The polls are now closed in Central Florida for Florida's Primary Elections. We're saw low voter turnout in some counties, even with big races up for grabs. We're also already learned about problems in Volusia County.  Here's the latest county by county.

Brevard County

Voters in Brevard County made key decisions on the county commission and school board during Tuesday's primary election.

There were crowded races for Brevard County Commission District Two and Four and in both, the incumbents are not seeking re-election, meaning we will see new faces this year.

In District Two, Jim Barfield won the Republican primary. In District Four, Curtis Smith will advance to the November election, beating six other Republicans in the primary.

The winners will move on and face Democratic and Independent challengers in the November election.

Meanwhile, school board districts 2 and 5 will go to run-off elections after no candidate in either race got over 50 percent of the vote.

To see the rest of the election results for Brevard County, head to the Live Election Results section.

Flagler County

In Flagler County, a school board race will go to a run-off, while two candidates in the county commission will head to the November election.

Janet McDonald and John Fischer will face each other in a run-off election for school board district 2. None of the four candidates in the race got over 50 percent of the vote.

Meanwhile Frank Meeker won the county commision district 2 Republican primary. Nate McLaughlin won the county commission district 4 Republican primary.

There are almost 71-thousand registered voters here in Flagler County.  

There is an interesting trend in Flagler County this year, more people are voting by absentee. In the 2010 primary, when the same offices were up for election, almost 2,000 people voted absentee. This year, four years later, more than 4,000 people voted absentee. The same trend continues with Early Voting. In 2010, more than 3,000 people voted early. This year, more than 4,500 cast their ballots on a day OTHER than election day.  

See the rest of the results in Flagler County, head to the Live Election Results section.

Lake County

The Supervisor of Elections said turnout today in Lake County was very, very low.

Even during the 13 days of Early Voting, she thinks fewer people had shown up this year than ever.

Two school board races will go to a run-off. Tod Howard and Marc Dodd will face off in the district 3 run-off, while Stephanie Luke and Nancy Muenzmay will face each other in the district 5 run-off.

See the rest of the election results in Lake County in the Live Election Results Section.

Orange County

Voters approved a referendum to make companies provide sick time for employees.

The referendum led to a controversy two years ago called “text-gate.”

The issue is should workers have 56 hours, which is seven days, of earned sick time for companies with more than 15 employees? Those who don’t want it say it’s too expensive for business owners, that the government should stay out of it.
 
But supporters of the group “Citizens for a Greater Orange County” gathered about 50,000 signatures two years ago to get it on the ballot.
 
The Orange County Commission delayed the process. The group sued, and it was ruled the issue should be on the ballot today.
 
You may also remember at that time, several Orange County commissioners came under fire for texting lobbyists who had ties to opponents of the measure.

Last year a state law was signed that counties can’t force businesses to pay employees for sick time. However, supporters still want to change that law.

Meanwhile Orange County voters also approved a referendum to keep a half-penny sales tax to help pay for the county's schools.

See the results from the rest of the elections for Orange County.

Osceola County

John Quinones won the Osceola County commission district 2 Republican primary, fending off challengers Julius Melendez and David Garcia. In the Democratic primary for district 2, Viviana Janer beat Romuald Leydon. 

To see the rest of the races for Osceola county, head to our LIVE election results.

 

Seminole County

Voters in Seminole County headed to the polls to vote in several county and state primary contests, along with two congressional races.

To see the full results for Seminole County, head to our Live Election Results section.

Seminole County has the largest number of registered voters in all of Central Florida. But even with that, still less than 20 percent of registered voters were expected to vote in this primary.

More people actually voted before Election Day than during today’s voting. That’s because many people took advantage of early voting and about 20 thousand people filled out absentee ballots.

Volusia County

Sometime before noon two precincts located in Ormond Beach broke down. Ann McFall, the Supervisor of Elections for Volusia County said they are back up and running but to be sure no votes are missing, they are refeeding all of those ballots. She estimates that to be about 1000 ballots.

Also, four precincts were found to be without power or phone lines. Those problems were fixed early on.

Other than that McFall said there are no long lines and it is too early to tell what voter turnout will be like this year. But she adds that cities with mayoral races like Deland, DeBary, Holly Hill and Deltona should see a higher voter turnout.

Besides a couple problems let's focus on the issues. Election officials predict it will be the local races that will be a close call as the numbers come in. They say mayoral races in Deland, DeBary, Deltona and Holly Hill should have a higher voter turnout. They also say the half cent penny tax is a popular item.

To watch election results come in for Volusia County, head to our Live Election Results section.