 percent of the statewide vote in unofficial results, just over the 60 percent threshold needed for a constitutional amendment to pass.
The chamber’s members see the passage of the measure as a blow for the state economy, predicting that Florida will as a result lose hundreds of thousands of jobs, see increased costs of living for the elderly and working families, lead businesses to relocate jobs to other nearby states and see reduced benefits for different groups of workers.
In addition, businesses will move aggressively to invest in automation to reduce labor costs as a result of Amendment 2’s passage, according to the chamber, potentially shrinking the number of jobs even as the coronavirus pandemic has led to more unemployment.
“(Amendment 2’s) forced cost-of-living adjustments mean Florida will have the highest minimum wage in the nation long after 2026,” a chamber statement reads. “Further, studies show this amendment will cause Florida to lose hundreds of thousands of jobs, drive up inflation and cost Florida more than $700 million in lost revenue.”