Early primary balloting starts today

There's no excuse anymore. Voters across the state can begin casting ballots early, in person, beginning today. They can also request absentee ballots.

BY ERIKA BOLSTAD Miami Herald  16 August 2004

Early voting for the Aug. 31 primary begins today across Florida, giving voters a two-week window to cast ballots without the lines or worries of election day.

Voters in Miami-Dade have their pick of 14 sites. Broward voters can go to one of 10 public offices or libraries to vote even on Saturdays.

''This is just another convenient way to vote for people who value flexibility,'' said Seth Kaplan, a spokesman for the Miami-Dade supervisor of elections office.

Broward and Miami-Dade voters have plenty of experience casting early ballots on the electronic iVotronic machines. After the meltdown primary in 2002, hundreds of voters in both counties waited in line to vote early in the general election, fearful of going to the polls on Election Day.

''I'm voting early,'' said Broward Republican Party Chairman Kevin Tynan. ``My inclination is to get it over with. I'm certainly going to recommend it. Beat the lines.''

Despite the convenience of early voting, however, the process is likely to be overshadowed by the legions in Florida who are voting early by mailing in absentee ballots, a method pushed by political parties and candidates who want to target specific voters.

ABSENTEE BALLOTS

With some voters worried about the performance of touch-screen machines, local and national voting activists have been encouraging people to cast absentee, paper ballots.

''In every community, people are advocating voting by absentee ballot,'' said Ellen Brodsky, a Coconut Creek voting activist who is among those advocating paper printouts to the touch-screen equipment.

Eventually, the double-barreled approach of either casting an early electronic vote or an absentee ballot is expected to change the face of elections in Florida. Candidates will have to change how they time their campaigns, said Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore.

''It's going to be interesting,'' said LePore, whose county will offer early voting on electronic equipment.

Some candidates in primary races are encouraging people to vote early, said Raymond Zeller, chairman of the Democratic Party of Miami-Dade County. Some have organized vans to take older voters.

''Between the mayor's race, the Senate race and the school board races, they're really working,'' Zeller said.

SECURITY

For those turning to early voting, Florida has strict security guidelines in place. Machines used in this process go through the same testing as equipment used on Election Day. While they're in use during the early voting period, they're put into a special ''lock-down'' mode overnight.

Machines used for early voting are programmed for every possible ballot style in the county. Miami-Dade has 222 styles; Broward, 152.

Poll workers will look up a voter on their computer and determine the proper precinct and ballot style. Once the voter is checked in by computer, it's noted that he or she has voted and won't be able to vote anywhere else at another early voting location, via absentee or at the polls on election day.

In Broward, the elections office hired 50 temporary poll workers to handle early voting, at $10 an hour each.

It's expensive to staff the offices, but election officials say early voting offers advantages. If someone has a problem with his or her registration or has moved, voting early gives poll workers time to straighten it out without the stress of an Election Day deadline.

''It takes logistical planning, like anything else,'' said Gisela Salas, Broward's deputy elections supervisor. ``But it's a convenience for the voters.''

Maybe so, but some experts don't see it as good for democracy. Studies have found that early voting has little or no impact on turnout, said Curtis Gans, director of the Washington-based research group Committee for the Study of the American Electorate.

Plenty can happen between casting an early vote and Election Day, he points out, citing Ross Perot's comments on 60 Minutes just 10 days before the 1992 presidential election.

Blaming the Bush White House for trying to sabotage his daughter's wedding made Perot look paranoid, Gans said and thousands had already voted for him using absentee ballots.

GETTING TOGETHER

Gans notes that Americans have two communal activities that bring them together as citizens: watching fireworks on the Fourth of July and casting a ballot on Election Day.

''Prior to early voting, you used all your resources to motivate toward one day,'' Gans said. ``Now you diffuse that.''