Tuesday is the last day to vote in the City of Gainesville runoff election.
Incumbent Commissioner Yvonne Hinson-Rawls is running against Charles Edward Goston Sr. for the District 1 seat, while Harvey Budd is running against Jay Curtis for the At-Large seat.
On election day, more than 30 precincts in Gainesville will be open from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m.
With a 12.5 percent turnout rate from the regular election on March 17, Supervisor of Elections Pam Carpenter said she is expecting about 10 to 17 percent of the 74,884 eligible voters to participate.
“What we’ve seen in the past is that runoffs generate more interest,” she said.
Unless candidates are tackling big issues, Carpenter said city elections generally produce lower turnout rates, which makes sense to one UF student.
“I didn’t know there was even an election going on until two days ago,” said Briana Walin, a UF history and political science senior.
Walin, 21, said she wouldn’t vote in this election because of the lack of knowledge she has about the candidates.
There are three polling locations on UF’s campus: the Reitz Union, the Phillips Center for the Performing Arts and the Florida Museum of Natural History.
[A version of this story ran on page 4 on 4/13/2015 under the headline “Tuesday last day to vote in runoffs for City Commission”]
