FORT MYERS, Fla. (WINK)\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Thousands of people cast ballots in Southwest Florida on Saturday as early voting kicked off across the state.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A small stream of people trickled into the downtown Fort Myers library as election volunteers welcomed people inside. It didn\u2019t matter who they voted for. Almost everyone gave the same reason for showing up.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s important to vote,\u201d Derek Carey said. \u201cThat\u2019s the only way you get your voice heard.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Early voting runs for one week ahead of the Aug. 18 primary. You must show a valid form of identification at polling places. That includes a drivers license, passport, or a concealed carry permit.\u00a0<\/p>\n
August primary elections usually draw low participation, said Collier County Elections Supervisor Melissa Blazier. 1,935 people voted in Collier County on Saturday, according to the\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not a general election,\u201d Blazier said. \u201cBut it\u2019s good for a primary election.”<\/p>\n
State lawmakers recently\u00a0, leading to an education campaign across Southwest Florida. The legislature shuffled some voters into new congressional districts ahead of the primary. More than 173,000 voters were impacted by re-districting in Collier County, Blazier said. The elections office sent out information cards to inform voters of the change.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Most of the impacted voters are in\u00a0\u00a0The district once centered around Palm Beach County. Now it stretches across the state to Marco Island.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Lee County Elections Supervisor Jenna Persons-Mulicka\u00a0\u00a0that helped draw the new maps. Persons-Mulicka\u00a0\u00a0for six years in the Florida House, first winning election in 2020. She championed several election-related measures, including Florida\u2019s version of the\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0requires Florida voters to prove U.S. citizenship with a birth certificate, passport, or REAL ID driver\u2019s license. New voter registrations are checked against Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicle records. It also eliminates the use of student ID\u2019s and retirement center ID\u2019s at the polls.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed Persons-Mulicka as Lee County Supervisor of Elections after\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI absolutely love my job,\u201d Persons-Mulicka said. \u201cIt\u2019s been incredibly exciting and I stepped in to head up an already great team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blazier said Collier County runs a manual audit once the election results are certified. The elections office randomly selects a precinct and hand counts ballots. Both Collier and Lee County held\u00a0\u00a0of voting machines ahead of early voting. Workers test the accuracy of voting equipment before ballots are cast.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very important to us to ensure, you know, the integrity of folks\u2019 votes,\u201d Blazier said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s how we double check all of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both officials encouraged people to vote. Blazier noted that some Collier County races have been decided by less than a dozen votes. Some people already got the message.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Maria Ortiz said she became a citizen three years ago. She proudly cast a ballot with her daughter in downtown Fort Myers on Saturday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIn this country our vote counts,\u201d Ortiz said. \u201cAnd they do listen to you.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT MYERS, Fla. (WINK)\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Thousands of people cast ballots in Southwest Florida on Saturday as early voting kicked off…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":366852,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,14496,2715,148758],"class_list":["post-366851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-early-voting","tag-elections","tag-voting-in-the-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/366852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}