SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. – A few months back there were concerns over staffing for the primaries.
“We’ve lost probably 30% of our return poll workers. They just decided it was safer for them to remain home because they were recommended by family or doctors. We did see an increase in new applications,” Seminole County Supervisor of Elections Chris Anderson said.
We checked in with Seminole, Brevard, Osceola, Orange, and Marion Counties and they are all fully staffed with alternates for the upcoming election. Some areas may see fewer in-person voters next week.
“What we’ve seen is that more people have chosen to drop off their mail-in ballots at early voting locations rather than vote in-person,” Anderson said.
Anderson said he still wants voters to feel safe showing up to the polls, that's why they have implemented safety guidelines like adding plexiglass shields to separate poll workers and voters.
Along with frequent disinfecting, there will be fewer touchpoints when signing in and voting.
“We know the voters will be touching stylus’ back to back and we knew that it would be expensive to purchase more stylus',” Anderson said.
So they created 81,000 disposable stylists with foil-wrapped q-tips.
Each voter will also get their own secrecy sleeve for their ballots.
"We said, let's take an 11 by 17 piece of paper and fold it in half and that was an economical way to save money and print thousands of one-use secrecy sleeves," said Anderson.
Because voting is a constitutional right, Anderson said voters are not required, but encouraged to wear masks when they vote.
Keep in mind if you are using a mail-in ballot, print your name and sign the back. You'll want to turn them in as soon as possible so the supervisor of elections office can contact you if there are any issues.
If you wait until the Primary day, you won’t be able to turn them into your precinct, you’ll have to take them to the supervisor of elections office.