Early Voting Is Over in Tampa Bay: Tuesday's Ballot Waits at Your Precinct, and Mail Ballots Go to the Elections Office
Early voting closed at 7 p.m. Sunday across Tampa Bay with more than 5.2 million Floridians already voted. For everyone else, there are exactly two ways left to cast a ballot: in person at your own precinct on Tuesday, or a mail ballot delivered to a Supervisor of Elections office by 7 p.m. Tuesday.
Early voting is finished in Tampa Bay. The sites that ran from October 19 closed at 7 p.m. Sunday, and the region now waits for Election Day itself, Tuesday, November 3, when polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. More than 5.2 million of Florida's more than 13 million registered voters have already cast a ballot by mail or in person, according to University of Florida figures reported Sunday, and in Hillsborough County turnout has already passed 40 percent - which means nearly 60 percent of the county's voters still have a ballot to cast.
Tuesday works differently from the early-voting weeks in the one way that matters most: there is no voting just anywhere. On Election Day, Hillsborough voters must vote at the polling place assigned to their precinct, Supervisor of Elections Craig Latimer explained, because a voter's ballot is already printed and waiting at that precinct's polling site. The county's precinct finder at VoteHillsborough.gov will confirm the right location before Tuesday morning.
A mail ballot still sitting at home has its own rule, and it is strict: it must be in one of the five Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections offices by 7 p.m. Tuesday to count, and it cannot be turned in at an Election Day polling place at all. A voter holding one can instead choose to vote in person at their precinct on Tuesday. Monday, November 2, has no in-person voting anywhere in the county - it is a delivery day for mail ballots, and nothing else.
