TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - A federal judge has overturned a ban on using college campuses in Florida as early voting sites.
Early voting in Leon County for the Florida primary starts August 18 and right now, there are eight places to cast your ballot.
But a recent ruling by a federal judge could add more sites to that list.
Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker struck down a ban on early voting sites at college campuses.
"What the decision from Judge Walker really did was open the door to make sure that that's not something we're going to stand for in the state of Florida and certainly in the city of Tallahassee," said Dustin Daniels, Tallahassee Mayoral Candidate.
Governor Rick Scott's office sent us this statement in response to the judge's decision:
"Governor Scott is proud to have signed the largest expansion of early voting in the state's history. We will review this ruling."
The Capital City is home to two universities and a community college with over 60,000 students in total.
At Florida State, students say they'd welcome an early voting site on campus.
"If they could leave class and then go to vote on campus, that would make it much more convenient for students and increase the amount of young people that are going to vote this fall," said FSU student Nathan Davis.
The Alachua County supervisor of elections wrote a letter to the president of the University of Florida, asking to use the student union as an early voting site for the general election.
Here in Leon County, Supervisor of Elections Mark Earley emailed the presidents of FSU, FAMU and TCC.
He said early voting on campus won't happen in time for the primary, but his office is looking into future elections.
"Whether it makes sense or not, that still has to be determined, how those sites might fit into our overall election plan and serving all of our voters," said Earley. "You know, there has to be an equitable distribution of resources throughout our county."
Students will have sites on campus for the actual election days, but it's the period for early voting that poses challenges: a secure room, parking spots, and printers for each site.
While FSU and FAMU are about a mile away from an early voting site, TCC is at least four miles away.
Meanwhile, the deadline to register for early voting in Florida's primary is Monday, July 30.
