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Clinton campaign in Florida clamors for more early voting hours

 
Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections worker Andrea West adds mail ballots to an inserter Sept. 22 at the Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections Service Center in Largo. Workers are preparing to mail 260,000 vote by mail kits for the November General Election. (SCOTT KEELER   |   Times)
Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections worker Andrea West adds mail ballots to an inserter Sept. 22 at the Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections Service Center in Largo. Workers are preparing to mail 260,000 vote by mail kits for the November General Election. (SCOTT KEELER | Times)
Published Sept. 27, 2016

TALLAHASSEE — Locked in a tight race with Donald Trump in Florida, Hillary Clinton wants all counties to offer the maximum early voting hours allowed by state law, but most won't.

Early voting can start Oct. 24 for up to 12 hours a day, ending the Sunday before Election Day, Nov. 8. Voters can vote at any early voting site in their home county, and many are open at night and on weekends.

Voters also have five weeks to cast ballots by mail beginning next week.

Despite the state's history of long early voting lines, just 10 of 67 county elections supervisors will offer the maximum 168 hours of early voting.

That's Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Hillsborough, Pinellas, Orange, Osceola, Seminole, Charlotte and Duval, which together account for more than half of all Florida voters. At least 30 more counties offer 13 days of early voting.

Democrats say it's not good enough.

Fort Lauderdale lawyer Zach Learner, head of voter protection efforts in Florida for the Clinton campaign, said too many counties are offering too little early voting.

"When access is limited or hours are restricted, voting is less convenient than it should be and more voting options is never a bad thing," Learner said. "The goal should be to have as many early voting sites as possible and we hope that supervisors will be responsive to voters and their communities."

The people who manage elections say the criticism is uncalled for and that voters have ample opportunity to cast ballots.

"You can have 30 days of early voting and some people will be clamoring for 35," said Pasco County Supervisor of Elections Brian Corley, who complained on Twitter of "partisan politics hijacking elections administration" in Florida.

Pasco will offer eight days of early voting at eight locations for 12 hours each day.

"One size doesn't fit all," Corley said. "We're very comfortable with our eight locations."

He said Pasco could set a record for mail ballot requests this election, but that he senses less overall enthusiasm than in 2008, and predicted a turnout of 70 to 72 percent, close to the 71.5 percent turnout in the 2012 presidential election in Florida.

Even as Democrats clamor for more early voting hours, they are urging voters to vote by mail as never before, including a letter from President Barack Obama, making it sound like it's a new option — even though more than twice as many people voted by mail in last month's primary as voted early.

Related document: Read President Barack Obama's letter to Florida voters

"In Florida, voting is easier than ever because now you can vote by mail," says a letter paid for by the Florida Democratic Party. "It's the fastest and most convenient way to make your voice heard."

Miami-Dade, with 1.3 million voters, will open 30 early voting sites, more than any other county, at libraries, community centers and city halls. The list is on the county elections website, miamidade.gov/elections.

In the August primary, early voting was the least popular way of voting in Miami-Dade: 18 percent of voters chose that method.

Broward Supervisor of Elections Dr. Brenda Snipes decided to offer early voting for 14 days from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. after some voters expressed fear of long lines.

Snipes added a 21st site at the South Regional Library at Broward College, 7300 Pines Blvd., Pembroke Pines, to ease congestion at nearby sites.

"Everybody will have the opportunity to vote early if that's what they chose to do," she said.

Democrats continue to cite Republican-backed changes to voting laws to motivate the party's base, especially young people, as Clinton did Tuesday in a speech at a college in Raleigh, N.C.

In Florida, Clinton forces also support St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman and African-American clergy, who have called on Pinellas County to add an early voting site in St. Petersburg closer to where many of the city's black voters live.

"It is our goal to make voting as easy and accessible as possible to every community," Learner said. "An early vote site in St. Petersburg would have made that possible."

Pinellas will offer 14 days of early voting but at five sites, including one in downtown St. Petersburg. Supervisor of Elections Deborah Clark said she won't add another site because all voters regardless of race prefer to vote by mail, and that the county turnout consistently exceeds the state average.

"The plan that we have for our voters in November is solid and it provides easy ballot access for all voters," Clark said.

For the past decade, Clark has run the state's most aggressive vote-by-mail program. Three-fourths of county voters voted by mail in the Aug. 30 primary, by far the highest ratio of any Florida county.

The Republican National Committee said it is satisfied that voters in Florida have ample opportunities to vote.

"We trust local officials to set election calendars that serve the needs of Florida voters," said Ninio Fetalvo, a party spokesman in Tallahassee. "It is our job to continue our historic ground game efforts to elect Republicans up and down the ticket."

The Republican Legislature curtailed early voting in the 2012 election, which led to seven-hour delays at some sites and made Desiline Victor, a 102-year-old Haitian immigrant from Miami who waited for hours to vote, a national symbol of what Democrats called a Republican tactic of voter suppression.

In the furor that followed, lawmakers retooled the law in 2013 to give elections supervisors more flexibility in days, hours and voting locations.

Counties must offer early voting for a minimum of eight days for at least eight hours each day, including at least one Saturday and Sunday. They can provide early voting on the Sunday before Election Day when Democrats rally black voters to vote after church, a program known as "Souls to the Polls."

Times/Herald staff writer Amy Sherman contributed to this report. Contact Steve Bousquet at bousquet@tampabay.com. Follow @stevebousquet.