HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — Hillsborough County elections officials loaded up more than 152,000 vote-by-mail ballots onto trucks that are heading to the post office to be sent out.
The ballots will be delivered to voters who have requested to vote by mail ahead of the 2024 primary election on August 20th.
"They can vote school board judges, and we also have what's called a universal primary for public defenders. So we're going to have the public defender chosen in this race. We're going to have at least two judges chosen in this race," Craig Latimer, Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections, explained.
Voters have until July 22nd to register to vote in this election. In the meantime, the Hillsborough County Canvassing Board oversaw a logic and accuracy test of ballot scanners, during which the public tested the system with random samples.
"We're going to run what's called a test deck through there. We know what the outcome should be is to ensure that the machines can count correctly. The logic part is that they can see every single space on that ballot, or a row can be cast," Latimer added.
Registered Hillsborough County voters have until August 8th to request a mail ballot. Proof that your vote was tabulated can be found on your supervisor of elections website. Leaders across counties assured that this is a very thorough process.
"I'm required to put 20 percent of the precinct ballots through the audit system. We put 100% through that audit system. So every vote that went through a tabulator is gonna go through this audit system," Latimer said.
In 2021, the Florida Legislature passed a law requiring voters to request a mail-in ballot before each election cycle. One of the big changes is Pasco County Supervisor of Elections Brian Corley said ballots are no longer automatically sent out from past requests.
"If we had voters that had consistently voted by mail and are now not going to but still vote in person, that means they are going to be waiting in considerably longer lines. You can avoid those lines by simply re-requesting your vote by mail ballot."
County leaders said Thursday's testing confirmed the scanners are reading every position on the ballot and counting votes accurately.
The test results can be found here.
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