Although the presidential election has been sucking all the oxygen out of the room, voters on Tuesday are determining everything from the local school board to major party candidates in Florida's U.S. Senate race, which some argue are as important — if not more important — than the presidential races.
To put a finer point on the importance of primaries, Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn cast his ballot Tuesday morning at the Sandra W. Freedman Tennis Complex, where he encouraged voters who have not cast a ballot yet to come to the polls.
Primary day is like game day for politicians, Buckhorn said before heading inside to vote.
“People need to come out on primary day and decide who’s going to move on to the finals,” Buckhorn said. “At a local level, we're the ones who affect your quality of life more so than anything.”
This year, there are several competitive races in the Florida primary alone. From judges to state representatives and county commissioners to clerk of circuit court, Tuesday is the final day for voters to have a say in who gets onto the Nov. 8 ballot.
Voters also have the opportunity to cast their ballot on several issues, including Amendment 4 which would make installing solar or renewable energy systems or devices more affordable.
“If you think about the state of Florida, you have to ask yourself the question, ‘Why don't we have more solar power? Why don't we have more solar industries here that are creating real jobs for Floridians?’” Buckhorn said. “There's a huge opportunity for the Sunshine State to develop sunshine energy.”
Buckhorn did express his disappointment in Hillsborough County’s Board of County Commission's decision not to prioritize transportation and put it on the ballot.
“We should be voting on transportation. Unfortunately, the county commission chose a different route—kind of like the horse and buggy route,” Buckhorn said. “Unfortunately, we're not going to get a chance to choose our future and decide our destiny because the county commission chose not to put that on the ballot. We're going to continue to move on. The city is going to do just fine without them.”
Nearly two million Floridians have already voted in this year’s primary election, according to the Florida Division of Elections, either by mail or early voting.
Approximately 536,000 voters cast their ballots during the early voting period that completed this past weekend. Another 1.15 million voters vote by mailing in their ballots. This brings it to a total ballots casted to more than 1.69 million.
The polls close at 7 p.m. Results are expected to start coming in shortly after, save for in the case of statewide elections due to parts of the Panhandle being in the Central Time Zone. Results for those will be determined after 8 p.m. EST.
This article appears in Aug 25 – Sep 1, 2016.