Welcome to

Florida’s elections supervisors are asking the Governor for more days of early voting for both the August primary and the November general election

They also want more flexibility on mail in ballots.

Florida law mandates eight days of early voting, but it allows up to 15.

Now, Florida’s election supervisors are asking the Governor for a total of 22 early voting days.

Tammy Jones is the President of the Florida Association of Elections Supervisors.

“It’s gonna be harder to find poll workers and also election day voting locations. So therefore we asked that we can extend our early voting days up to another week of early voting,” said Jones.

The Supervisors also want more flexibility.

“Drop boxes at early voting sites. That’s now state law requires that. So, we’re looking at putting more permanent sites out there that would be manned, at more locations,” said Leon County Elections Supervisor Mark Earley.

The supervisors are also pushing mail in voting as the safest alternative to going to the polls, but caution they don’t have the capacity to run the entire election via mail.

“We encourage people to vote by mail. However, we do feel like Florida is not in a position to mandate all counties to vote by mail,” said Jones.

System capacity is at issue.

“We’re not going to be able to send a vote by mail ballot to everybody. There’s just not enough time to prepare for that. We don’t even have the tabulation machines in place. At least many counties don’t,” said Earley.

Supervisors also want an extra day to respond to mail ballot requests.

Current law says it must be mailed within two business days.

All those extra early voting days do come with a cost.

The supervisors don’t know much yet, but they plan to ask the state to pick up the tab.

And the supervisors want whatever is approved to apply to both August and November, so voters feel a sense of continuity.