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Bay Area, State Reflect Early Voting Success
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Published: January 23, 2008
TAMPA - Early voting has once again proven popular in the Tampa Bay area.
From Hillsborough to Pasco to Pinellas, voters are taking advantage of the opportunity to cast ballots before primary day, Jan. 29.
Elections officials say it's a convenience factor - people like being able to vote on Saturdays or at locations other than their assigned precincts.
"We're definitely excited," said Jim Reed, Hillsborough County's assistant elections supervisor. "The numbers are high, and that makes us feel good. Hopefully we'll finish out the week on a high note."
In the 2004 primary, more than 15,000 people voted early. In the 2006 primary, about 25,000 people voted early. As of Monday, more than 21,000 people had cast early ballots.
Those numbers don't include absentee voting, which also has been popular.
Early voting in Hillsborough started Jan. 14 at 13 sites and ends Saturday. About 608,000 people are registered to vote in Hillsborough.
In Pasco, more people voted early as of Monday than during the entire two-week early voting period for the 2006 primary.
By Monday, 6,445 people had voted early, and an additional 1,300 people voted early by late Tuesday, said Tiffany Alligood, senior deputy of election services. In the 2006 primary, 6,391 people voted early.
Pinellas County also is reporting steady early voting turnout, with about 3,700 people casting votes as of Monday, spokeswoman Nancy Whitlock said.
The Tampa Bay area's early voting success is shared with the rest of the state. Including absentee voters, about half a million people or more may have voted before primary day.
As of Sunday, more than 240,000 voters had voted early, and more than 225,000 absentee ballots have been returned, out of at least 567,000 absentee ballots requests.
That has some Republican candidates trying different strategies to reach voters who aren't waiting to cast their ballots. There are Web sites, rallies and mailers pushing early voting.
The candidate probably working hardest to reach Florida's early voters has been former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. His strategy has been to almost ignore the early contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan and South Carolina to focus on Florida, which has a large population of New York transplants.
On the Democratic side, a group of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's supporters are trying to fill the void caused by the party's boycott by reaching out to potential voters through FloridaforHillary.com.
"Absentee and early voting are votes in the bank. The more votes we can get in the bank before Election Day, the better off we are," spokeswoman Ana Cruz said. Supporters of Barack Obama have a similar site that pushes Florida's early voting: my.barack obama.com.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report. Reporter Ellen Gedalius can be reached at (813) 259-7679 or egedalius@tampatrib.com.
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