Florida declares emergency, Gov. Crist extends early voting hours

[seafan]

FINALLY!!

Take THAT, Republican Legislature.



Florida declares emergency, extends early voting hours

By Kirstin Maguire, Amy Sherman and Adam H. Beasley
October 28, 2008

Gov. Charlie Crist on Tuesday extended early voting hours across Florida to 12 hours a day.

The executive order comes after record early voting turnout has contributed to long lines at polling sites.

Current Florida law allows for early voting to be conducted eight hours a day each weekday and for a total of eight hours during the weekends.

With Crist's order, early voting sites will be open the rest of this week from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. They will be open a total of 12 hours on Saturday and Sunday, the last day of early voting.

''It's not a political decision,'' Crist said moments after signing the order, which declares a state of emergency in Florida. "It's a people decision.''

Monday marked the largest single-day turnout in Miami-Dade and Broward counties so far, and throngs of voters continued to flock to South Florida polls Tuesday.

.....

In all, nearly 1.2 million people statewide had voted as of 5 a.m. Monday -- roughly 10 percent of the state's registered voters.

The state didn't track daily early voting numbers in 2004. But Miami-Dade and Broward elections officials say they expect the early voting turnout to surpass that of the last presidential election.

.....

[HockeyMom]

1. I voted today

An hour and a half in SW Florida. Got there when the polls first opened in the morning and there were already long lines.

[seafan]

4. Isn't it a GREAT day for voting? Excitement is building all over Florida! n/t

[rucky]

2. Charlie Crist was influenced to do the right thing!

Tinfoil on: Democracy actually works sometimes, and people can influence decisions?

Tinfoil off: There must be some heavy shit going on behind the scenes for him to do this, and that's a good thing.

Either way, this is great news.

[RollWithIt]

3. Crist is not a stupid Republican... he knows which way the wind blows....

And he's not about to go down with their ship.

[dana_b]

8. the heavy shit is the voters complaining

they're not going to want to vote for him later if he won't help them vote now.

[seafan]

9. Bill Nelson, FL Congress members and NAACP have been after Crist to do the right thing.

From October 24:

OCTOBER 24, 2008 - Democrats and the NAACP are asking the state to extend early voting. A letter dated October 23 asked Governor Charlie Crist and Secretary of State Kurt Browning to extend voting and also outlines requests to train additional poll workers, provide more voting equipment and enhance technology.

Those who signed the letter were U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson and U.S. Reps. Alcee L. Hastings, Kendrick B. Meek, Robert Wexler, Ron Klein and Allen Boyd, and congresswomen Corrine Brown, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Kathy Castor.

There is a reason. So far in Florida, more Democrats than Republicans are taking advantage of early voting.

Secretary of State Kurt Browning says he doesn’t think Florida law allows him to extend the voting schedule, but he’ll look into it.

"At this time early voting hours will stand as provided by law."

Crist and Secretary of State Browning (also a Republican) wanted this like a case of VD. Sorry, guys. The people demand it.

[rucky]

11. Nice! Thanks.

[demo dutch]

5. About f-ing time, I stood in line for hours

[sixmile]

6. Just finished voting Broward County

Unnecessarily complicated system. No receipt????
I thought receipts were why our Democratic leaders caved to the repukes and effed up our primaries and halved our convention delegation.

[RagAss]

7. Jezus...A pig just shit on my windshield !!!!

[Obamanaut]

10. Damn! nt

[remember2000forever]

12. I Was A Retail Store Today and A Lady In Line Said:

"I've just got back from the library to vote. Geeze, we were all freezing and had to wait an hour."
(It was 60 degrees Guys.)

Early voting here, GOOD. Imagine us Flor-idiots on a cold day, November 4th. We'd lose half the voters! LOL

BTW, It's going into the 50's tomorrow. I know, I know, You all can't really relate to this. Again, LOL