TAMPA, Fla — U.S. Representative for Florida's 14th Congressional District, Kathy Castor, started January 6, 2021, at the Capitol building.
"I remember it like it was yesterday, unfortunately," she said.
In the year since the insurrection that followed that day, she says one thought has brought her comfort.
"America is resilient and strong. The insurrection was not successful," she said.
But even a year later, events across the bay area show that there's still a divide when it comes to people's perception of that day and what led up to it.
Peter Bergerson, a political science professor at Florida Gulf Coast University, says close elections have a tendency to raise concerns about the voting process.
In 1960, the election between president Kennedy and vice president Richard Nixon was also a very contentious election, as was the election of 2000, was very contentious," he said.
But he adds that the 2020 election was different because in this case, the runner-up didn't accept their loss even after their claims of fraud were proven false. And he says that this is key in preventing another event like what we saw a year ago.
"Well, the number one lesson I think would be for the losing party, whether it was a republican or a democrat to come together and be united," he said.
When it comes to concerns about the voting process, Bergerson says supervisors of elections will have to do more to educate people on how they run elections and on the accuracy of past ballot counts.
"More focus on, at least here in Florida, the role of the 67 supervisors of elections," he said.
