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Orange County gets ready for local Election Day with low turnout so far

10.6% of eligible registered voters have voted so far

ORLANDO, Fla. – Ahead of many local election races happening across Central Florida, we got a look inside the Orange County Supervisor of Elections warehouse Monday as workers gear up.

“Just the fine-tuning, we are delivering the equipment to the polling places,” said Bill Cowles, supervisor of elections in Orange County.

“We have about 172,000 registered voters who are eligible to vote and as of Sunday night we are at 10.6% of the voters who have participated so far,” Cowles said.

That’s a little more than 18,000 people, with the Orlando mayoral race, two city council races and party primaries for the Florida House District 35 special election. We asked Orange County Cowles about the voter turnout so far.

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“For this election, I think it’s been the efforts by the candidates to make sure that their constituents and friends and all know that there is an election and participate,” said Cowles.

This also comes amid new state laws that impact voters, including a law that requires all registered voters to request a new vote by mail ballot each election cycle.

“On the vote by mail, on Dec. 31, 2022, all requests expired so if you were assuming we were going to send you a vote-by-mail ballot and you didn’t get one, the only option is to go to the polls,” said Cowles.

Marcus McCoy is the senior pastor at Greater Refuge Memorial Church in Parramore. He’s been calling and trying to educate more Black and minority voters. It’s through Equal Grounds’ Pastor At The Polls program where about 15 pastors will serve as poll monitors outside a few precincts.

“Many of the pastors who are serving are recognizably within the communities that the polling locations are so they’re easily recognized. They can come there, ask questions,” said McCoy. “We thought it very important that pastors are on the front line of educating our communities around these changes.”

You can read all of the election races across Central Florida and more about the candidate in this elections story on the News 6 website.

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