Go Bulls! This is my school! From the Tampa Tribune:
At 8:15 p.m., the last 100 or so students are standing in line at the University of South Florida’s Marshall Center still waiting to vote. Officials say during a 20-minute period tonight they had run out of ballots.
Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections Buddy Johnson said that school officials underestimated student voter turnout.
Johnson said that tonight they processed twice as many students compared with the last presidential election.
“The history of these two precincts – 352 and 353 – is that there’s much less voter turnout,” Johnson said.
He said that typically students would cast absentee ballots but part of the reason the lines were long tonight is that students were also filling out change of address forms.
“This isn’t a mistake,” Johnson said. “This is an extraordinary demonstration of student participation,” Johnson said.
Students who had already cast their ballots said the average wait in line was between two and three hours.
“They weren’t expecting such a big turnout,” said Cassandra Karlsberg-Gerstein, 18. “Our school did a really, really good job of getting us registered.”
Karlsberg-Gerstein and her friends didn’t head home after casting their ballots. They sat off to the side of the line singing songs and playing an acoustic guitar to keep student morale up and make sure they didn’t become disheartened by the wait to vote and leave.
Others spent the wait with Ipods and laptops. Volunteers from both the Obama and McCain campaigns also went up and down the line making sure students had something to eat and drink during the wait.
The wait may have been a long one, but the atmosphere was very congenial, said Bradenton’s Brianna McClenithan, 19.
She also had no doubt why she waited to vote.
“It’s an important election,” she said.
Tags: election 08, usf, voter turn out
and I just read the following:
