By Tom Flanigan
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wfsu/local-wfsu-912810.mp3
Tallahassee, FL – Forget the campaign ads and all the political rhetoric. The election season isn't officially underway until the absentee ballots go out. Tom Flanigan reports that's exactly what happened Wednesday in Leon County.
Elections Supervisor Ion Sancho and some of his people were at the main Tallahassee Post Office on South Adams Street. That's where they handed over twenty-seven large mail bins holding more than ten-thousand absentee ballots to a smiling postal clerk.
Non-presidential elections like this year's usually attract fewer voters. But Sancho says that doesn't seem to be the case in Leon County.
"This number that we're delivering to the post office today is a ten-percent increase over the primary election absentee ballot run that was carted over here in 2008."
The primary ballots have to be back in Sancho's office no later than seven o'clock the evening of August twenty-fourth to count. Early voting, also a popular alternative to standing in Election Day lines, will run for two weeks beginning August ninth. Two years ago, about half of Leon County voters cast ballots either early or absentee.