SARASOTA – Suncoast Supervisors of Elections are feeling the rush with last-minute voting registrations.
“We were really busy on Monday with last minute applications and then we had some yesterday,” said Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections, Ron Turner.
After heavy traffic crashed Florida’s voter registration website on Monday, Governor Ron DeSantis extended the deadline to register to vote to Tuesday, forcing all elections, motor vehicle and tax collector offices to stay open later for anyone wanting to register in person.
“We were open until 7 o’clock last night at our three offices in Venice, North Port, and Sarasota,” said Turner.
Turner says since the August primary, there have been about 9,000 new voters in Sarasota County.
And more than 20,000 people have dropped off their mail-in ballots in person so far.
“The elections offices are very busy right now in Sarasota County, and across the nation I suspect,” said Turner.
“We’re processing, processing as fast as we can we’ll get the vote by mail ballots out as soon as we can and there’s still plenty of time, but we are asking for those people who do have vote by mail ballots to get them into us as early as possible,’ said Manatee County Supervisor of Elections, Michael Bennett.
And if you want to vote in person, early voting in Florida starts on October 19th.
“We use the same check-in equipment, the same tabulations, same voting booth, same paper ballots it’s just like voting at your polling location except its more convenient because you can choose when and where during that early voting period that you cast a ballot so if they’re going to vote in person id really encourage them to think about early voting, that’s a great method,” said Turner.
The final day to cast your vote, will of course be November 3rd, Election Day.
For more information on where and how to vote, you can visit The Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections Office Website or The Manatee County Supervisor of Elections Office Website.
