Turnout leading in to city elections for Sarasota and North Port today indicate greater interest in the contests than existed in March, when prior elections decided what candidates would continue into runoffs. At the close of early voting on Saturday, 13 percent of Sarasota voters had cast votes early or by mail, and 7.8 percent of voters in North Port had done the same. By comparison, turnout at the same point before the March 15 elections was 9.4 percent in Sarasota and 6.6 percent in North Port.

In Sarasota, three candidates—Jennifer Ahearn-Koch, Hagen Brody and Martin Hyde—vie for two seats on the Sarasota City Commission. In North Port, Pete Emrich and Jill Luke are running for Seat 4 on the North Port City Commission. Polls in both jurisdictions will be open today from 7am to 7pm.

Roughly 1,000 voters in each municipality have voted in the runoffs who did not vote in March, according to Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections Ron Turner. While the races are both nonpartisan, political parties in the county have become more engaged as the field of candidates winnowed, with differing levels of success. As of Monday afternoon, Sarasota had seen 2,487 Democrats, 1,780 Republicans and 673 independent or third party voters cast ballots by mail or at early voting. In North Port, the breakdown was 1,648 Republicans, 1,155 Democrats and 747 other voters.