With one week to go before Florida’s primary elections, voters across the state and in Orange County are dealing with a range of issues as they attempt to cast ballots. Some candidates have withdrawn from races, even though their names appear on ballots that have already been printed.

Election Concerns

In Orange County, a bank of trained customer service agents is working phones and handling questions at the front desk at the elections headquarters downtown. Some voters have been giving mixed reviews regarding a decision by Orange County Supervisor of Elections Karen Castor Dentel to send mailers with QR codes to scan in order to review sample ballots.

However, Dentel told WESH 2 News she is making changes, adding, “Going forward, after hearing feedback from our voters, we will continue to send out the mailed sample ballot mailers with paper in addition to other ways they can access updated information.” QR codes on mailers also provide information on early voting locations and enable voters up to Aug. 6 to request a vote-by-mail ballot, which some voters found convenient.

Voting Issues

One voter who went to the Supervisor of Elections office in Orange County to cast an early vote complained that they didn’t notice the signs in the voting booths that indicated two races where candidates had dropped out, and said they would have appreciated election workers pointing that out when handing out ballots.

A mysterious case of a ballot in the Lake Eola Heights historic district that was mailed from a home on East Concord Street but never made it to the elections office has also raised concerns. The ballot ended up in the mailbox of a neighbor, who had no idea where it had come from because the sender’s address on a vote-by-mail return envelope is concealed.

The voter, Mike Woodhall, who has mobility challenges and placed his mail ballot in his box with outgoing mail, was grateful that his ballot was recovered and delivered to the elections office. Woodhall is worried he might not be the only one this has happened to, wondering, “What’s the percentage? Let’s say it’s one in a thousand, which is less than one percent. And you look at that on a total population, that’s a huge number of votes that are potentially lost.”

Original reporting: WESH Orlando — read the source article.