Early Voting Opens Saturday: St. Augustine's Seat 4 and Four County Offices Could Be Settled Aug. 18

Early voting for the Aug. 18 primary opens Saturday at seven St. Johns County sites, running 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily through Aug. 15, and for St. Augustine voters this is not a warm-up round. Four county offices will be decided outright in August and never reach the November ballot, and the city's open City Commission Seat 4 will be settled next month too if any of the three candidates clears 50 percent.

Seat 4 is open because incumbent Cynthia Garris ran for Seat 3, the mayor's seat, and was automatically elected when nobody else qualified. That leaves Ashleigh Barnes, Cynthia Golos-Guergawi and Ko Robins on the ballot for a nonpartisan seat, open to every registered voter inside the city limits regardless of party. If no one tops 50 percent, the top two advance to the Nov. 3 general election.

What ends in August, no matter what

Supervisor of Elections Vicky Oakes' office flagged four offices in a July 27 announcement that will be decided in the primary and will not appear on the November ballot:

• County Commission District 2: Heather Brofford, Tim Burres, Will McMullan and Martin Pyszczymuka, with the incumbent not running.
• County Commission District 4: incumbent Krista Joseph, James Galloway and Sam Williams.
• School Board District 1: incumbent Bev Slough, seeking a seventh term, against Kevin Allen.
• Circuit Judge, Group 26: a two-candidate race in the Seventh Judicial Circuit, which covers St. Johns along with Flagler, Putnam and Volusia counties.

Both commission races are universal primary contests this year. Because every candidate who qualified in those races belongs to the same party and no write-in filed, state law opens the vote to all registered county voters. Local reports note that is a change from recent cycles, when voters registered outside that party had no say in the commission races at all.

School Board District 4 works the same way as the city race: three candidates, decided in August if someone breaks 50 percent, otherwise a November runoff. Local news reports say the sitting board member there is not seeking re-election, and that District 3 was settled at qualifying when only one candidate filed.

Fewer than three in ten usually show up

The elections office paired that list with its own turnout history, and the trend is going the wrong way. Primary turnout in St. Johns County averages under 30 percent: 29.5 percent in 2020, 28.8 percent in 2022 and 25.14 percent in 2024. Oakes' office called it one election voters do not want to miss.

Put plainly, the people who set the county tax rate, vote on rezonings and write school policy stand a good chance of being picked this month by a quarter of the electorate.

Where to vote before Aug. 18

Any registered St. Johns County voter can use any of the seven early voting locations. That flexibility ends on election day, when you must vote at your assigned precinct.

Early voting site	Address
Supervisor of Elections Office	4455 Avenue A, #101, St. Augustine
Southeast Branch Library	6670 U.S. 1 South, St. Augustine
St. Augustine Beach City Hall	2200 A1A South
World Golf Hall of Fame	1 World Golf Place
W.E. Harris Community Center	400 E. Harris St., Hastings
Julington Creek Annex	725 Flora Branch Blvd., St. Johns
Ponte Vedra Branch Library	101 Library Blvd., Ponte Vedra Beach

Bring photo and signature identification. Voting in person on Aug. 18 runs 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

The deadline to request a vote-by-mail ballot be mailed to you is 5 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 6. Completed mail ballots have to be in the elections office's hands by 7 p.m. on Aug. 18 to count, and they can be returned by mail, in person at the office, or dropped in the secure intake stations at any early voting site during voting hours. They cannot be handed in at an election day precinct.

The elections office also says some polling places have moved since the last election, so the precinct you walked to in 2024 may not be the one on your card. Voters can confirm their assigned precinct, view a sample ballot and check registration at the Supervisor of Elections website. Whatever is not resolved on Aug. 18 rolls to the Nov. 3 general election, with early voting for that round set for Oct. 21 through Oct. 31.

Keep up with local coverage at the St. Augustine Community Website, and tell us which race you are watching most closely when you join the conversation in our Community Forum. For more on the candidates and the decisions ahead, read our latest government and politics stories and education coverage.

Header photo: Unknown authorUnknown author or not provided / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)