Early Voting Opens Saturday at 12 Pasco Sites, and Mail-Ballot Requests Close at 5 p.m. Today

Pasco County voters have two clocks running at once. The deadline to request a vote-by-mail ballot for the Aug. 18 primary is 5 p.m. today, Thursday, Aug. 6, and early voting opens Saturday, Aug. 8 at 12 sites countywide, running 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day through Saturday, Aug. 15. Supervisor of Elections Brian E. Corley announced the schedule in an Aug. 5 media alert.

Any registered Pasco voter can cast a ballot at any of the 12 sites. You are not tied to the one nearest your house, so the Odessa site works just as well for a Land O' Lakes voter as the Collier Parkway site does.

Two locations that regulars will look for are gone this cycle. The elections office specifically notes that the Hudson Library and the Regency Park Library will not be used as early voting sites in 2026. New this year: the New Port Richey Recreation Center on Van Buren Street.

The 12 early voting sites

Location	Address
West Pasco Government Center	8731 Citizens Dr, New Port Richey
New Port Richey Recreation Center (new)	6630 Van Buren St, New Port Richey
Veterans Memorial Park	14333 Hicks Rd, Hudson
J. Ben Harrill Recreation Complex	2830 Gulf Trace Blvd, Holiday
Odessa Community Center	1627 Chesapeake Dr, Odessa
Land O' Lakes Recreation Complex	3032 Collier Pkwy, Land O' Lakes
Pasco County Utilities Administration Building	19420 Central Blvd, Land O' Lakes
New River Library	34043 State Road 54, Wesley Chapel
Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus	3021 Sports Coast Way, Wesley Chapel
Wesley Chapel District Park	7727 Boyette Rd, Wesley Chapel
Alice Hall Community Center	38116 5th Ave, Zephyrhills
East Pasco Government Center	14236 6th St, Dade City

The office posts live wait times for every location at PascoVotes.gov/EV_WaitTimes, which is worth a look before you drive out on a lunch break.

What to bring

Photo and signature identification. Without it you will be offered a provisional ballot instead. If you have moved, the elections office asks that you update your record first, either online at PascoVotes.gov or by calling 800-851-8754. It saves time at the check-in table.

Mail ballots: today is the cutoff to request one

More than 35,000 vote-by-mail ballots went out to Pasco voters on July 9, with ballots to military and overseas voters mailed a week earlier. Requests for a new one close at 5 p.m. today.

Returning a ballot has its own hard deadline: it must be in the hands of the elections office by 7 p.m. on Election Day, Aug. 18. A postmark does not count. Voters can hand-deliver a voted ballot to any of the three Supervisor of Elections offices, in New Port Richey, Land O' Lakes or Dade City, and voted ballots are also accepted at early voting sites once they open Saturday. They cannot be turned in at a polling place on Election Day. If your ballot is still sitting on the kitchen counter next week, drive it in.

Closed primary, but everybody gets the school board races

Florida runs closed primaries under Section 101.021 of state law, so the partisan contests on your ballot will only list candidates from your own registered party. Voters with no party affiliation still get a ballot, just a shorter one.

Nonpartisan races appear for every voter regardless of registration, and that is where the Pasco School Board contests sit. Three of the five seats are up. District 1 and District 3 are both open races with no incumbent running, drawing four and five candidates respectively, while in District 5 incumbent Megan Harding faces challenger Michelle Mandarin. Eleven candidates in all are competing for the three seats.

A school board candidate who clears 50 percent on Aug. 18 wins the seat outright. If nobody does, the top two advance to the Nov. 3 general election.

Early voting closes at 6 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 15. Election Day polls, at your assigned precinct rather than any-site early voting locations, open Tuesday, Aug. 18.

For more Pasco elections coverage, keep up with us at pascocommunity.com and follow along on Facebook. Voting somewhere new this year, or skipping the lines with a mail ballot? Tell us how it went in our Community Forum. You can also read more government and politics stories and more education stories as the school board races head toward Aug. 18.