Hillsborough prepares early voting sites

In-person voting is about to start across Florida and Hillsborough County staff with the Election Supervisor's Office is setting up their early voting sites so that they are set to go by Monday, October 19th. Voters will have almost two weeks to get to the polls through that early voting period ahead of Election Day. Yeah, Fox 13's Evan Axelman reports now on the effort to make sure that everyone has access to the ballot. It's too simple to say that Election Day is on November 3rd. In fact, the election begins in Hillsborough County on Monday, October 19th at 27 early voting sites around the county. The supervisor's office invited cameras to watch them unload their trucks of equipment at the Bloomingdale Public Library. They brought in ballot scanners, privacy booths, and voter check-in equipment. There are 27 early vote sites any Hillsborough County voter can cast a vote in, or they can bring a mail ballot to the site and have it counted there. Because early and mail votes can be counted early, it's possible to have the entire election counted by midnight on election night. We, by law, can start counting, tabulating the vote-by-mail ballots after we've done the public logic and accuracy test. So we've got about 27 days in there that we can process those ballots. So at seven o'clock on election night, the canvassing board will tell us to release results. The supervisor says 60 to 70 percent of the vote is likely to be cast before election day. The supervisor also reminds everyone that you must have ID to vote, but that if you don't have it with you, you can still have a provisional ballot and provide a signature as long as it matches what they have on file. Early voting in Hillsborough County begins at 7 a.m. Monday the 19th and goes until 7 p.m. every day until the Sunday before Election Day. Evan Axelbank, Fox 13 News.