Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, Commissioners Sam Ings (Dist. 6) and Patty Sheehan (Dist 4) all keep their seats in lop-sided election contests that saw no challenger in either race with as much as 20 percent of total votes cast.
According to the unofficial results posted at the Supervisor of Elections website, Dyer received 13,476 votes– a whopping 62.52 percent of the vote in his run against challengers Paul Paulson and Sunshine Linda Grund, who tallied 7,141 (33.19 percent) and 927 (4.29 percent), respectively. Out of a total of 152,505 registered voters, only 22,387, or 14.62 percent, ventured out to vote in the mayoral election.
In District 4, incumbent Patty Sheehan fared even better, earning a staggering 68.94 percent of the votes cast. Her 3,777 votes easily overcame the challenges of Randy Ross and Aretha Olivarez, who tallied 1,126 (19.91 percent) and 629 votes (11.15 percent), respectively.
Over in District 6, incumbent Sam Ings faced a larger slate of four challengers, who together were unable to secure enough votes to keep him from winning a majority of all votes cast. Ings tallied 1,616 votes, or 52 percent, with his challengers dividing the remaining 48 percent. Nathan Chambers outscored the pack with 535 votes (17.52 percent ), followed by Marcus Robinson with 412 votes (13.3 percent), Lawanna Gelzer with 387 (12.72 percent) and Ka’Juel Washington with 144 votes (4.62 percent).
Voter apathy seemingly continues in the City Beautiful.