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Capital Report: 07-20-2018

Election watchers are trying to avoid a repeat of 2016—when Russian hackers tried to gain access to networks across the county. They didn’t get in—but it’s a cloud that continues to hover over the mid-term cycle. Lynn Hatter has more on the story.

Florida’s Department of State has asked the one of the state’s universities for help in safeguarding the 2018 elections. Dr. Eman (Ee-MAN) El-Sheikh (El- SHAKE) directs University of West Florida’s Center for Cybersecurity. She has been essential in developing a curriculum that’s used to train Supervisors of Elections and their staffs. El Sheikh recently spoke with Florida Public Radio’s Ryan Dailey to talk about what went into developing

The privatization of Florida’s prison health care system was supposed to save millions of taxpayer dollars.  But as we hear from Julio Ochoa, reporting for Health News Florida from member station WUSF in Tampa, the cost to deliver care to the state’s 96,000 prisoners has instead increased over the past five years; up some $46 million this year alone.

The state budget officially went into effect earlier this month. That includes Florida’s prison budget, which led to prison officials cutting funding to programs helpful to inmates trying to transition back into society. While some blame the Florida legislature, others want to stop playing the blame game and move forward. In the first installment of her series, Sascha Cordner digs into what led up to this point.

The Florida Department of Transportation, better known as FDOT, began upgrading its Sunpass toll system on June 1st.  Since then, Sunpass users have been racking up charges – but not getting the bill.  Now Gina Jordan tells us the state has stopped paying the vendor responsible for upgrading the system amid calls for tolls to be waived altogether.

Tallahassee’s First District Court of Appeal is mulling what makes playing a game, gambling. Pre-reveal games are electronic games often found in bars. The state says they are illegal slot machines. But Regan McCarthy reports the game operators argue they can’t be—because the people playing know whether they’ll win right from the start.