The elections are controlled by the governor and secretary of state; major changes have to be approved up the chain of command. County election supervisors have very limited power.
See:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/11/04/florida-democrats-want-extended-early-voting-hours/Winter Park police told Fox News a polling official called at 11:45 a.m. after being alerted to a small cooler that appeared to have protruding wires and had been left on the side of the building for hours.
The police then called the county sheriff office’s bomb squad, which destroyed the cooler and a black plastic bag found by a dog team. No explosives were detected, and authorities gave the all clear sign at about 4 p.m.
Police had to evacuate the building and move the voting line down the street and try to keep voters' spots in line.
Sen. Bill Nelson and other Democrats asked Republican Gov. Rick Scott this past week to use his emergency powers to extend early voting.
The Republican-controlled state legislature last year cut the number of days available for early voting from a maximum of 14 days to eight days.
However, Scott and state election officials turned down the requests. Secretary of State Ken Detzner maintained that there was not a true emergency that justified the extension.The rest of the story is they did extend voting to Sunday to cover it. God forbid they had to actually vote on the day of the election. I certainly hope they never move to a state that doesn't have early voting.
What major changes are needed to add more booths? Let's look at one and see what they do.
http://www.votebrevard.com/index.php?id=11What Does the Supervisor of Elections Do?
The Supervisor of Elections is the official designated by Florida law and the county charter to administer elections and voter registration for Brevard County. The primary duties of the Supervisor and her staff are:
Conduct all public elections in Brevard County, including city elections
Register voters and issue voter information cards
Remove voters from the registered voter rolls who no longer live in Florida, are deceased, or for any other reason are no longer eligible to vote in Florida
Change information on registered voter rolls when a change request is received (e.g., name, address, party affiliation)
Send advance notice of election to voters who are overseas, in the military, or who request notification
Accept absentee ballot requests and send, receive and verify absentee ballots
Qualify candidates for county offices
Receive candidate campaign finance reports for county offices and make them available to the public
Receive financial disclosure reports from elected county officials and make them available to the public
Maintain election equipment
Hire and train pollworkers
Acquire and equip polling placesMaintain statistics on election results, voting history and voter registration
Verify petition signatures for initiative petitions and candidate qualifying petitions
Maintain precinct information, including a listing of streets and parts of streets that are in each precinct
In addition, the Supervisor and members of her staff are available to speak to schools and civic groups about elections, voter registration and voting. Please contact the Elections Office if you are interested in scheduling a speaker.
Under Florida law, F.S. 668.6076, e-mail addresses are public records. If you do not want your e-mail address released in response to a public-records request, do not send electronic mail to this entity. Instead, contact this office by phone or in writing.
Brevard County Supervisor of Elections *
www.votebrevard.comIt's funny to me that many, many, many, people find a way to wait numerous hours for black Friday, opening of stores for free giveaways and whatever else but to get off to go vote, or to even spend a few hours in line is an evil hassle brought on by the man.
Counties are a lot bigger than a "part of town". So if you are in a "Demorcratic part of town" in a "republican county" it is probably headed up by a republican.
South Florida (where Brian lives) counties are democrat and north Florida is republican. The I-4 corridor is the wild card. It goes from Daytona to Orlando to Tampa and is what usually gets killed by politicians.
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