Central Florida supervisors of elections say they’re expecting a smooth season of voting despite ominous rumblings coming from the White House.
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Lake Supervisor Alan Hays quipped his golf handicap was the only thing keeping him up at night, with about a month to go until the August primary elections.
“When you have the processes in place that we have and you have the quality of people that we have working at our offices, we’re able to sleep quite well,” he said.
Hays and his counterparts from Orange, Osceola, Seminole, Brevard and Volusia counties answered questions from reporters about their preparations at a roundtable hosted by the News Collaborative of Central Florida.
Across the six-county area, each supervisor said their offices have fielded roughly half of the requests for vote-by-mail ballots as they had in 2024. Due to recent changes in Florida law pushed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, requests reset after each general election and a voter now needs to make a fresh request every two years instead of the previous four.
In order to receive a ballot in the mail ahead of the August primary, a voter must file a request by Aug. 6. That request will remain valid through the end of the year.
While they expect a rush of requests to pour in before the deadline, supervisors expect many of those voters to be forced to cast their ballot in a different way.
But they aren’t sure if that will lead to a rush of people at early voting sites or showing up on Election Day.
“This midterm election is really going to be a sounding board for what we’re going to have to plan for the presidential election in two years,” said Brevard’s Supervisor of Elections Tim Bobanic.
Voters have until July 20 to register to vote in order to be eligible to cast a ballot in August.
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Looming over everything, President Donald Trump plans to give a speech Thursday evening, reportedly to discuss “voting machine flaws that could permit foreign cyber intrusion,” according to Reuters, and might repeat his false claims that the 2020 election was rigged.
The administration has long sought to increase federal oversight of elections at the expense of states, Reuters reported, despite the power invested in the states by the U.S. Constitution.
The elections officials said they field many questions and calls from voters with a host of similar concerns stemming from election misinformation.
Seminole County Supervisor Amy Pennock said in gubernatorial primaries, her county’s turnout ranges from 17% to 24%, even as some of the most powerful local seats are up for grabs.
“I think the challenge of the national news, or the rhetoric out there talking about how it’s unsafe, or this or that about elections, it really only decreases the turnout in the most important elections,” she said.
Hays said voters should have no worries about foreign intrusion.
“In order for a bad actor to penetrate our election system with cyber breaches, they have to get on the internet,” he said. “Our tabulation networks are never, ever connected to the internet.”
“People are not going to be able to get in there and switch votes from one candidate to another in any of the races.”
But, the public has an open invitation to see the election process unfold at their local supervisor’s office if they have concerns, Osceola Supervisor Mary Jane Arrington said, whether that be as a poll worker, a volunteer, or just an observer.
“We want the public to come watch the process,” she said. “Come watch everything we do and you’re going to see the steps that we take to make sure everything is transparent and secure.”
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