Sen. Steube wants to know if you prefer daylight saving or standard time

After proposing a bill that would end the observation of daylight saving time in Florida, state Sen. Greg Steube, R-Sarasota, is polling the public to see which time they prefer: standard or daylight saving time.

On Nov. 13, Steube filed the legislation, SB 858, which proposes that all of Florida observe standard time year-round. Now, Steube is seeking the public’s input with a poll posted on social media and sent out to those on his emailing list.

On Facebook and Twitter, Steube is asking the question: “If the state of Florida were to abolish the time switch that occurs in the fall and spring, which time would you prefer? Daylight saving time (summer hours) or standard time (winter hours)?”

As of just after 4 p.m. Tuesday, the Twitter poll had collected 115 votes and the Facebook poll 287 votes.

A separate survey sent out in an email, with a link also posted to his Facebook page, asked the same question and had collected 3,040 responses. Daylight saving time had received 2,059 votes, or more 67 percent of the votes. Standard time had 945 votes, or 31 percent, and there were 36 surveys, 1.1 percent, submitted with no responses.

Hawaii are Arizona are the only states that currently do not observe daylight saving time, according to NASA. An exception in Arizona is the Navajo Nation’s reservation in the northeastern part of the state that does observe daylight saving time.

Most of Indiana did not observe daylight saving time for many years with the exception of 10 counties. As of 2006, however, all of Indiana observes daylight saving time.

Daylight saving time — an idea credited to Benjamin Franklin as a means to save power — has been observed in the United States, Canada and Europe since World War I.

Most recently, daylight saving time was extended four weeks when President George W. Bush signed a new energy policy bill in 2005. The change went into effect in 2007, with daylight saving time beginning three weeks earlier and ending one week later.

This story was originally published December 5, 2017 at 4:36 PM with the headline "Sen. Steube wants to know if you prefer daylight saving or standard time."