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Amway Center not Central Florida's most popular early voting location

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Updated  October 27, 2020 5:01am EDT
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FOX 35 Orlando

Early voting wait lines vary based on locations

Voters waiting at smaller early voting locations have had to wait for an hour or more, while larger venues such as the Amway Center, has little to no wait times.

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. - Dubbed as one of the nicest arenas in the NBA, the Amway Center is open for early voting. 

One of the Orlando Magic’s most popular players, Mo Bamba, helped make the big announcement over a month ago, hoping the cool, convenient location would lure in throngs of first-time voters. 

“We held a voter registration drive there to get it well established. There were events there this weekend. So we had all those things assuming they wound increase the turnout at that site,” said Orange County Supervisor of Elections Bill Cowles.

So far, that does not appear to be the case. Of the 137,046 folks early voting in Orange County, so far, 7,199 have chosen to cast those early votes at the Amway Center. 

“When you look at the numbers at Amway, they’re in line with the other sites, not the overpowering numbers because we’ve got 19 other sites around the county in which the voters can go. For us, it’s been grateful they’ve pulled people who might have gone to our office so it’s helped us with our turnout here to be a little bit more manageable,” Cowles said. 

He says his busiest early voting locations are his office and three libraries in Winter Garden, Alafaya and Southwest.   

In Seminole County, Supervisor of Elections Chris Anderson is taking to social media to try to lure folks to the county's new early voting location. It happens to be one of the largest.

“We’ve got a covered area here in Altamonte. No wait times,” Anderson said in a Facebook Live post last week. 

A quarter of a mile from the new Altamonte Springs location, he found folks in Casselberry waiting in line more than 30 minutes to vote early. 

When he started asking those waiting why they didn’t want to try the new early voting location, they all gave similar answers. 

“Voters have married voting and trust together. The election worker presides over that relationship. They recognize and know them by name. They want to see Steve in Lake Mary, Norm at Wekiva, Cathleen in Casselberry. These are the site coordinators in charge and they’ve seen them for years,” Anderson said.  

Anderson tells FOX 35 News they’ve got volunteers and poll workers across the county who’ve been part of election day in Seminole County since Ronald Reagan was in office.