Open letter to the Supervisor of Elections

Rev. Manuel Sykes

Dear Supervisor Clark,

We are writing to you on behalf of our congregations at the Bethel Metropolitan Baptist Church and the Mount Zion Progressive Missionary Baptist Church, here in beautiful St. Petersburg.  We have spoken with many community leaders about the need our south St. Petersburg community has for an early voting site, right here in our neighborhood, and we would like to share these concerns with you in the hope that you might add an early voting site closer to home this election year.

Rev. Louis Murphy, Sr.

Many of our congregants have expressed to us that they are concerned with the prospect of long lines at their precincts on Election Day. Many of them are elderly and are especially worried about standing for a long time in the heat, and we agree that this should not be the case for anyone simply wanting to exercise their right to vote.

We know that there are already a few early voting sites in the county; however, our congregants have also informed us that traveling to the downtown elections office or to the Gulfport location are inconvenient for them for a variety of reasons, including travel time and parking issues. And of course, since most of these folks work, finding the time to wait in a voting line on Election Day, a Tuesday, is not an option.

Would you please consider adding an early voting site in our community?  We are a proud, hard-working people who cherish going to the polls to exercise our most sacred right, and we very much would like to be able to do it with comfort and ease.

Reverend Manuel Sykes & Reverend Louis M. Murphy Sr.