Florida Election Workers Try to Keep Pace

GAINESVILLE, Fla. Oct.30, 2008 -- The receptionists at the Alachua County Supervisor of Elections office call this time of year "bizarre" season, when the phone lines are lit up like a Christmas tree a whole month before December.

It's a time when the door chimes announce a new visitor to the small lobby at least once every minute. It's a time when voters of every stripe, with every sort of problem, crowd and clamor to clear up all kinds of confusion with their one vote.

On Tuesday afternoon, almost midway through the last week of early voting in Florida, the Alachua office was inundated by calls and questions from hundreds of prospective voters -- just like most other elections offices throughout the state. Many staff members are working weekends and overtime, and the hours are only getting longer. Earlier in the day, Gov. Charlie Crist had signed an executive order extending early voting hours from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. through Friday, and for an additional 12 hours over the weekend.

The reason: the state has seen historic numbers of new voter registrations, voters are turning out in record numbers and lines in some counties, like Miami-Dade, have wrapped around polling places and take hours to make it all the way through. As of Tuesday evening, 162,456 voters had turned out.

And it's not even Election Day yet.

Pam Carpenter, Alachua County's supervisor of elections, says it's all part of the job, to make sure people get their votes counted, and chaos kept in check. On Tuesday, she was making calls and holding meetings to ensure there would be enough volunteers to handle the governor's mandate.

"We've had to staff up," Carpenter said. "We're seeing about 3,000 to 4,000 voters a day."

For a county with about 146,000 registered voters and an expected turnout of more than 80 percent, the pace has been brisk. So far, nearly 50,000 votes have already been cast.

In south Florida, where memories of hanging chads and hand recounts still linger from the 2000 presidential election, voting officials and campaigns alike are urging voters to cast their ballots well ahead of the Nov. 4 election day with a bit more urgency.