By Mary Shedden
The Tampa Tribune
St. Petersburg
Shorlty before 8 a.m.
Most candidates head to street corners on Election Day, vying for the attention of passers by. Gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist, who started the final day close to his St. Petersburg home, doesn’t have the space or time to wave to drivers heading to work just before 8 a.m.
Crist, in a crisp white polo shirt, spends his time at 4th Street and 22nd Avenue North talking on a cell phone and answering questions from a slew of media crammed on the sidewalk. When a mini-van driver stops the flow of traffic to greet the Republican nominee, Crist keeps his cell conversation going as he steps into the road, sticks his arm out and shakes hands with the van’s passenger. When he hangs up the phone, he immediately turns his back to traffic and answers questions from the media horde.
Leading up to today, you’ve undoubtedly heard about poll after poll after poll that you had no part in.
Let’s change that right now.
By Howard Altman
The Tampa Tribune
Valrico
7:17 a.m.
Despite sprinkles of rain on a gray morning, there are already nearly 35 voters lined up outside the Bethel Baptist Church in Valrico at 7:17 a.m.
“I’ve been voting here for about 10 years,” says Mary Smith of Valrico. “But this is the first time I have come out in the morning.”
Smith says she is no stranger to the polls.
“I am a faithful voter,” she says, adding that she is particularly interested in voting for governor.
Inside the church, inspector William Bullock says he is not surprised by the lines, which are moving quickly.
“We’re the big one,” he says of Precinct 813.
By KAREN BRANCH-BRIOSO
The Tampa Tribune
> 7:05 a.m., South Tampa
Laureen Allen
It’s not just the lines of voters that seem kind of sparse here at Precinct 135.
Laureen Allen, wife of School Board candidate Ken Allen, was the first of the sign-wavers to arrive—just ten minutes before the polls opened. And she wasn’t going to be there that long. She’s a schoolteacher and won’t be back until after class.
“I’ll be in my classroom,” said Allen, 57, a Mitchell Elementary first-grade teacher, who also seems surprised that she was the sole campaign worker at the opening of the polls: “During the primary, it was packed.”
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