TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) — "Well, we're certainly being more cautious this year. There's a lot of noise out there," said Leon County Supervisor of Elections, Mark Earley.
Smooth and event free is how Early is hoping tomorrow’s election day will go. With security in mind, Early said his team is ready in the event anything happens. However, the elections office is not backing down and plans to run tomorrow's polls as scheduled.
“We're always paying attention. We have our polling places listed out to the local law enforcement agencies and our poll workers are trained," said Earley.
Early said in Leon County, no complaints or threats have filed but notes they have protocols in place to keep poll workers and voters alike safe. Early expect a large turnout of voters.
According to the Supervisor of Elections website, there are currently 204,259 registered voters in Leon County. Of that number, 105,756 are registered democrats, 54,493 are republican. Those numbers are down from the last Governor’s race in 2018. The big number of votes that are being cast, republicans.
Political Science Professor Christopher Daniels suspects republicans are having a larger turnout due to the state of the economy and wanting different parties in power.
"I mean people are anxious. The economy right now is very uncertain. Interest rates have risen tremendously this year. The prices of everything have risen. People understand that it's important to get leadership in there that can take care of these issues," said Daniels.
Daniels believes people are wanting to see a different turnout this time around.
"Definitely with affordable housing, a lot of other community related issues, equity, things like that. That's some of the main issues I hear people talking about on a day-to-day basis," said Daniels.
