Voting - Rights & Responsibilities

Photograph of a lady in a wheelchair entering an accessible polling placeTo vote in Florida:

  • You must be a resident of Florida
  • You must be a United States Citizen
  • You must be at least 18 years old on or before Election Day
  • You must be registered to vote.

    2012 Dates You Should Know:

  • Primary Election Registration Deadline - July 16, 2012
  • Primary Election - August 14, 2012
  • General Election Registration Deadline - October 9, 2012
  • General Election - November 6, 2012

Please Note: This webpage describes Florida’s current elections laws, including those governing the length of Early Voting. See the Four Ways to Vote tab for more information on Early Voting. But if you live in Collier, Hardee, Hendry, Hillsborough or Monroe County, the laws governing elections in your county are subject to special federal review and approval due to past federal Voting Rights Act violations. Therefore, Florida’s current laws governing 3rd party voter registration organizations, out-of-county address changes at the polling place, & early voting are still awaiting federal court approval for use in these counties. Contact your Supervisor of Elections for more information.

Register

To vote in an upcoming election, you must be registered no later than 29 days before the election.

To register to vote, you must fill out, sign and submit a voter registration application. You may access a Florida Voter Registration Application Form here in English or Spanish.

The application should be submitted to the office of your local Supervisor of Elections. To find your local Supervisor of Elections office's location and website, visit the Florida Division of Elections Find Your Supervisor of Elections website.

You may also register in person at any driver’s license office or voter registration agency, such as a public library, Center for Independent Living or Division of Vocational Rehabilitation office.

Your registration date is the date that your application is postmarked or hand delivered to the office of any voter registration agency.

After you register, you should receive a voter information card in the mail. Your assigned polling place, which is where you must go to vote if you vote on Election Day, will be printed on the card.

Four Ways to Vote

Florida law provides that as a registered voter, you may choose one of four ways to vote:

Early Voting

Early voting in Florida begins 10 days before each state or federal election and ends on the 3rd day before that election.

Early voting for the 2012 Primary Election begins August 4, 2012. Early voting for the 2012 General Election begins October 27, 2012.

However, if you live in Collier, Hardee, Hendry, Hillsborough or Monroe County, contact your Supervisor of Elections for information about possible additional early voting days.

Early voting requires that you, the registered voter, vote in person at a voting site designated by the Supervisor of Elections for early voting. If you vote early, you will use the same type of voting equipment used on Election Day and you must bring a valid picture identification with signature. See below for details regarding accepted forms of identification.

Voting at the Polls on Election Day

On Election Day, the polls are open from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m.

Contact your Supervisor of Elections or visit their website to learn which precinct and polling place you need to go to.

When you vote, bring a valid picture identification with signature. The following photo identification is accepted:

  • Florida driver’s license
  • Florida identification card issued by the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles
  • United States passport
  • Debit or credit card
  • Military identification
  • Student identification
  • Retirement center identification
  • Neighborhood association identification
  • Public assistance identification
  • If your photo identification does not contain your signature, you will be asked to provide an additional identification that includes a signature.

If you do not have proper identification, your vote will be considered "provisional" but will later be counted if the signature on the "provisional" ballot envelope is found to match the signature on your voter registration application.

Absentee Voting or Voting by Mail

Florida law allows you, as a registered voter, to request an absentee ballot from the Supervisor of Elections.

A member of your immediate family or a legal guardian may also request an absentee ballot for you, if directly instructed to do so by the voter. The request can cover two general election cycles and details can be obtained from your Supervisor of Election.

A request for an absentee ballot to be mailed must be made no later than 5 p.m. on the 6th day before an election.

Florida law allows you to have assistance marking your choices on your absentee ballot if such assistance is required because of blindness, disability or inability to read or write.

At an Assisted Living Facility or Nursing Home

If you live at an Assisted Living Facility or in a Nursing Home, Florida law requires that a Supervisor of Election set up and facilitate absentee voting within the assisted living facilty or nursing home whenever the facility administrator makes a timely and proper request. The request must be submitted at least 21 days before the election and list at least five voters who wish to vote at the facility. If fewer than five names appear on the request, the Supervisor is not required to set up and facilitate the absentee voting.

However, a Supervisor of Election may set up such voting even if the faciliy administrator has not requested it. Visit the Links tab to read further. Generally you must be a resident of the facility to be eligibile to vote at the facility.

To access Florida's law on these and other voting topics, visit the Links tab.

Accessibility & Assistance

Federal and state law requires Supervisor of Elections offices and polling places to be accessible. Visit the Links tab to learn more about these laws.

Florida law also governs the extent to which you have the right to be assisted by others in the process of registering and voting.

Accessibility to Register and to Vote

Title II of the ADA outlines the accessibility requirements related to registering to vote and voting. The law says that all polling places must be accessible to individuals with disabilities. For example, the doors should be wide enough, the parking and walkways accessible, and the ramps and elevators appropriate. To learn more, visit the Links tab or go to our Americans with Disabilities Act - Title II sections regarding State and Local Government Activities and the role of County and Court ADA Coordinators.

Please also visit the Links tab to access a U.S. Department of Justice ADA Checklist for Polling Places.

In Florida, the law requires a "marksense" ballot on which you, the registered voter, use a marking device to designate selections. Marksense ballots are preprinted with selections next to an empty rectangle, circle, oval, or an incomplete arrow. Voters record their choices by filling in the rectangle, circle or oval, or by completing the arrow. After voting, the voters either place the ballot in a sealed box or feed it into a computer tabulating device at the precinct. The tabulating device reads the votes using "dark mark logic," whereby the computer selects the darkest mark within a given set as the correct choice or vote. Marksense technology has existed for decades and been used extensively in such areas as standardized testing and statewide lotteries. Although marksense systems are often referred to as "optical scan," marksense technology is only one of several methods for recognizing marks on paper through optical reading techniques.

Florida law and the Help America Vote Act of 2002 establish the standards for accessible voting systems. Some Supervisors of Elections currently make these systems available. However, Florida law also allows Supervisors of Elections to delay use of devices that meet these standards until 2016.

Assistance with Voting - at the poll, during early voting or when voting absentee

Florida law allows you, as a registered voter, to have assistance marking your choices on your ballot or absentee ballot if you need assistance because of blindness, disability or inabilty to read or write. You may request assistance from election officials or select someone to assist you. You may choose whoever you want to assist you, except that the person cannot be your employer or an agent of your employer or an officer or agency of your union. 

You, as a registered voter, do not have to disclose the nature or extent of your disability.

If your voter registration record does not already contain a notation about you needing help, you will have to complete and sign a form. The clerk at the polling place can help you fill out the form.

Unless you choose an elections official, the person you choose to help you also has to fill out a form. 

If you have any questions about receiving assistance with voting, please direct your questions to your Supervisor of Elections or the clerk or inspector at the polling place.

Loss of Right to Vote

There are only two ways you can lose your right to vote under Florida law:

  • The first way is if a judge finds that under Florida's guardianship laws, you are mentally incapacitated with regard to voting.
  • The second way is if a court has convicted you of a felony and suspended your civil rights.

Only a court can take away your right to vote.

No one else - not a guardian advocate, not an election official, not a caregiver, not a family member or anyone else, has the legal authority to prevent you from voting.

If you need assistance protecting your right to vote, you may contact Disability Rights Florida.

Guardianship

A judge can take away your right to vote if the judge finds that you are mentally incapacitated with respect to voting. If you have been found to be incapacitated but believe your rights, including your right to vote should be restored, contact Disability Rights Florida to request assistance.

Felony Criminal Conviction

In Florida, a person who has been convicted of a felony and whose civil rights have been suspended, may not vote unless the right to vote has been restored. Help is available to people, including people with disabilities, to pursue the restoration of their rights through the Florida Parole Commission Office of Executive Clemency.

Visit the Links tab to access the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition and Florida Parole Commission Office of Executive Clemency websites for more information.

Campaigns

If you are a candidate or support a campaign, please read on to learn how to increase meaningful participation by improving accessibility.

We suggest that candidates and campaigns follow these guidelines:

  • Hold events and establish campaign offices in ADA-compliant accessible facilities.
  • Have sign language interpreters available for all events.
  • Use closed captioning and descriptive audio in campaign commercials/videos.
  • Have campaign materials available in alternative formats that are accessible to persons with disabilities (such as Braille, large type, on computer disk and online).
  • Make campaign websites fully accessible to people with disabilities.
  • Encourage campaign workers and staff to be sensitive to people with disabilities - their votes count just as much as everyone else’s. Make sensitivity training or materials available to campaign workers and staff. 
  • Recruit and encourage people with disabilities to join and become active in the campaign.
  • Encourage private groups supporting the campaign to adopt these guidelines.

You may distribute these guidelines in the form of a flyer available here for print in English and Spanish or print this entire disability topic and share it with others.

Links

Visit these websites for more information and resources:

Publications and other resources: