Trickle of ballots starts in Florida general election; U.S. Sugar deal gets OK

Voting is underway in the Nov. 8 general election in Florida.

After the first vote-by-mail ballots were sent to people in the military and overseas, the state Division of Elections reported Friday that 83 ballots had been cast, including 53 by people registered in Monroe County.

Elections supervisors have sent out more than 66,500 ballots, with 24,636 going to registered Republicans and 26,119 to registered Democrats.

Another 14,197 ballots had gone to unaffiliated voters and 1,595 to people registered with third parties.

Floridians have until Oct. 11 to register to vote in the general election.

The deadline to request vote-by-mail ballots is Oct. 29. In-person early voting will be held statewide from Oct. 29 to Nov. 5, but many counties will expand on those dates.

U.S. Sugar deal gets go-ahead

A judge Friday rejected an attempt by federal antitrust officials to block U.S. Sugar Corp. from purchasing another large player in the sugar industry.

U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika ruled against the U.S. Department of Justice, which filed a lawsuit last year in Delaware to try to prevent the combination of Clewiston-based U.S. Sugar and Imperial Sugar Co.

Noreika did not immediately make public her reasoning, issuing it under seal to protect “third-party confidential information.” She gave the parties until this Thursday to propose a redacted version of the decision.

Noreika, however, wrote in a one-paragraph judgment that “United States Sugar Corporation’s acquisition of Imperial Sugar Company will not violate” an antitrust law known as the Clayton Act. U.S. Sugar announced in March 2021 that it had reached an agreement to purchase Imperial Sugar, which operates a sugar refinery in Savannah, Ga., from Louis Dreyfus Co.

The announcement said U.S. Sugar would increase production capacity at Imperial’s Georgia plant. But the Justice Department’s lawsuit alleged that the merger of the competitors would “result in a highly concentrated market and lead to higher prices for a product that is vital to our country’s food supply.”