Friend, here's your September LWVT Voter newsletter

September 7, 2026

Upcoming Events Highlights

Campaign and Yard Sign Recycling through Sep. 18.

Cocktails and Conversations: Thursday, Sep. 10, 5:30 p.m at Casa Grande Midtown (Joann Fabrics plaza across from Whole Foods). Join us for food, fun, and casual conversation about League issues and more.

Shoreline Cleanup: Saturday, Sep. 19, 8:00-10:00 a.m. at Lake Henrietta.

October Hot Topic: Thursday, Oct. 1, 6:00-8:00 p.m. at the American Legion Hall. UF Professor Dan Smith will speak on "What to Watch For In the Final Days Before the Election." Tickets are $25 and may be purchased here.

Check out our full calendar here.

Co-President's Message

The brief period between the August primary and November general election provides a good opportunity to recap what your League has done and to highlight what is coming up.

We co-sponsored six highly watched forums for local candidates with the Capital Region News Collaborative—an expansion of our usual partners (WFSU and the Tallahassee Democrat.) We produced a VOTE411 resource for the primary that garnered 100 percent participation from candidates. We monitored 16 meetings of the Leon County Canvassing Board including three on election day and two long weekend sessions on the city commission seat recount. We are conducting our annual sign recycling program with the City of Tallahassee, and we sponsored events with partners including the Legal Defense Fund and the Urban League, and worked with FSU’s People Power students on a weekend of Dorm Storm events. And that doesn’t count the many hours our volunteers have staffed tables and other opportunities to inform voters.

There is more to come, of course. The LWVT Speakers’ Bureau will be providing information to local groups on the state amendments, county charter revisions, and school board funding measures on the November ballot. There are new forums scheduled for candidates on the general election ballot for September. There are dynamite Hot Topics sessions on Leon County Schools and on the upcoming election. VOTE411 for the general election will be published on Sept. 14. And there will be more canvassing board monitoring and tabling and working with partner groups including No Kings which is organizing another event in October at the capitol.

So don’t be shy. Please let us know if you want to participate in these events or others that you can check out on our calendar: https://www.lwvtallahassee.org/calendar. We will also be featuring state League Zoom calls and other information-sharing events in The Voter and on our webpage. There is plenty to do, and the election is an important one. Hope to see you at a League event soon.

In League,

Carol Weissert, LWVT Co-President

LWVT Monitors Leon Canvassing Board

Along with other Florida leagues, your Tallahassee league representatives attended all of the meetings of the Leon County Canvassing Board—and there were a lot.

The canvassing board in every Florida county is made up of a county judge as chair with a county commissioner and supervisor of elections as members. For the 2026 Florida Primary, these were County Judge Nina Ashenafi-Richardson, County Supervisor of Elections Mark Earley, and County Commissioner Nick Maddox. There were nine meetings prior to the election and three on election day/night. After the election there were several more as the board oversaw both a machine and manual recount of the City Commission Seat 3 results.

Laurie and David Marshall, Linda Davis, and Carol Weissert staffed the meetings and saw pre-election testing of the voting machines, acceptance of emergency ballots and provisional ballots, and certifying the results of the election and post-election audit. The board was tasked with determining voter intent on ballots that were damaged or poorly marked. Sometimes voters drew pictures on the ballot, wrote notes to the canvassing board, or shared their assessments of the candidates. Most of the time they made simple mistakes like putting checks instead of filling out ovals to indicate their preferences. These ballots were considered by the board and their determinations carefully documented.

If you are interested in seeing the process for yourself for the November election, please let me know at cweissert@fsu.edu.

Carol Weissert, LWVT Co-President

Inside Scoop on the Associated Press on Election Night 2026

It was a quiet—dare I say—boring night at the Supervisor of Elections office on Primary Election night, just as I’d hoped. I was there as a temporary stringer for the Associated Press, calling in election results the moment they were posted. When you see election results reported, think about the army of AP stringers calling in results from precincts and counties all over the U.S. on election night.

The AP has been calling elections for 170 years, with near 100% accuracy. They often recruit their stringer reporters from the League of Women Voters because of our reputation for nonpartisanship, and I like to think, our reliable intellect. I have been doing this work every primary and election day since 2018.

I received training along with other stringers throughout Florida, emphasizing speed and accuracy. Whenever election results are posted, we are to transcribe the numbers and then call into a centralized phone bank, where they are entered into computers. Each update requires a call. Only certain races are followed, based on the AP’s interest and statistical sampling techniques.

It is quite a system, with checkpoints and redundancy. I marvel at the focus on accuracy, including how many votes remain outstanding. When the AP makes a call on who won, I know it is a result I can trust.

Teri Cleeland, Past President

October Hot Topic

The October Hot Topic will feature University of Florida Political Science Professor Dan Smith, who will give a talk entitled "What to Watch For In the Final Days Before the Election." A Q&A session will follow.

Professor Daniel A. Smith is a political science professor in the UF College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. He studies how political institutions affect political behavior across and within the American states. His current research focuses on how initiatives, redistricting and electoral laws shape political participation. Daniel has published more than 100 scholarly articles, chapters and reports in the disciplines's leading outlets. He is a past-president of the State Politics and Policy Section of the APSA. Daniel is the author of "Tax Crusaders and the Politics of Direct Democracy" (Routledge, 1998) and co-author of "Educated by Initiative" (Michigan, 2004) and "State and Local Politics: Institutions and Reform" (Cengage, 2015). He has worked as an expert on dozens of voting rights lawsuits in Florida and around the country.

The event will take place on Thursday, Oct. 1, 6:00-8:00 p.m. at the American Legion Hall at Lake Ella.

6:00* Doors open

6:20 Dinner served and program begins

*Due to limited setup time, we cannot accommodate guests prior to 6:00.

Tickets are $25 and may be purchased here.

Campaign and Yard Sign Recycling

Now that the primary is over, the first phase of Campaign and Yard Sign Recycling is in full swing! Keep putting obsolete signs with their metal stands in the yellow bins at the locations noted below and know that you're keeping Tallahassee and Leon County beautiful while also reducing waste in a landfill. Your participation is invaluable!

Bin locations through September 18:

Leon County Hazardous Waste Drop-off Site: 1800 N. Blair Stone Road, corner of Blair Stone Road and Miccosukee Road
Leon County Elections Center: 2990-1 Apalachee Parkway, corner of Capital Circle SE and Apalachee Parkway
City of Tallahassee Beautification & Waste Management: 2727 Major James Morgan Jr. Way, formerly Municipal Way (near Messer Fields)
Marpan Recycling Facility: 363 Marpan Lane, off Woodville Highway, .07 of a mile south of Capital Circle SE

Don't forget--you can also recycle any business, yard sale, tree company, realtor, or other plastic-coated signs into these same bins. A one-two punch for the environment!

We would welcome your additional involvement in this League project. The morning of September 24 we are meeting at the Marpan Recycling Center (address above) to help separate signs from their metal stands. It's a fun way to participate with fellow Leaguers and others in this county-wide initiative. We'll be there from 9:00 a.m. until we get it done!

Signs for candidates slated for the general election can be recycled at the same bin locations after November 3 until December 1. We'll remind you of these and other important dates later.

This Campaign and Yard Sign Recycling Campaign is a collaboration of The League of Women Voters Tallahassee, Leon County Supervisor of Elections, Leon County Government, the City of Tallahassee, and Marpan Recycling.

Claudia Holland, Natural Resources & Clean Energy Committee

Natural Resources & Clean Energy Committee

Shoreline Cleanup

Did you know that the League participates in the annual International Coastal [Shoreline] Cleanup Day? Since 2021, we have met at Lake Henrietta Park/Anita Davis Preserve to remove trash from around the lake edge. The Natural Resources and Clean Energy Committee leads this effort, but it is embraced by the entire League. Join us on September 19 from 8:00-10:00 (beating the heat!) for a morning of outdoor camaraderie, cleaning up the lake and preserve that has wonderful birding and a lovely 1.3 mile trail. If you haven't been there, the park is a great place in southwest Tallahassee to visit! More information will be posted on the LWVT website and Facebook page.

Greening the League

Our Tallahassee League, through the initiative of the Natural Resources and Clean Energy Committee, is in the beginning stages of “Greening the League”. The goal is to put into action environmentally sustainable practices to the greatest extent possible and affordable. For example, we will develop a list of caterers who use sustainable practices, encourage use of car pools and public transit (as has been our practice for several years) to events and meetings, and minimize our use of bottled water and styrofoam. Greening the League merchandise, such as reusable travel eating utensils and canvas shopping bags, will be available for a donation at our events and online through Zeffy. Look for more details on the League's website, social media, and in this newsletter in the months ahead.

Claudia Holland, Natural Resources & Clean Energy Committee

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