How To Vote in Tampa Bay

How To Vote in Tampa Bay

Everything a voter in Hillsborough or Pinellas County needs for the general election on Tuesday, November 3, 2026: who can register, how to do it, what identification to bring, when early voting runs, how mail ballots work, and what is on the ballot. Every date here was checked in September 2026 against the Florida Division of Elections and the two county Supervisors of Elections.

1. Can you vote?

To register in Florida you must be a United States citizen, a legal resident of Florida and of the county where you register, and at least 18 years old. You can pre-register at 16 and vote once you turn 18. You cannot register if you have been adjudicated mentally incapacitated with respect to voting and have not had that right restored, or if you have a felony conviction and have not had your voting rights restored.

If you have a past felony conviction

Under Amendment 4 and Florida Statute 98.0751, voting rights are restored automatically for most felonies once you complete every term of the sentence. That means prison or jail time, parole, probation or other supervision, and payment of all fines, fees, court costs and restitution ordered as part of the sentence. Florida applies a first-dollar policy, so interest or fees that piled up after sentencing do not block you once the originally ordered amounts are paid. You can also ask the sentencing court to terminate those financial obligations or convert them to community service.

Murder and felony sexual offenses are the exceptions. Those convictions are not covered by automatic restoration and require the Florida State Clemency Board to restore your rights. Anyone with any felony conviction may apply to that board.

Florida does not run a single public database that tells you whether your court debt is cleared. If there is any doubt, call your Supervisor of Elections or the Clerk of Court before you register — registering while ineligible is itself a crime in Florida. The numbers are at the bottom of this page.

2. Three ways to register

• Online at RegisterToVoteFlorida.gov. You need a Florida driver license or Florida ID card number and the last four digits of your Social Security number.
• By mail using the Florida Voter Registration Application, form DS-DE 39, sent to your county Supervisor of Elections.
• In person at any Supervisor of Elections office, county tax collector office, driver license office, public library or designated voter registration agency. You can also register or update when you renew a license at GoRenew.com.

Military and overseas voters use the Federal Post Card Application. If your legal status changed to U.S. citizen, Florida has required since February 2025 that you notify the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles within 30 days.

Register to vote online

3. What ID to bring

Florida asks for photo identification with a signature. Any one of these works: Florida driver license; Florida identification card; United States passport; debit or credit card; military identification; student identification; retirement center identification; neighborhood association identification; public assistance identification; veteran health identification card from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs; concealed weapon or firearm license; or an employee identification card issued by any federal, state, county or city agency.

If your photo ID does not carry your signature, bring a second ID that does. The two together satisfy the requirement.

If you have no acceptable ID at all, you still vote — you are given a provisional ballot. It counts if the canvassing board finds you are registered and eligible, you voted in the right precinct, and your signature on the envelope matches the one on your registration. You also get a provisional ballot if anyone challenges your eligibility at the polls. If there is a problem, you have until 5pm on Thursday, November 5, 2026 to submit a Provisional Ballot Cure Affidavit, form DS-DE 210, with ID.

4. Early voting

Both counties run the same window this cycle: Monday, October 19 through Sunday, November 1, 2026, 7am to 7pm every day. During early voting you can cast your ballot at any early voting site in your county, not just the one nearest your house. On Election Day itself you must go to your assigned precinct.

Hillsborough publishes its site list at votehillsborough.gov as 2026 Early Voting Locations, October 19 to November 1. Pinellas publishes its list on the Early Voting page at votepinellas.gov. Both lists go up close to the window, so check them the week before rather than relying on where you voted last time.

5. Voting by mail

A mail ballot request does not carry over. Under current Florida law every request expires at the end of the even-numbered year, so a request you made for 2024 produced nothing for 2026. You need a request on file for this year, and this year’s request expires December 31, 2026.

• Request deadline: 5pm Thursday, October 22, 2026.
• Hillsborough: request at votehillsborough.gov or call 813-744-5900.
• Pinellas: request at pinellas.electionsfl.org or call 727-464-VOTE (727-464-8683).
• Return deadline: the voted ballot must physically reach the Supervisor of Elections by 7pm on Tuesday, November 3. A postmark does not count. Mail it early.
• Where to drop it: by mail in the postage-paid envelope, in person at any Supervisor of Elections office, or in a secure ballot intake station at those offices and at early voting sites. You cannot hand a voted mail ballot in at an Election Day polling place.
• Someone else returning it needs the Form for Personal Delivery of Vote-by-Mail Ballot, DS-DE 162, and must show photo ID.
• Changed your mind? Take your mail ballot to an early voting site or your precinct; it gets cancelled and you are issued a fresh ballot.

If your signature is missing or does not match, you have until 5pm Thursday, November 5, 2026 to cure it. Pinellas mailed military and overseas ballots September 18 and domestic ballots September 29, 2026.

6. Election Day

Tuesday, November 3, 2026. Polls are open 7am to 7pm. If you are in line at 7pm you still get to vote — get in line before 7 and do not leave it. On Election Day you must vote at your assigned precinct, so check your polling place before you go: precinct lines were redrawn this year.

Where do I vote? HillsboroughWhere do I vote? Pinellas

7. Your congressional district may have changed

Florida redrew its congressional map mid-decade and the new lines are in force for this election. The law was signed May 4, 2026, and Hillsborough updated its precinct maps and voter database in June. Pinellas says the county is now covered by congressional districts 13 and 16, where it used to be 13 and 14, and that nearly 274,000 Pinellas voters were reassigned. New voter information cards went out in the mail.

The practical point: your district may be different from 2024 even though you never moved. Use the county lookup above rather than assuming.

8. What is on the ballot

• U.S. Senate — one Florida seat, the special election for the seat Marco Rubio vacated, now held by appointed Senator Ashley Moody. The winner serves out the term ending January 3, 2029.
• U.S. House — every Florida district.
• Governor and Lieutenant Governor — an open seat; Ron DeSantis is term-limited.
• Florida Cabinet — Attorney General, Chief Financial Officer and Commissioner of Agriculture. Two of the three are held by appointees who have never faced voters.
• Florida Senate — even-numbered districts only, which locally means districts 14, 16, 18, 20 and 22.
• Florida House — all districts, two-year terms.
• Judges — circuit and county judges whose terms expire January 2027, plus merit retention for one Florida Supreme Court justice and 22 District Court of Appeal judges. Retention is a plain yes or no, not a race against an opponent.
• County offices — in Hillsborough: County Commission districts 1, 3, 5 and 7, School Board districts 2, 4 and 6, judges, soil and water conservation districts and special taxing districts. In Pinellas: County Commission districts 2 and 6, School Board district 3, and the City of St. Petersburg mayor and council races, which moved to even years.
• Three statewide constitutional amendments — on homestead exemptions and property assessments, an agriculture and agritourism property tax exemption, and the state budget stabilization fund. The certified numbers and wording are on the official sample ballot from your county; read those rather than a summary.

Who currently holds each of these offices, what the job actually involves and when the term ends is laid out on the Tampa Politics page.

9. Who to call

All three Pinellas offices are open Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm, with longer hours during early voting, and mail ballots can be hand-delivered to any of them.

Dates and rules change every cycle. This guide was verified in September 2026 against the Florida Division of Elections and both county Supervisors of Elections. Before you rely on it, check the official page for your county.