ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 Pinellas County voters cast ballots in the primary as election officials reported a smooth Election Day.<\/p>\n
Whether they dropped off their ballot, or dropped by a polling place, voters came out by the thousands and encouraged others to participate.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo it because it impacts your pocket every day,\u201d Pinellas County voter Larry Chee said. \u201cYour gas, your food, your electric bill \u2014 you got to get out there and do it. There\u2019s some important stuff on the ballot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections Julie Marcus said the primary had gone off without any major hitches. Problems that did come up were being handled in part through the elections office call center, where staff members answered questions from voters and poll workers throughout the day.<\/p>\n
Some of those calls involved directing voters to new polling places after the 2024 hurricanes forced changes.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery election has to be perfect,\u201d Marcus said. \u201cThere are no mulligans in elections, it has to be right every time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marcus said voters can help keep the election running smoothly by preparing before they go to vote.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis has been a really good, smooth election, and voters can help keep it smooth by getting election ready, go to votepinellas.gov. Know where your polling place is,\u201d Marcus said.<\/p>\n
Many voters chose to mail in their ballots instead of going to the polls. The Florida Division of Elections reported Pinellas County had more mail-in ballots than any other county in the state, with more than 100,000.<\/p>\n
Marcus said that the level of mail voting is typical for Pinellas County.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is par for the course for Pinellas County voters,\u201d Marcus said. \u201cWe saw a nice early voting turnout, and I really hope that we do well today on Election Day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other voters said they preferred to cast their ballots in person, including Erica Brigham.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like to go in person,\u201d Brigham said. \u201cI\u2019ve been voting for decades, and that\u2019s just the way I do it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 Pinellas County voters cast ballots in the primary as election officials reported a smooth…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":375092,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[4323,4318,3140,274,28,2200,2287,115,596,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,278,2032,835],"class_list":["post-375091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-andy-cole","tag-app-latest-local-state-politics-stories","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-app-top-stories","tag-florida","tag-instagram-bn9","tag-local-politics","tag-news","tag-pinellas-county","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tampa","tag-top-stories","tag-trending-topics","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375091","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=375091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}