JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Early voting begins Saturday for a special Jacksonville City Council election to replace the seat left vacant when Tommy Hazouri died in September.
There will be nine days of early voting before the election on Feb. 22. There are 15 early voting locations, including the Duval County Supervisor of Elections Office downtown, that will be open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Election staff is not expecting big crowds, and turnout is only projected to be 10% to 15%.
With only two names on the ballot, it should not take long for people to cast a vote.
Democrat Tracye Polson and Republican Nick Howland are vying for the At-Large City Council Group 3 seat. That means every registered voter in Duval County can participate.
Both Polson and Howland have been pointing fingers at each other during this campaign. I asked to talk with both of them on Friday, but scheduling has not worked out. Each has spoken to us in the past several months as to why they are running for the seat.
On Polson’s website, she says she wants to end City Hall corruption, prioritize public safety and city services, and support the LGBTQ+ and Black communities.
This is what Polson told me in December as to her campaign: “We are ready to continue to get our message out to people in Duval — which I think people are responding to. We are talking about transparency, accountability, the fact that we need elected leaders who cannot be bought. We saw that with JEA. We saw that with Lot J. I think people in Jacksonville want a different kind of leader, and I am that leader.”
Howland made similar statements when I talked with him in December. On his website, he says he is focusing on keeping the city safe and wants to help support small businesses and job growth and provide a high quality of life for every neighborhood.
Here is what Howland told News4JAX anchor Kent Justice about why he wants to serve on the City Council: “My wife and I moved down here about 15 years ago. I’ve been involved in the city. I was on the city’s Environmental Protection Board for eight years, the Charter Revision Commission for a year and the First Coast Manufacturing Association board for four years. And I’ve seen how the city works. And I know that right now, Jacksonville is at a critical junction in its history.”
IN THEIR OWN WORDS: Candidates for Jacksonville City Council At-Large Group 3 on their qualifications and the issues
More than 80,000 vote-by-mail ballots were requested, and 35,000 have already been returned. At the Supervisor of Elections Office, staff on Friday was opening vote-by-mail ballots that already had the signatures checked out to prepare them to be tabulated. The results won’t be known until election night.
During the last presidential election over a year ago, there were many questions about the security of your vote, so I asked, even though this is a special election, will we notice any changes in the election routine?
“You will see pretty much the same as you saw in the last November election in 2020. There will be drop boxes at every early voting site. Drop boxes will be available during early voting. So if you have a vote by mail ballot, you can drop it off there or you can go ahead and vote in person,” said Duval County Chiefs Elections Officer Robert Phillips.
If you are going to the early voting sites or even the precinct on election day, you can try out the new touchscreen voting machines. They will have one in each precinct. The new machines are for people with disabilities, although anybody can use them. You can also still use the old-fashioned method.