Voter turnout didn't top 32 percent in any Tampa Bay area county. One official blames the lateness of the state's primary.
By MATTHEW WAITE
Published March 10, 2004
[Times photo: Cherie Diez]
From left, Sarah V. Croom, Uradell Newkirk and Eula Jones, poll workers at Precinct 103 at Lake Vista Recreation Center in St. Petersburg, bide their time Tuesday during the presidential primary election. Twenty-nine people had voted at the precinct by 1 p.m.
VOTER TURNOUT
Percentages on primary election day:
2000
2004
Citrus
20
25
Hernando
17
32
Pasco
15
29
Hillsborough
16
16
Pinellas
17
21
One poll worker's day of chatting, reading books and guessing how many voters would turn out was occasionally interrupted Tuesday by an actual voter.
"It's not been our most challenging day," said precinct clerk Willie S. Tharpe, as lunch-hour voters trickled in at precinct 303 in the Allen Temple African Methodist Episcopal Church in Ybor City.
By noon, 15 of the 1,000 voters in the precinct had voted.
"We did get a slight indication that the voting process is still alive," she said.
While business was slow at individual precincts, turnout Tuesday was a mixed picture across the area.
Pinellas County, which had 14 municipal elections, and Citrus counties managed to have higher voter turnout this election than the same election in 2000. Hillsborough matched their 2000 turnout.
Turnout in the three counties was 21, 25 and 16 percent, respectively.
But fewer voters than expected turned out in Pasco and Hernando counties, which both had sales tax referendums.
Turnout in Pasco ended up about 10 percent less than predicted at 29 percent. Hernando County, which had two half-cent sales tax referendums on the ballot, had a turnout of 32 percent, the highest in the area but less than the predicted 35 percent.
"It's been slow but steady," Hernando elections supervisor Annie Williams said Tuesday afternoon.
For most poll workers in the Tampa Bay area, Tuesday was just slow.
Zana Ennis, clerk at the Roller Barn voting precinct in Inverness, said one reason why just 80 people had voted there by noon Tuesday was Florida holds its presidential primary election too late in the year to really mean much.
"This is sort of anticlimatic," she said, standing near the darkened skating rink.
At Wildwood Recreational Center in St. Petersburg, precinct clerk Chlocile Sanchez said it had picked up after 5 p.m. Four people voted between 5 and 5:45 p.m.
How did poll workers pass the time Tuesday?
"Sitting. Looking. Chatting. Whatever you have to do," Sanchez said. "It's about all we can do. We know we're here all day."
Even glitches with electronic voting machines stayed home.
Hillsborough reported no problems and the only problem in Pinellas was a precinct that lost power, forcing two voters to come back later.
Pasco's glitches were minor, said Supervisor of Elections Kurt Browning said.
At two polling places, key cards used to start the voting machines failed to work, but back ups got the machines running on time. Poll workers also gave a half-dozen Democratic voters the wrong ballot card that didn't include the presidential primary, Browning said.
Those voters who did show were not disillusioned by the small turnout.
"We've learned here in Florida that our votes count," said Michael Roberts, who voted before heading off to open his Vintage Wine Cellars shop on Henderson Boulevard in Tampa.
"I feel it's my duty," said Katherine Jackson of St. Petersburg after voting all alone at precinct 129. "Hopefully, the (general election) will be better than this."
Tharpe remained optimistic that voter participation will significantly increase for the November election.
"Sometimes in America, we need incentives to get in the voting process," Tharpe said. "This (primary) election doesn't have that appeal."
- Times Staff Writers Kevin Graham, Elisabeth Dyer, Colleen Jenkins, Bill Varian, Robert King and Bridget Hall-Grumet contributed to this report.
