Elections Offices Gearing Up for Republican Primary

Florida’s Republican voters will troop to the polls on Jan. 31 to make their marks on the presidential preference primary. Nine candidates are in the running.

The deadline to register and qualify for the election is Jan. 3. The Supervisor of Elections office will be closed on Jan. 2 for the New Year holiday.

Because there is no other issue on the ballot in Manatee County, only registered Republicans can vote on Jan. 31. Florida is a “closed primary” state, so only Republicans can vote in the Republican Primary. Currently, there are 87,173 registered Republicans in Manatee County.

About 40,000 Manatee voters may be in for a surprise, however. The Supervisor of Elections Office consolidated several precincts, so the usual polling place may not be open. “There’ll be a sign on the door,” said Nancy Bignell, assistant elections supervisor.

“Earlier this month we sent out about 40,000 new voter identification cards to people who have a new polling place,” she said. “The timing was intentional, because we didn’t want the new card to get mixed up in the early Christmas mail.”

Some precincts were as small as 500 voters and required an election staff to conduct an election. About 12 of these smaller precincts were consolidated into larger ones to help save the county money, said Bignell.

If you have moved within the county or into Manatee County from another county in Florida, you must change your address before election day. The Supervisor of Elections office notes that it must verify all address changes and requests two full business days for the change to take effect.

In alphabetical order, as they will appear on the ballot, the nine Republican presidential candidates are:

Michele Bachmann

Herman Cain

Newt Gingrich

Jon Huntsman

Gary Johnson

Ron Paul

Rick Perry

Mitt Romney

Rick Santorum