With absentee and early votes in, Delray Beach City Commissioner Mack Bernard holds a 702-to-478 lead in the special election to fill the state House District 84 seat.

That’s a 59.5-to-40.5 percent advantage for those who prefer percentages. Results from today’s voting at pollinjg places haven’t come in yet.

Click here for results from the Palm Beach County elections office.

Polls closed at 7 p.m. and results are beginning to trickle in from today’s special state House 84 election.

Delray Beach City Commissioner Mack Bernard topped Riviera Beach Councilman Cedrick Thomas, 43 votes to 32 votes, in early voting, which ran from Aug. 17 through Sunday.

There’s not a digit missing in those results. Only 75 people voted early, suggesting turnout for the entire race could fall below the 4.9 percent of eligible Palm Beach County voters who cast ballots in last month’s state Senate special election.

Results from absentee ballots and from today’s voting at the polls are still to come. Watch this space.

Saying he doesn’t want to be the victim of “ugly” politics in the final days of a special state Senate election campaign, Democrat Bill Ramos today volunteered information about a 1989 guilty plea for theft when he was a young postal worker.

Ramos, a Jensen Beach mortgage broker, is running against former Republican state Rep. Joe Negron of Stuart in an Aug. 4 election to replace retiring Sen. Ken Pruitt, R-Port St. Lucie.

Ramos, 50, said he’s never tried to hide his past scrape with the law.

In a biographical entry on his campaign Web site, Ramos says that “almost 25 years ago, I was accused of theft by a trusted superior. Innocent, under pressure, and unable to afford an attorney, I was forced to accept a no contest plea to having taken money from my workplace.”

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They feel your pain.

That’s the message Republican Joe Negron and Democrat Bill Ramos are pitching to recession-battered voters as an Aug. 4 special election approaches for a Treasure Coast-Palm Beach County state Senate seat.

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Former Republican state Rep. Joe Negron raised another $134,475 over the last two weeks — that’s better than a $9,600-a-day clip — to bring his contribution total to $373,644 for the special Aug. 4 election for the District 28 state Senate seat.

Negron has spent $118,267 so far, according to reports filed Friday night.

Democrat Bill Ramos has raised a total of $25,828, which includes $5,500 from the Florida Democratic Party and $1,000 from Martin County’s Democratic Executive Committee. He has spent $11,896.

Negron and Ramos are on the ballot to replace retiring state Sen. Ken Pruitt, R-Port St. Lucie, in a Treasure Coast-Palm Beach County district.

Write-in candidate Josue Larose, who according to voter records is a 28-year-old Deerfield Beach resident, reported that he put $50,000 of his own money into his campaign this week as an in-kind contribution for “paying the advertising.”

Larose apparently enjoys being a longshot. In addition to his write-in bid for the Senate seat, he has opened a 2010 campaign for governor.

Former Republican state Rep. Joe Negron of Stuart has better than a 20-to-1 money advantage over Democrat Bill Ramos as they head toward an Aug. 4 special election for the seat of retiring state Sen. Ken Pruitt, R-Port St. Lucie.

Reports filed Friday show Negron has raised $239,169 and Ramos $11,414.

With Pruitt facing term limits next year, both Negron and Ramos had already opened campaigns and were raising money for a 2010 Senate race. But Pruitt, citing family and economic concerns, announced May 8 that he would step down this summer instead.

Since then, Negron has hit the accelerator. He raised $174,619 in the five weeks after Pruitt’s announcement.

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Gov. Charlie Crist today ordered June 30 primaries and an Aug. 4 general election to fill the Treasure Coast-Palm Beach County state Senate District 28 seat of retiring Sen. Ken Pruitt, R-Port St. Lucie.

Pruitt, with an eye on the statutory timetable for calling special elections, set his resignation for Aug. 4 so the district would not go unrepresented.

Former Republican state Reps. Art Argenio and Joe Negron, who clashed in a bitter special election primary in 1999 (won by Argenio) and another tough primary in 2000 (won by Negron) are running for Pruitt’s seat. Democrat Bill Ramos has also opened a campaign and frequent-filing Democrat Stan Smilan has expressed interest. Read more about the race here.

The period for candidates to officially qualify for the special election ballot will be from 8 a.m. on June 2 until 12 noon on June 3.