Elections

Florida county supervisor tells voters Election Day is on Wednesday

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An hour after polls opened in Florida on Tuesday, the Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections Office placed at least hundreds of automated calls telling county voters to cast their ballots by 7 p.m. — on Wednesday.

According to the Tampa Bay Times, a glitch caused the problem. The SOE said it intended to place the calls on Monday.

“[For] about 30 minutes, the calls were going out,” SOE spokeswoman Nancy Whitlock said. “We stopped it immediately when we found out about it.”

Approximately 12,000 of the planned Monday calls didn’t get through, according to Whitlock, and an undetermined number of those calls were accidentally recycled this morning.

“I couldn’t believe it. It was very upsetting,” said St. Petersburg resident Kathie Spitzer, who receieved her call at 8:07 a.m.

According to Whitlock, SOE quickly sent a second message to voters, reminding them that today is, in fact, Election Day.

“We encourage anyone with a mail ballot return it by 7 p.m. today and disregard the call this morning,” Whitlock said.

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Samantha Schroeder