Republican women hear from elections official about voter outreach

The Republican Federated Women of The Villages welcomed speaker Karen Rushing, assistant supervisor of elections, who stood in for Sumter County Supervisor of Elections, Karen Krauss, who was not feeling well on Thursday.

Rushing is already well known to some RFWTV members through her poll worker class teaching and her leadership role in the county’s voter outreach programs. A church choir singer, Rushing used her melodious voice to bring the membership up to date with preparations for the upcoming elections.

First, Rushing mentioned changes in election sites planned this year. There will be a total of five polling sites, including three located within The Villages. In addition to the Sumter County Sheriff’s Annex, operations will be set up at the Allamanda and Lake Miona Rec Centers. A fourth site will be on CR 466A in Wildwood and the fifth will be in Bushnell. The goal of the Sumter County Supervisor of Elections, is to streamline the election process as much as possible and allow people to cast their votes quickly and efficiently.

Primary week will run from Saturday, Aug. 16 until Saturday, Aug. 23; and early voting for the general election will be available from Tuesday, Oct. 21 until Saturday, Nov. 1. Election Day is the following Tuesday, Nov. 4. Electronic voting will be set up in the larger precincts, where voters will be able to swipe their drivers licenses to check in; and at each site in The Villages, there will be at least two, and sometimes three, DS200 tabulators, so hopefully no lines will form when inputting paper ballots.

Krauss has asked residents who move to Sumter County from other Florida counties to please notify the Board of Elections to facilitate their voting process. If they haven’t done so, they may have to use provisional ballots, which require special handling and staff time.

A new regulation this year requires people who request absentee ballots be sent to an address other than their official home address to make that request in writing. Another new stipulation: except in emergencies, people will no longer be permitted to pick up absentee ballots on Election Day. Rushing said their office is waiting to hear Washington D.C.’s interpretation about what constitutes an emergency in this case.

Rushing reported a new space will be provided on election applications for voters to write their e-mail addresses. Krause has decided not to comply, since many county residents do not use computers; and others do not wish their personal e-mail addresses to be made public.  New amendments are being prepared for the 2014 ballot, including water and land conservation, approval of medical marijuana and prospective appointments to fill certain judicial vacancies.

Also in attendance were Joe Elliott, president of the Republican Club of Sumter Landing, and Rich Cole, chairman of the Republican Executive Committee for Sumter County. Cole asserted the Republican party is united to re-elect Governor Rick Scott. Cole lauded Florida’s $77 billion budget and compared it with New York state, which has a budget of roughly $157 billion for a similar size population as Florida.

Cole is proud of his party’s grass roots efforts, which raised $9.3 million in campaign dollars. That’s only about $56 per party member, with most donating $200 or less. “You hear about the Koch brothers and other pejorative rhetoric about Republican rich guys,” Cole said, “but this goes to show the Republican party is not about the ‘fat cats’ — we are about all Americans.”

Cole added the party plans to limit the amount of debate at election time, and will hold the Republican National Convention earlier this year. “We want to eliminate the media circus, the Candy Crowleys of this world and other prolonged programming. Cole summed up his talk by saying: “We have good news from Washington and good news from Tallahassee — the Republican Party is unified, it is energized and is feeling positive.”