If the count doesn’t match, everything starts over right from scratch. Voting is a staple of American democracy with election workers tirelessly helping to tabulate ballots. But Florida somehow always finds a way to turn the spotlight onto the swing state.
Florida has made its mark, or rather lack thereof with the hanging chad confusion, on shaping the political landscape and this upcoming midterm election is no different. After the 2020 census changed the state’s population, a new congressional seat was added, which could reshape the U.S. House of Representatives by favoring more Republican candidates.
Advance voting began for the 2022 midterm election in Florida with vote-by-mail ballots sent to registered absentee voters on Sept. 29. In Alachua County, there are seven early voting locations where you can go to either drop off your mail-in ballot or in-person vote before Election Day on Nov. 8.
“You can go to any early voting location to cast your ballot — that’s a really important feature of early voting — it has a lot of flexibility for people who move around the county during the day,” Aaron Klein, the director of communications and outreach for the Alachua County Supervisor of Elections, said.
But, if you’re a student who is registered to vote in a different county, do not use the drop off boxes at the early voting locations to submit an absentee ballot as it will invalidate your vote. Instead, place it in the nearest mailbox and find out what your county offers to track when the mail-in ballot gets received.
“It’s extremely secure because there must be two of us at all times watching the ballot box and at the end of the day, the whole ballot box itself is taken down to the main office. So, in my opinion, it’s one of the safest ways,” Phyllis Levine, an election worker who handles vote-by-mail ballots in Pinellas County, said.
However, when asked to comment on the previous hesitations from the 2020 presidential elections about the legitimacy of mail-in ballots, Levine said, “We actually cannot respond to any comments like that — anything political, whether it has to do with the candidate or the operation system — we just smile and shake our heads.”
Poll workers go through a training process before the election starts where they are taught to not speak with the press and instead pass any requests to the main office so a communications director can respond.
“Typically, poll workers do not speak to media during an election just because they’re kind of in a sensitive location — they can see voters casting their votes, potentially can get an idea of what’s going on in the polling place that they’re not supposed to divulge,” Klein added on the subject.
Shirlee McCaulay, a poll worker for over 20 years, said, “Everything is very secure and it’s serious work — it’s not playing around time — we have to get there at 5:20 a.m. and take the oath that we agree to do everything as expected of us.”
“Then, the machines are set up, the individual computers are put in place and hooked up to everything with the battery backups,” McCaulay continued as she described the calm period before Election Day polls open for voters.
“When I began as a poll worker in Ohio, you had one ballot you would tear off, a stub you put in one box, and a ballot that you handed to the voter. When they came back out [from the voting booth] you put it in a separate box and at the end of the day the first count was the stubs, just counting them, and you mark that like they used to do with four lines and a cross,” McCaulay explained.
The ballot includes Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis running for reelection against Democratic candidate and former governor Charlie Crist, and the race between Republican Sen. Marco Rubio and Democratic Rep. Val Demings. Both Republican incumbents are favored to win, according to FiveThirtyEight, a political polling organization. Also on the ballot for voters to decide is two property-tax measures and whether to abolish the Florida Constitution Revision Commission.
Early voting ends Nov. 6, and the polls will open Election Day at 7 a.m.
