Formerly, like most counties nationwide and throughout Florida, commissioners were all seated in distinct, apportioned geographic districts and voted upon by electors from the entire county--meaning every citizen got to vote for 5 commissioners.
This made sense as decisions county commissioners make affect every citizen in the county--so it only made sense that every voter should be able to vote for every commissioner.
But this, regrettably, led to a condition locally where minority (black) candidates could not be and were not being elected--even though the minority population of Escambia County was and has been significant at roughly twice the national percentage of the black population overall (24% locally, 12% nationally).
So litigation in the late 1970s that sought to correct this inequity and allow for appropriate minority representation in county government led to the issue going all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1984. That Supreme Court decision let stand a lower-court ruling mandating single member districts in Escambia County--with one district being a "minority-majority" district by law, in perpetuity.
Fast forward to today, and about 28 counties (Including Escambia County) of 67 in Florida utilize single-member districts for the election of county commissioners, shcool board members, and utility authority board members. The majority of counties in Florida, and in the rest of the nation, however, utilize the model where individual commissioners are voted upon by ALL constituents and seated (with a concomitant residency requirment) in specific districts.
District wide elections help to prevent the "ward-politics" effect that we witness locally--where obviously clear-cut decisions, rulings, and votes by the board instead get pushed back in a byzantine method of appeasment to small groups of citizens vocally opposed to initiatives or decisions in "their neighborhoods." Easy decisions get kicked down the road or denied outright. This occurs simply to appease one geographic block of voters--for the benefit
