Florida Supreme Court justices R. Fred Lewis, Barbara Pariente and Peggy Quince easily won merit-retention elections last week, each topping 67 percent of the vote. But a dozen north Florida counties — almost all of them sparsely populated rural counties — apparently weren’t so pleased with the justices. Majorities of voters in those counties voted against retention of all three.
Those counties were Baker, Bradford, Calhoun, Dixie, Gilchrist, Gulf, Holmes, Lafayette, Suwannee, Union, Walton and Washington.
The percentages of voters casting ballots against Lewis’ retention, for example, ranged from 50.3 percent in Walton County to 57.8 percent in Gilchrist County, according to information on the state Division of Elections website.
Lewis, Pariente and Quince won retention, despite opposition from some conservative groups and Republican leaders who argued they were too liberal.
