ST. PETERSBURG - For months now, Sierra Club organizer Joe Murphy has been knocking on doors in 80-degree heat and making small talk with strangers.
He did it to get ready for one day:
Today.
After two weeks of early voting, most voters finally go the polls today to vote for president, U.S. Senate and amendments to the Florida Constitution.
In Pinellas, voters also will decide whether to raise property taxes by 50 cents for every $1,000 of assessed taxable value primarily to pay for teacher raises. They also will pick a new sheriff, a new clerk of the circuit court and elect legislators and county commissioners.
"The people in this tent are walking in the steps of history," Murphy said before a crowd of activists waiting to hear filmmaker Michael Moore Monday in St. Petersburg.
In the tent, there were campaign volunteers from Kansas, New York, Seattle, Georgia and Utah who had flown to Florida for the presidential election.
At early voting sites, hundreds waited longer than four hours Monday to cast a ballot. At 6 p.m., more than 200 voters were still in line at the James Weldon Johnson branch library in the Midtown area of St. Petersburg.
In Brandon, about 270 voters, some with folding chairs or stools, lined up at the elections service center before the site opened at 10 a.m.
In Tampa, the line of early voters at the College Hill Library snaked around stacks of books inside, then out the front door and around the parking lot. A strolling saxophonist entertained the crowd. A pair of ice cream vendors hawked frozen treats.
By today, more than 21 percent of Pinellas voters already will have already cast a ballot by voting early or by absentee ballot.
In Hillsborough, more than 23 percent of the voters already have cast ballots.
Early voting became so popular that it overwhelmed libraries, where only a few machines had been set up.
"I think we didn't realize quite how many people would realize the value of early voting," said Lori Hudson, a spokeswoman for Pinellas Supervisor of Elections Deborah Clark.
"We would have liked to have used more space and would have liked to use more machines," Hudson said.
Some libraries didn't appear ready to handle the campaign workers who appear at voting sites, either.
At the Dunedin Public Library, campaign volunteer Lee Coryell said a library employee told him he had to remain more than 500 feet from the site, even though Florida law allows workers to campaign within 50 feet of precincts on Election Day.
"I wasn't happy about it," Coryell said. "This is a big election, and the library is telling us ... we have to abide by library rules."
In Pinellas Park, campaign workers were also ordered to the grass by the street, far from a line of voters, a campaign worker said. At the Seminole Community Library at St. Petersburg College, a third campaign worker left after a sheriff's deputy told him that college rules prevented him from handing out campaign literature.
Hudson, the election office spokeswoman, said Monday night that she would look into the incidents.
Pinellas law enforcement officers were planning for a normal Election Day and had not set up a command center as other areas have done. St. Petersburg police Chief Charles Harmon issued a memo to deputies describing election laws.
Election officials gave poll workers guidelines to look for suspicious items or people inside polling sites.
Elsewhere, people were handling out fliers warning voters to know their rights. "No one is turned away because they do not have proper ID!" the flier said.
Many voters are going to the polls unaware of any other race beyond president, but the ballot will be filled with choices for local office.
"I think a lot of people are going to vote party lines," said Democrat Bubba the Love Sponge Clem, a well-known former radio personality running for sheriff.
Clem faces Republican Jim Coats, the interim sheriff who has been the chief deputy in Pinellas.
Pinellas voters also will be deciding on a new clerk of the circuit court, four county commissioners and five amendments to the county charter.
Whoever wins the race for clerk will replace Karleen De Blaker who is retiring after 24 years. Republican Ken Burke and Democrat Carolyn Wadlinger are competing for the job.
Burke does not see the presidential race overshadowing his contest.
"It's amazing how the word gets out," Burke said.
St. Petersburg voters also will be asked to decide whether to allow the Dali Museum to move into a new waterfront location and give the University of South Florida permission to acquire the museum's current site.
-- Times staff writers Michael Sandler and Carrie Johnson contributed to this report.
