Residents will be casting their votes today to decide who will fill three commission seats in the Gainesville city elections.
The polls open at 7 a.m. and close at 7 p.m. Residents who have already registered to vote within the city limits are eligible to cast ballots, but they must do so at the precinct that corresponds to their home addresses. For students who live on campus, that precinct is the Reitz Union, said Alachua County Supervisor of Elections Pam Carpenter.
She said the Curtis M. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts and the Florida Museum of Natural History are also precincts, which encompass residents of some apartment complexes right off campus.
Residents can find their voting precinct by visiting votealachua.com/Voter-Information/Precinct-Finder.aspx.
Mayor Ed Braddy said the student vote is important to city elections, and students shouldn’t feel excluded.
“This is their city as much as it is anyone else’s,” he said. “They have every right and responsibility to have a say in how our city is governed.”
He said the commission touches students’ lives because it oversees issues such as public safety, utilities rates, recreation and the Regional Transit System bus transportation system.
“The majority of our transit system is devoted to the student population, so they absolutely have an important role to play in terms of how we make decisions,” he said.
Candidates Annie Orlando, Donald Shepherd Sr., Mark Venzke and Helen Warren are running for At-Large Seat 2. Candidates Cheri Brodeur, Todd Chase and Sheryl Eddie are running for the District 2 seat. Susan Bottcher and Craig Carter are running for the District 3 seat.
[A version of this story ran on page 9 on 3/11/2014 under the headline "Voting for city elections is today"]
