By early next week the first ballots in Floridas Presidential Preference Primary may be marked.

Election supervisors across Florida start dropping the first ballots for the Republican Presidential Primary in the mail Thursday and Friday, sending thousands of envelopes to voters now overseas, many in the military.

Leon County was one of the first to get the ballots in the mail, sending out 238 to voters overseas on Wednesday, Tameka Byer, county election records manager, in an email.

Other counties aren't far behind.

A Suffolk University/7NEWS (WHDH TV) poll of likely New Hampshire Republican primary voters released late on Wednesday found that former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts continues to dominate the field in the Granite State.

Romney tops the poll with 38 percent, while former U.S House Speaker Newt Gingrich takes second with 20 percent. Former Gov. Jon Huntsman of Utah, who has focused on New Hampshire, brushes past U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas to take third place with 13 percent. Paul follows with 8 percent.

Arguing that a new charter-school law could violate their constitutional rights, two Central Florida school districts are trying to temporarily block the state Board of Education from ruling in a pair of disputes about proposed charter schools.

The Polk and Seminole County school boards filed lawsuits last week against the state board and Renaissance Charter School, Inc., which unsuccessfully sought approval from the districts this year to open charter schools.

Florida Republicans are turning up the heat on Democrats, including Sen. Bill Nelson, as yet another threatened federal government shutdown looms Friday.

The GOP-controlled House and Democratic-run Senate are at loggerheads over a House-passed bill that would extend the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits, as well as speed up permitting for the Keystone XL pipeline.

Rep. Scott Plakon, R-Longwood, is confident that Florida voters will see an amendment this fall designed to upend the century-old constitutional ban on using taxpayer money for the aid of any church, sect, or religious denomination or in aid of any sectarian institution."

Leon County Circuit Judge Terry Lewis agreed Wednesday with critics of Amendment 7, who said that the full wording of the ballot item legislators approved in the spring to go before Florida voters next November is too ambiguous to go forward.

With less than three weeks to go until the Iowa caucuses, three conservative underdogs fighting for the Republican presidential nomination -- U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania -- continued this week to focus on the Hawkeye State as they looked to score a breakthrough in the race.

MANCHESTER, N.H. -- "We're not going to lose in New Hampshire." So says Mitt Romney's state coordinator, Jason McBride.

Why is the Obama administration using its executive powers to implement a general amnesty for the vast majority of illegal aliens present in the U.S.?