Some Florida counties have been unsympathetic to a plea from the state's Bureau of Voter Registration Services asking for help to process voter applications, but Alachua County accepted the challenge.
The bureau sent out an e-mail Wednesday asking county supervisors of elections to help process its voter applications, which have been increasing as the Oct. 6 registration deadline approaches, said Jennifer Krell Davis, spokeswoman for the Secretary of State.
Pam Carpenter, Alachua County supervisor of elections, said Alachua County has taken on 200 applications from the state but that they have about 800 to do on their own.
"We here in Alachua County certainly have a tremendous workload ourselves," Carpenter said. "When the division sends us extra applications, we have to work those into our workloads."
More stringent state requirements to check applications with Social Security or driver's license information have also taken extra time, she said. If applications don't match, the state sends them back to be double-checked.
The 11 employees of the office have already been working on Saturdays, she said, and 15 part-time employees are helping out.
Still, she said, "It's all doable."
The state office received more than 25,000 voter applications Monday and Tuesday and is averaging between 5,000 and 10,000 a day, Davis said. The state hired 25 part-time employees to help with the applications.
While most counties accepted the proposal, a few have refused, she said, saying the workload is simply too much.
Davis said the state didn't think the request was much of an imposition.
"Once you spread it around 67 counties, we're talking about 200 to 400 applications per location," she said.
Carpenter said she thought it would have been better if the e-mail had warned how many applications were coming.
"It's the anticipation of, are you going to get one, or are you going to get a thousand," she said.
Since the registration date closed for the August primary election, Carpenter said the county has registered 9,000 people to vote.
While 144,174 people are now registered to vote in the county, she expects 150,000 to be registered in time to vote in the presidential election, she said.
The numbers are similar to previous presidential elections, she said.
"It does get very busy every four years," she said.
