Early voting is a hot ticket

Hillsborough County leads the state in early voting turnout for the state's presidential preference primary. But turnout varies widely across the county.

Site        Turnout*

County Center 394

Elections Center 865

Plant City City Hall 1,143

Libraries

Bloomingdale 2,398

C. Blythe Andrews Jr. 47

Jan Platt 1,653

Jimmie B. Keel 2,570

New Tampa 889

North Tampa 254

Riverview 885

SouthShore 1,733

Temple Terrace 1,053

Town 'N' Country 749

Upper Tampa Bay 1,073

West Tampa 166

*as of Thursday

Hillsborough County leads the state in early voting for this year's Republican presidential preference primary.

Nearly 16,000 Hillsborough residents had voted early as of Thursday — the largest turnout for any county in the state, according to the secretary of state's office.

"We're on par with where we were in 2008," said Travis Abercrombie, spokesman for Hillsborough County Supervisor of Election Earl Lennard. That year, 21,756 Republicans voted early in the primary.

The next-highest early voting turnout has been in Miami-Dade County, with nearly 15,000 casting ballots ahead of Tuesday's primary.

Sumter County, home to The Villages retirement community, has had nearly 11 percent of its registered votes cast ballots early, the highest rate in the state.

Pinellas County, where just 0.2 percent of voters have voted early, has the lowest rate.

Early voting ends today.

Hillsborough's absentee voting — 8,725 as of Thursday — is 25 percent higher than in 2008.

Hillsborough voters began early voting on Jan. 16, nearly a week ahead of most counties in the state. Hillsborough and four other counties need federal approval to change their voting policies because of historic discrimination. As a result, those five counties were exempt this year from the 2011 legislative rewrite of election laws that reduced the early voting period across the state. In most other counties, early voting began Jan. 21.

Hillsborough's early voting turnout averaged about 1,320 per day for the first week. Turnout began to climb after the South Carolina primary, when national attention shifted to Florida. Voting has averaged nearly 2,000 a day since Monday.