HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — Early voting ends this weekend across Tampa Bay.
Officials urge people to take advantage of early voting this weekend.
“I always tell people, if you’re going to wait until Tuesday, which is the last day to vote, I hope when you get up that morning, you’re not sick, somebody that you need to take care of isn’t sick, your car starts, you don’t have a flat tire. Don’t get shut out,” said Craig Latimer, Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections.
To make sure your trip to the polls goes smoothly, you’ll need to bring identification with your photo and signature.
There are 12 acceptable forms of I.D.
- Florida Driver License
- Florida ID Card issued by the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles
- U.S. Passport
- Debit or Credit Card
- Military ID
- Student ID
- Retirement Center ID
- Neighborhood Association ID
- Public Assistance ID
- Veteran Health ID (issued by VA)
- Concealed Weapon License (issued pursuant to s. 790.06)
- Government Employee ID
- If your photo ID does not include your signature, you will be asked to provide another ID that has your signature.
In Hillsborough County, there are 26 early voting locations. You can go to any of them during early voting. It doesn’t have to be your assigned precinct.
“If you don’t know where the 26 early voting locations are, go to our website, votehillsborough.gov. There’s also a wait time widget on there, so you can see if there’s any wait time at the site you were thinking about going to,” Latimer said. “We just encourage people to look."
Experts stress it’s important to do your homework for this election.
Take a look at your sample ballot, write notes, and bring it with you to vote to help keep lines down.
“If you don’t have your sample ballot, go on our website votehillsborough.gov. You can look yourself up and get your specific sample ballot. So you can come in and be prepared to vote,” Latimer said.“This is a long ballot. It’s got three amendments on it, so you’re going to be waiting a while if you just walk in, get your ballot and go to the privacy booth."
For anyone with a vote-by-mail ballot, it’s too late to mail it, but it can still be counted.
“You’re going to need to drop it at one of our early vote sites during early voting hours or at one of my four offices, but it must be in my office by 7 p.m. election day,” Latimer said.
At this point, Latimer told ABC Action News early voter turnout is a little lower than years prior.
“We’re several percent behind where we were in 2018. But also remember that we’ve added 67,000 more voters since 2018. So that certainly affects what your percentages are going to be. We’ve seen the turnout just continue to pick up the last couple of days at early voting. We’re still getting a lot of vote-by-mail ballots back,” Latimer said.
Early voting ends at 7 p.m. on Sunday in Hillsborough County.
