Fla. polls open later; five early voting sites in Lee ready for longer hours

Staff and Associated Press reports
Originally published 3:20 p.m., Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Updated 5:42 p.m., Tuesday, October 28, 2008

TALLAHASSEE — Florida's governor has changed his mind, and decided to extend early voting hours amid record turnout.

Charlie Crist had said earlier Tuesday he didn't think the law allowed him to extend early voting. Crist said it specified that polling sites be open eight hours each weekday and a total of eight hours on the weekends.

Later Tuesday, the Republican governor issued an executive order extending the hours from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekdays and a total of 12 hours this weekend.

Early voting ends on Sunday.

About 2 million Floridians have cast ballots ahead of the Nov. 4 election — amounting to 20 percent of the total eligible voter pool. More than half of the early voters have been registered Democrats.

In Lee County, Supervisor of Elections Sharon Harrington quickly made arrangements to make five early voting sites ready for the longer hours.

She would have preferred more notice -- she only learned of the governor's decision late Tuesday afternoon.

"It was thrown on us," she said. "It's very difficult to get word like this and not be able to plan for this."

To fill the extra hours, she will be relying on poll workers being willing to work 13 or 14 hours a day.

"We don't have a lot of extra folks trained in the early voting process," Harrington said.

But both poll workers and the elections office staff have proved to be phenomenal, she said. "I know they're going to step up to the plate."

Early voting hours have been from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays and from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday.

Those hours will now be extended from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m.

In some counties, early voting will continue on Sunday as well, but Harrington said that just isn't feasible in Lee County.

Even with more opportunities to vote early, Harrington isn't sure whether the extended hours will help reduce the long lines that have appeared at many early voting sites.

"I'm anxious to see if this alleviates the normal crowds coming in the morning," she said. It could be, she added, that the extended hours simply lead more of the county's registered voters to show up this year. Early voting rates are already shattering records in the county.

"We are just racking up numbers well beyond what we did in 2004," Harrington said.

Nearly 87,000 absentee ballots have been requested, and by late Tuesday afternoon, more than 34,300 early votes had been cast.

For comparison, in 2004, only 32,000 early votes were cast during the entire early voting period, and about 48,000 absentee ballots were returned.

At this rate, Harrington expects turnout to remain strong through Election Day.

"It's going to be interesting to see," she said.

There are nearly 319,000 active registered voters in Lee County as well as another 77,000 inactive voters who are eligible to participate in this election.

In Lee County, as in the rest of the state, Democrats are turning out in larger numbers than Republicans during early voting, even though registered Republicans outnumber Democrats on the county's voting rolls.

As of Monday night, 13,602 of the early votes cast in Lee County had come from registered Democrats and 11,875 from registered Republicans. That's according records updated Tuesday morning on the Web site of the Florida Division of Elections.

The rest of the 31,003 early votes cast in Lee County through Monday came from voters with no party affiliation and those affiliated with other minor parties -- including 5 from the Green Party and 19 from registered Libertarians.

EARLY VOTING TOTALS IN LEE COUNTY (Through Monday)

Bonita Springs Branch Office, 24951 Old 41 Road, Suite #10: 6544

Cape Coral Branch Office, 1031 SE 9th Place #3: 5962

Lee County Election Center,13180 S. Cleveland Ave., Fort Myers: 6908

East County Regional Library, 881 Gunnery Road, Lehigh Acres: 6016

Main Elections Office, 2480 Thompson St., Fort Myers: 5570

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