Malaysia election set for Nov. 19 amid fear of floods, smog
LONG BEACH, Fla. (AP) — The last-minute scramble for ballots and a possible flood by Hurricane Matthew could be a factor in the Nov. 19 election here, where voter turnout was already at about 70-percent during the 2012 presidential contest, said officials in Florida who monitor every election in the country.
“We have to be concerned when we have election-day traffic coming through here,” said Jennifer Gonzalez, executive director of the Florida Division of Elections. If voters are able to cast ballots at polling places, “there’s a good chance we’ll have higher voter turnout than we did in 2012.”
Officials at the Florida Department of State Elections and Voter Registration are confident they will receive the necessary voter-registration list before Election Day, said Gonzalez, who is also running for governor against incumbent Gov. Rick Scott.
Voters who come to the polls in what is expected to be a record turnout have to show IDs — whether in their cars or by carrying them — to cast ballots. Voter registration, however, has been hard to track.
The D.O.S.E. is not worried about the number of registered voters, because their list of eligible voters is relatively small. It’s the turnout that they have to worry about, Gonzalez said.
Gonzalez called the last-minute scramble for ballots an “unusual event but not out of the ordinary for Florida.”
In Florida, the D.O.S.E. has been able to trace voter registration using Social Security records.
“We are confident that we will be able to generate the voter-registration list before the election,” Gonzalez said.
The state’s voter registration list is also the most accurate and up-to-date list of registered voters in the country, Gonzalez said, and her agency has used it to create voter-registration cards for last-minute voters who missed the deadline to register to vote.
That’s a different tactic from the past,