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Early voting ends at 7 p.m. Nov. 3
By SUZETTE PORTER
| Article published on Saturday, Nov. 3, 2012 |
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Anyone planning to avoid the potential of long lines at the polls on Election Day, Nov. 6, by voting early is running out of time. Early voting ends at 7 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 3.
All three Supervisor of Elections offices will remain open until 7 p.m.
- Election Service Center, 13001 Starkey Road., Largo, Starkey Lakes Corporate Center
- Pinellas County Courthouse, 315 Court St., Room 117, Clearwater, first floor, north side
- County Building, 501 First Ave. N., St. Petersburg in the Annex Conference Room, entrance on Fifth Street
Voters can check early voting wait times online at www.votepinellas.com. Wait times will be listed for each location with green meaning a wait time of 20 minutes or less, yellow, 20 to 40 minutes, and red for 40 minutes or more.
According to the real-time information on the Elections Office website, 4,521 ballots were cast on the first day of early voting, Saturday, Oct. 27 and, as of 3:45 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 3, 36,891 people had taken advantage of the service.
Early voting accounted for 15 percent of ballots cast as of Saturday afternoon. However, the lion’s share - 208,938, or 85 percent of all votes cast - was mail ballots. As of Saturday afternoon, 39 percent of the 626,358 registered voters in Pinellas had cast their ballot for the Nov. 6 election.
Democrats still lagged behind the Republicans by 462 ballots – 97,937 for Republicans to 97,475 for the Democrats, which is the closest margin since the Elections Office began reporting unofficial results. Another 50,523 ballots were listed under the “other” category.
It’s too late to request that a mail ballot be sent to you, but registered voters can pick up and return a mail ballot at any Elections Office through Election Day. Mail ballots cannot be returned to polling places, per state law. All mail ballots must be received at an Elections Office by 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 6.
As of Nov. 2, 305,339 Pinellas County voters had requested a mail ballot, and 64.9 percent had been returned.
Mail ballot requests for the Nov. 6 general election have exceeded the numbers for any prior year, breaking the previous record of 258,606 ballot requests for the 2010 General Election and the 206,803 requests for the 2008 General Election.
Tuesday, Nov. 6, is the last day to take part in the general election that will decide the next president of the United States, and other federal, state and local leaders. Eleven state referendum questions are on the ballots, as well as a local school board question and municipal referendums. Polls open at 7 a.m. and close at 7 p.m.
For more information, visit votepinellas.com or call 464-VOTE (8683).
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Article published on Saturday, Nov. 3, 2012
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