\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.wtsp.com\/assets\/shared-images\/icons\/arrow-circle-down.svg\"){kind=icon}
<\/p>\nCouncil members and voting rights advocates say the lack of an early voting site creates barriers for voters.<\/p>\n
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 Community leaders and voting rights advocates are calling on Pinellas County to add an early voting location in South St. Petersburg ahead of the November general election.<\/p>\n
The Southern Poverty Law Center sent a letter to Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections Julie Marcus raising concerns about the lack of an early voting site in South St. Pete. The organization argues the absence of a location in the community creates geographic and transportation barriers, particularly for Black voters.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\n This story continues below.
<\/p>\n
St. Petersburg City Council Member Cory Givens Jr. said residents in the 33711 and 33712 ZIP codes currently have to leave their community to vote early.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey don’t have access to an early voting site, so to me, that’s nothing but voter suppression,\u201d Givens said.<\/p>\n
Pinellas County currently has seven early voting locations planned for the Nov. 3 general election. They include locations in St. Petersburg, Gulfport, Clearwater, Largo and Palm Harbor. Early voting is scheduled for Oct. 19 through Nov. 1, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. each day.<\/p>\n
The county says early voting locations are selected years in advance as part of a countywide plan designed to provide geographic access to voters.<\/p>\n
\u201cCurrently, all Pinellas voters are within five miles of an early voting site,\u201d the county said in a statement.<\/p>\n
The county also points out that voters have other options, including voting by mail and voting at their assigned polling place on Election Day.<\/p>\n
But advocates say distance and transportation can still create barriers for some voters, particularly people who do not have access to a vehicle, work hourly jobs, are caregivers, are older or have disabilities.<\/p>\n
Esther Sanni, president of the St. Petersburg NAACP, said the number of early voting locations in Pinellas County deserves scrutiny.<\/p>\n
\u201cPinellas County has roughly 609,000 active registered voters, and we only have seven early voting locations,\u201d Sanni said. \u201cThat means you’re looking at about 87,000 registered voters per site.\u201d<\/p>\n
By comparison, neighboring Hillsborough County has 27 early voting locations for roughly 815,000 registered voters.<\/p>\n
Sanni said officials should consider factors including transportation, travel distance, accessibility, site capacity and early voting turnout when determining whether additional locations are needed.<\/p>\n
Givens has suggested the Childs Park Recreation Center as one possible location for an early voting site.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are multiple neutral voting sites where we can have early voting locations,\u201d Givens said. \u201cIt’s just a matter of having the will to want to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Florida law requires early voting sites to be designated at least 30 days before the election, according to the information provided by advocates. For the Nov. 3 election, that deadline is Oct. 4. But the county has not indicated that it plans to add another early voting location.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Council members and voting rights advocates say the lack of an early voting site creates barriers for voters.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":416684,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-416683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416683","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=416683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/416684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}