Alice Herman/Suncoast Searchlight

A proposal before the DeSoto County Commission to rezone hundreds of acres for a complex of data centers failed on Wednesday night, delivering the second major blow this week to developers who had sought to build more than 15 facilities in the rural county.

Across Florida, voters seeking information about their registration status were blocked when the company that hosts county Supervisors of Elections websites shut down access due to security concerns Wednesday morning.

The next Sarasota County School board will see a liberal-leaning majority take control after voters rejected the conservative policies and culture wars that for years dominated the board.\

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis made a stop at New College of Florida in Sarasota on the day of the state’s primary election to defend his record on higher education and tout his efforts to root out “woke” curricula.

Across Florida, law enforcement officers have been asked to gather names, photographs, addresses and other personal information about people they suspect may be in the country without authorization and upload them to a centralized surveillance database during the course of their routine job duties.

On a July evening in Washington, D.C., right-wing operatives and artificial intelligence enthusiasts gathered in a historic building on Capitol Hill to sip cocktails and hear from Florida officials about their efforts to slash local spending across the Sunshine State. Standing in front of a pair of American flags, Florida’s Department of Government Efficiency — DOGE — director Eric Soskin and a collection of organizational “partners” offered up a pitch. What Elon Musk tried and abandoned in Washington, they said, is alive in Tallahassee — and up for franchise.

Sarasota commissioners voted on Wednesday to halt the “acceptance, review and approval” of any major data centers until at least July 2027, but seemed eager to push for an outright ban in perpetuity. The move comes as data center developments become a flashpoint for local governments across the country, including neighboring DeSoto County, which approved a similar moratorium this week.

After nearly three hours of emotional public comment, DeSoto County commissioners on Tuesday took the first step toward a one-year moratorium on data centers. By a unanimous vote, four of the county’s commissioners — one recused himself — agreed to direct the county attorney to prepare language for an ordinance that would bar them from accepting new data center applications in the coming year.

As DeSoto County leaders have pursued what they hope will become an economic lifeline, they have accelerated reviews and embraced interpretations of county rules that help clear the way for a massive data center project whose environmental impacts remain largely unknown.

In March, DeSoto County voted to rezone 34 acres of land on a decommissioned power plant to allow the company DCIP Group to begin the process of constructing its first data center there, using natural gas supplied from the Florida Gas Transmission Pipeline. County commissioners have embraced the proposal, which they herald as financial salvation that could fill the county’s coffers and help the rural community weather budget shortfalls.