Voter Registration Activities in Sarasota County, Florida
- Sarasota County voter registration activities are carried out the Supervisor of Elections.register to vote image by Christopher Martin from Fotolia.com
Sarasota County, Florida, offers a number of options for qualified citizens to register to vote. Registration is administered through the office of the Supervisor of Elections. Residents qualified to vote in Sarasota County must register at least 29 days prior to an election. During primaries, Florida allows only those registered with a party to vote in Democrat or Republican elections. Unaffiliated voters can still vote for ballot issues and non-partisan office holders in these elections. - United States citizens who are 18 years of age or older and legal residents of Sarasota County, Florida, can register to vote within the county. Residents who are 16 years old and will be 18 years old by the time of the next election may pre-register to vote. Convicted felons cannot register to vote unless their voting rights have been restored. Those determined by a court of law to be mentally incapable of voting cannot register unless their voting rights have been restored.
- The voter registration application is available online through the website of the Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections. Applications are available in English and Spanish. It can be filled out online or printed and filled out by hand using a black ballpoint pen. The application must be signed by hand because, by signing it, you are taking an oath. When completed, the application can be mailed to the county Supervisor of Elections. The application can also be hand delivered to a number of government offices, including driver license offices, armed forces recruitment offices and supervisor of elections offices throughout the state of Florida. The Sarasota County branches of the Democratic, Republican and Libertarian parties offer voter registration resources on their websites.
- Third party voter registration is defined by the Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections website as a person or persons who collects voter registration applications and is not a family member of those applying or "an employee or agent of the Florida Division of Elections, supervisor of elections, Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, or a voter registration agency." Those planning to engage in a voter registration drive must obey certain laws. Those laws include submitting the names of an agent and other responsible persons to the Florida Division of Elections. Penalties for disobeying those laws include a $500 fine for each application which was collected by the third party organization but not submitted to the Supervisor of Elections.
