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© St. Petersburg Times, published October 29, 2002
TAMPA -- Hillsborough Supervisor of Elections Pam Iorio has a homework assignment for people intending to vote next week.
Iorio's office on Monday began mailing out tens of thousands of sample ballots to every registered voter in the county who hasn't picked up an absentee ballot. She urges prospective voters to read them before Election Day.
Like elections supervisors around the state, Iorio fears that a ballot thick with proposed constitutional amendments may present challenges to voters reading them for the first time. An expected above-average turnout, combined with thousands of voters assigned to new precincts and casting their first ballots on touch screen machines, offers the potential for a logjam, she said.
"If voters could look at the sample ballot and perhaps mark it up and make a notation on how they'd like to vote in all the different referendum issues in particular," Iorio said, "then they will spend less time in the voting machine and the voting will go faster for everyone."
Of particular concern to Iorio is Amendment 1, which, at 714 words, breaks the state record in terms of length. What's more, even a lawyer may have difficulty deciphering its intended consequence, which has something to do with strengthening the death penalty and other criminal sentences.
Iorio declined to offer an interpretation. It's important that people try to grapple with it before reaching the ballot booth, she said.
"I think it's wrong that it's the length it is," she said. "What it means is anyone's guess."
In Hillsborough, Amendment 1 fits on one screen of voting machines. In other counties with a different system, the amendment continues to a second screen.
It is one of 11 constitutional amendment proposals. In Hillsborough, it is joined by a proposed county charter change and an array of candidates that varies, depending on which of the 52 ballot versions voters receive.
The sample ballot that registered voters get this week mirrors the ballot they see Election Day.
In a typical year, voters manage to wade through the ballot in 30 seconds to a minute, Iorio said. Based on what she's seeing from people voting in advance, voters may need five to seven minutes, she said. That could slow the voting, particularly at peak hours, and lead to frustration for people trying to get to work or day care.
In Pasco County, Supervisor of Elections Kurt Browning has said early voters have needed an average 12 to 15 minutes.
Anticipating Election Day frustrations, Florida Secretary of State Jim Smith last week urged the state's supervisors of election to encourage voters to vote early: either on the day of the election or in advance of it.
"He certainly would concur that voters need to do everything they can to familiarize themselves with the issues," said David Host, the state Department of State communications director. "I think he would emphasize as well that the people who do go on Election Day and do confront long lines need to be patient."
Iorio said she has distributed 32,000 absentee ballots, a high number compared with the totals for years in which gubernatorial races are on the ballot. Another 1,500 people have voted in advance at county offices.
She is predicting a 61 to 62 percent turnout in Hillsborough County -- about 320,000 people -- compared to 50.72 percent four years ago.