TAMPA — Early voting for Tampa's March 3 elections starts Monday, but it's looking like turnout could end up even lower than four years ago.
There's no hotly contested mayor's race. Mayor Bob Buckhorn will be on the ballot, but his competition, write-in candidate Jose Vazquez, won't be. And no qualified challenger emerged to run against City Council member Frank Reddick in East Tampa, likely dampening enthusiasm there to go to the polls.
Nor has this been an unusually active or noisy election cycle. And except for the City Council incumbents, few of the candidates have much money.
"Unfortunately, I think it's (turnout) going to be fairly low," maybe even in the teens, said Buckhorn, whose own campaign recently paid for a robocall to urge voters to turn out. "The hard-core voters are going to turn out," he said, but "infrequent voters are not used to spring elections."
Still, there is this: As of Friday, nearly 11,000 absentee ballots had already been cast. That's already more than the 9,856 absentees mailed in for the entire city election in 2011, when overall turnout was 22 percent.
This year, elections officials think more ballots may be cast before March 3 than on the day of the election.
"We're seeing more voters vote early," either by absentee ballot or through early voting, Hillsborough Supervisor of Elections Craig Latimer said Friday. In 2012, those two categories accounted for 62 percent of votes cast. Last year, they made up 58 percent. "I always remind voters that Election Day isn't the first day to vote, it's the last day to vote."
Already, South Tampa is seeing comparatively high percentages of absentee voting. Vote-by-mail ballots alone have already driven turnout to the 8 to 12 percent range in a half-dozen precincts for Palma Ceia and Gandy/Sun Bay South.
Early voting takes place from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through March 1 at these locations:
• C. Blythe Andrews Jr. Public Library, 2607 E Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
• Fred B. Karl County Center, 601 E Kennedy Blvd., 16th floor.
• Jan Kaminis Platt Regional Library, 3910 S Manhattan Ave.
• New Tampa Regional Library, 10001 Cross Creek Blvd.
• North Tampa Branch Library, 8916 N Boulevard.
• Robert L. Gilder Elections Service Center, 2514 N Falkenburg Road.
• West Tampa Branch Library, 2312 W Union St.
Election day is March 3, with runoffs, if necessary, on March 24.
During early voting, voters can vote at any site. But if they wait until March 3, they can only vote at the polling place for their precinct. (You can look up your precinct by going to VoteHillsborough.org and clicking on "Election Day" or calling the Supervisor of Elections at (813) 744-5900.
On election day, polling places will be open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Voters should bring identification with both photo and signature or they'll have to cast a provisional ballot.
Contact Richard Danielson at rdanielson@tampabay.com or (813) 226-3403. Follow @Danielson_Times