More post-primary thoughts:

--Much is being made by national political analysts about Tuesday's turnout in Florida, with more Republicans than Democrats voting on Tuesday, and what it might portend for the November races for governor and U.S. Senate.

The conventional wisdom circulating: Even though Democrats outnumber Republican voters in Florida by 750,000, Republicans are angrier and more motivated. That translated to 1.25 million statewide votes in the Republican governor's race (Rick Scott over Bill McCollum), as opposed to just over 900,000 Democrats voting in the U.S. Senate race (Kendrick Meek over Jeff Greene). It could mean good things for Scott and Republican U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio.

But before we make too much of the numbers, let me float a counter-theory. Some Democrats might have already decided to vote for independent Charlie Crist in November, and thus sat out the primary.

--The Scott vs. Alex Sink match-up for governor is charisma-free, but it could have been worse: McCollum vs. Sink. I've got no idea who Scott will tap as his running-mate, but the Sink-Rod Smith ticket is about as uninspiring as it gets for Democrats. Smith is a former state Senator who lost a bid for governor in 2006, losing the primary to Jim Davis. And he's from central Florida (Sink is Tampa-based), meaning there's no strong attraction for South Florida Dems.

And Sink has a lot of negatives: she's a former Bank of America executive (the bailed-out bank isn't especially popular with consumers stuck with bad housing loans or increased credit-card rates), her gender isn't clear from her name and she's married to another failed governor candidate, Bill McBride. I can see the bad headlines already: Sink sinks.

--Some were surprised that Miramar City Commissioner Barbara Sharief beat Pembroke Pines City Commissioner Angelo Castillo to likely ascend to the Broward County Commission seat formerly held by Diana Wasserman-Rubin. But Sharief wasn't surprised.

"It was a combination of things that paid off," said Sharief, who largely self-funded her campaign with loans from herself totaling over $115,000.

Even though Castillo drew support from the county's political establishment and top lobbyists, Sharief said she laid the groundwork by running against Wasserman-Rubin in 2006. when she got 41 percent of the vote.

Sharief, an African-American who was raised in Miami, also said the southwestern district's demographics ran in her favor. She said the district is 48 percent black (African-American and Caribbean), 28 percent white and 18 percent Hispanic.

"There's been a misconception the whole time that it's a Hispanic district," said Sharief, who owns a home health-care company. "Everything is so mixed in Broward that you can't tell what's going to happen based on ethnicity."

She said voters didn't necessarily reject Castillo because he was the establishment/lobbyist candidate: "I think most voters wouldn't know who the lobbyists were who gave to his campaign. I just ran my race, stuck to the issues and people responded to me."

Sharief still faces Republican Christopher Max Ziadie in November, but should cruise in the heavily Democratic district.

Sharief said her company has "no contracts with the county...and no conflicts." She said she'll have no problem complying with the county's new ethics policy: "If I did, I wouldn't have run."

Random thoughts as results come in, with the latest posted at the top:

11:50 p.m. -- Just watched Republican governor nominee Rick Scott give his victory speech in Fort Lauderdale, to a roomful of people who looked like they were uprooted from the Penobscott Country Club circa 1955.

"The people of Florida have spoken, and I liked what they said," Scott said.

Make that the Republicans of Florida have spoken. All the people don't speak until Nov. 2.

As for the Scott-Alex Sink matchup, I think I've come up with the catchphrase that sums up the governor's race: "Let's get to sleep!"

11:33 p.m. -- The results are nearly complete from Broward, and here's the final rundown:

--For all the angst about judicial chaos and cynical name games, all 15 incumbent judges in Broward prevailed against challengers, including five minority judges.

--Broward Commissioner Sue Gunzburger survives, opponent Steve Geller flops in a nasty and expensive race. They could have just burned piles of money on each other and had more fun.

--After capturing the Democratic nomination for a commission seat, Barbara Sharief will likely succeed Diana Wasserman-Rubin in the southwestern Broward district. Angelo Castillo, the choice of the Broward political establishment, wasn't the choice of the voters.

--Two recent Gov. Crist appointees who filled seats in the wake of corruption scandals were sent packing. On the county commission, Al C. Jones lost to Dale Holness. Jones recently switched from Republican to Democrat after replacing Josephus Eggelletion in the central Broward district. Voters apparently didn't buy Jones' transformation, along with his supposed move from his Dania Beach base.

--And on the Broward School Board, Kevin Tynan lost to longtime educator Patti Good. Tynan, an attorney who replaced convicted Bev Gallagher and has been active in Republican circles, didn't even make it to a runoff.

--It looks as if at-large school board member Jennifer Gottlieb might have to go to a runoff against Susan Madori after all. With all but three precincts reporting, Gottlieb slipped just below the 50 percent mark, at 49.97 percent. Given the current totals, she's 33 votes shy of the threshold to avoid a runoff. I'm not sure what the recount rules are under this scenario.

--Roger Wishner got voted out as Sunrise mayor, losing to challenger Mike Ryan. But Wishner still keeps a city commission seat, under Sunrise's No-Matter-What-Happens-In-An-Election-Wishner-Gets-Another-Term rule.

10:42 p.m. -- Rick Scott remains ahead of Bill McCollum in the race for the Republican governor's nomination. I'm still trying to process a Scott vs. Alex Sink matchup. A former healthcare CEO whose company defrauded the federal government vs. a former banker who's as exciting as tapioca pudding. And the spoiler is Bud Chiles, Lawton's son, who just might play the Ralph Nader role in the November election, siphoning votes from Sink. Yikes. A move to Georgia looks enticing about now.

10:22 p.m. -- A couple of married couples are having divergent nights.

It's been a good night for the Gottliebs of Hollywood. Jennifer Gottlieb is ahead in the fight to keep her at-large school board seat, and the latest results show her above the 50 percent mark. That means she might win outright tonight and avoid a runoff in November. Meanwhile, Ken Gottlieb, a former state representative and Hollywood city commissioner, is comfortably ahead in his race for an open county court seat against Steven Schaet.

It's been a bad night for the Seidmans, who are both losing bids for circuit judge seats. Laura Seidman, former general counsel for the North Broward Hospital District, is getting trounced by incumbent Lisa Porter. And Lee Jay Seidman, who left his county court seat to run for an open circuit court seat, is losing big to longtime assistant public defender Sandra Perlman.

10:01 p.m. -- Finally, an update on the Broward elections site. It's now showing 137,840 votes counted, bringing turnout to 13.3 percent. Looks like there's roughly 100 precincts left to count (of 779), along with provisional ballots to be sorted out by the canvassing board.

9:59 p.m. -- The official Broward elections site hasn't updated any results for a full half-hour. According to the Florida Division of Elections site, Broward and Palm Beach Counties haven't posted complete results in any of the four major categories -- early voting, absentee ballots, provisional ballots or polling places.

According to the state, 37 of 67 Florida counties have already gotten complete results from polling sites.

Broward and Palm Beach are among 10 counties that haven't posted complete results in any category. Neither has Orange (Orlando) or Pinellas (St. Pete).

9:50 p.m. -- The biggest nail-biter of the night in Broward is the Circuit Judge race between incumbent Carlos Rebollo and Bob Nichols. Rebollo trails by 133 votes with roughly two-thirds of the votes counted and 85,573 ballots tallied. With the margin of separation less than a half-percent, that means the race could be headed for a recount.

Rebollo is a recent appointee by Gov. Charlie Crist. Nichols is a former prosecutor.

9:15 p.m. -- A big shakeup could be coming to the Broward School Board, where six of nine seats are up for grabs. Candidates who don't get more than 50 percent of the vote today head to runoffs with the runner-up.

It looks like incumbent Ann Murray is safe, but incumbent Phyllis Hope is trailing Laurie Levinson and could be headed to a November runoff against her.

And Kevin Tynan, who was appointed by Gov. Charlie Crist to replace convicted Bev Gallagher, looks like he might not even make it to a runoff. Tynan, an attorney, is being trounced by Patti Good, a longtime educator, in his southwest Broward district.

Jennifer Gottlieb is comfortably ahead to retain her at-large countywide seat, but she is flirting with a runoff (at 49.89 percent) against Susan Madori, now in second.

Runoffs look certain in the multi-way scrambles to replace outgoing members Stephanie Kraft and Bob Parks.

It means there could be four, and possibly five, new school board members after the November elections.

8:15 p.m. -- The Broward supervisor site shows roughly 53,500 ballots counted, and those are the early voting and absentee ballots. It means 5 percent of Broward's one million registered voters cast ballots before Tuesday.

It also means there might be only another 50,000-100,000 ballots left to count from today, judging by the light traffic at many precincts. If total turnout in Broward exceeds 15 percent, I'd be shocked.

Now for my quick takes, based on those early ballots:

--The biggest flop, based on the early voting: Steve Geller. He's pulled in just over 39 percent of the vote, while incumbent Broward County Commissioner Sue Gunzburger is over 60 percent in their southeastern district. Considering the amount of time and money that Geller has invested in the race, it's kind of shocking.

Even more shocking: Dark horse commission candidate Bev Kennedy, who spent practically no money in her quixotic quest to unseat Ken Keechl, has done nearly as well as Geller. She pulled in 35 percent of the early votes. That doesn't bode well for Keechl in the general election against Republican Chip La Marca.

--In the southwest Broward commission district to replace criminally-charged Diana Wasserman Rubin, Barbara Sharief holds a sizable lead over Angelo Castillo in the Democratic early voting count. Sharief is a Miramar city commissioner, Castillo is a Pembroke Pines city commissioner who's drawn the support of Broward's political establishment. Considering the rocky times for that establishment, that might not be such a good thing for Castillo.

--Incumbent judges look like they're holding their own against challengers, no matter their names or ethnicity. All five black and Hispanic incumbents who drew challengers were ahead after the early voting, led by Mary Rudd Robinson (73 percent), who's blowing the doors off of opponent Dr. Jordan Howard Breslaw nee Jordan, Esq. (or whatever he wants to call himself), the erstwhile unemployed attorney/chiropractor/name changer who's been taking state jobless benefits while on the campaign trail.

It looks like the local legal establishment rallied supporters early, but it remains to be seen what might happen when all the votes from today come in.

--As for the big races, Rick Scott edged Bill McCollum among Broward Republicans in early voting for governor and Kendrick Meek trounced Jeff Greene in early voting for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination. The early results turned out to be prescient: Scott has a narrow lead statewide over McCollum and Meek has already claimed victory against Greene.

Moral of this story: Republican voters are more forgiving of candidates whose companies defraud government than Democrats are of candidates who party on yachts and hang with Mike Tyson and Lindsay Lohan.

Election Day is here, and I'll be live-blogging updates as results come in tonight. As I touched upon in today's column, the No. 1 complaint I've heard from people this year is those annoying automated calls/messages from candidates.

I don't know why candidates insist on doing this, since it's such a turnoff. I've heard from voters who say they consider it intrusive to the point of harassment, especially when they get multiple calls from the same candidate.

Voters don't have the same reaction to TV ads or even those avalanche of mailers that flood us in the weeks before an election.

I suppose that's because it's easy to hit the mute button on the TV or just throw out those mailers without reading them.

Speaking of those mailers, does anybody actually pay attention to them? I save mine in a pile, just to tally up the total.

Over the last six weeks, my household received 58 campaign pieces, led by 13 from Rick Scott and 10 from Jeff Greene. Such is the peril of being a dual-registration household (one Democrat, one Republican) that votes in every election.

Anyway I found these mailers very informative.

In no particular order, I learned that:

--Kendrick Meek clubs baby seals.

--Bill McCollum drinks the blood of maidens.

--Jeff Greene made billions by snatching old ladies' purses.

--Rick Scott is an alien.

OK, I'm kidding, but you get the picture. The level of discourse on these things is about one step higher than schoolyard taunting.

Questions for you: Is there any campaign ad/mailer that resonated with you or made you want to vote for a candidate? And were you offended by any? Feel free to share your robo-call vents, too.

Happy voting!

Now that annual property tax notices have started arriving in Broward homeowners' mailboxes, I've started hearing the usual annual riddle: How come my home's value keeps sinking but my proposed tax bill is going up?

The simple answer: Tax rates and fees keep rising, enough to offset a drop in taxable value.

And some longtime owners keep seeing increases in taxable value, even though the market value has fallen. That's because of the double-edged sword of Florida's Save Our Homes provision, which for years has kept the taxable value artificially low but is allowed to rise each year until it catches up to the market value, even in a down housing market.

Deciphering the tax notice sent by Broward Property Appraiser Lori Parrish, also known as the TRIM notice (which stands for Truth in Millage) can be tricky. There are a host of differing taxing authorities and rates.

The big pieces of a property tax bill: your home city's taxes and fees, the Broward school board's and Broward county's.

Final budgets and tax rates will be set at hearings next month. Hearing times are listed on the TRIM notice.

(As an aside: This year's insensitivity award goes to the South Florida Water Management District, whose budget hearing (Sept. 8) will be held on Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, and the Inland Navigation waterway council, whose Sept. 17 hearing is set for Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar).

Every owner's situation is unique, but I'll use my own as an example of the falling value/rising tax bill paradox.

My overall bill for this year is set to be $48 higher than last year, $3,097 vs. $3,049. That's a 1.5 percent increase.

Yet for the first time since I bought my home 10 years ago, my taxable value actually went down, from $166,570 to $157,960. That's a 5.2 percent drop.

Even with a rise in tax rates (the amount charged per $1,000 of taxable value minus homestead exemptions), I'm actually looking at a decrease in my county and school district portions of my tax bill.

My county share, including bond debt, will drop $15, from $628 to $613.

And my school board share will drop $37, from $1,052 to $1,015.

All the other smaller things (hospital district, water management district, children's services council) are pretty much a wash, with some rising slightly and some falling slightly.

So what's to blame for my increase? In my case, my city (Dania Beach) is the villain.

My overall city share, including fees for garbage, sewer and fire services, is going up $96, from $1,095 to $1,191. That's an 8.8 percent increase.

I wonder how much of that is going to feed the beast of public-sector union pensions, the third rail of local politics.

In context, a $48 increase on a $3,000 tax bill isn't going to break me.

But it just goes to show how the property tax game is stacked against homeowners.

When the housing market rises, bills go up.

And when the housing market falls, bills can still go up.

Some racket.

Friday quick hits:

--What was President Obama thinking? No, I'm not talking about his handling of the Lower Manhattan mosque controversy. (I refuse to call it the Ground Zero mosque because it's not at Ground Zero, but more on that in my Sunday column.)

I'm talking about the gustatory sin he committed the other day during his brief visit to South Florida.

After a Democratic fundraiser, Obama made an unannounced visit to Jerry's Famous Deli in South Beach before heading back to Air Force One.

According to Politico's Carol E. Lee, Obama ordered two sandwiches to go: a corned beef on rye with mustard, and a corned beef on rye with mayo.

Mayo? Ugh. How Midwestern.

And just plain wrong.

Not that I have anything against mayo (ha-ha), but as any good fresser (that's Yiddish for hearty eater) could tell you, the stuff simply doesn't belong anywhere near a pile of smoked deli meat.

You might as well put pineapple, jalapenos and ham on the thing, too.

(UPDATE: According to several commenters below, the offending sandwich was ordered for Kendrick Meek, the U.S. Senate candidate tagging along with Obama.)

Where I come from (the south shore of Brooklyn), mayonnaise on corned beef, pastrami or brisket is as big a culinary crime as ketchup on a hot dog.

But it's a free country.

So here's to ketchup on hot dogs, pineapple on pizza and mayonnaise on corned beef.

And here's to mosques, churches and synagogues anywhere that local zoning laws allow.

--My suspicion that Rick Scott is actually a hologram keeps growing. Aside from his TV ads, most people have never laid eyes on the guy.

He bailed on a scheduled dual appearance with Republican governor opponent Bill McCollum in Boca Raton last night, as colleague Tony Man reported, sending his mother instead.

If he wins, is he going to send his mother to open the next legislative session?

Weak.

No wonder the latest polls say he now trails McCollum, with a huge lead evaporating in weeks. He canceled the only statewide TV debate because he didn't like the location, and tries to tightly control appearances and limit questions.

If he can't stand the heat of a campaign, how is he going to handle the rigors of actual governance?

--I can't believe I'm typing this, but I'm going to write good things about FPL. My favorite utility (only two power surges this week!) just announced it will freeze base electric rates through the end of 2012.

The agreement was hammered out with consumer advocates and the Florida Attorney General's office. A similar agreement held base rates in check throughout the last decade.

FPL sought a hefty increase earlier this year, when the last freeze expired. But nearly the entire rate hike was shot down by a defiant Public Service Commission.

A purge at the PSC followed, with four of five commissioners getting the ax by state legislators, who seemed to be doing FPL's bidding.

Two of the deposed commissioners predicted that FPL would soon try again for a rate hike and that it would be approved.

I thought the same thing.

We were wrong. So I guess it's time for an apology.

In this economy, waiting three years until the next possible hike is the right thing to do.

Thanks FPL.

Happy weekend.