Polls Close at 7 p.m.: The Hillsborough Races and Tax Questions on Today's Ballot

Hillsborough County polls opened at 7 a.m. today and close at 7 p.m., and the ballot in front of voters decides far more than nominees for governor: two county commission primaries, two School Board seats, two circuit judgeships and four separate tax questions, including a $50 million public safety bond in Temple Terrace. Anyone standing in line at 7 p.m. will still be allowed to vote. Anyone who shows up at 7:01 will not.

Florida runs closed primaries, so what you see depends on how you are registered. Republicans get a Republican ballot, Democrats a Democratic one, and everyone else a nonpartisan ballot. On Election Day you must vote at the polling place assigned to your precinct, not wherever is convenient, and the elections office notes that some precinct locations changed for this election.

On every ballot, regardless of party

School Board and judicial races are nonpartisan, which means unaffiliated voters have real decisions to make today.

• School Board, District 2: Brittany Lyssy, Daniela Simic, Chris Taylor
• School Board, District 6: Kenneth "Ken" Gay, Karen Perez, Sally Harris "Ms. Sally" Williamson
• 13th Judicial Circuit, Group 7: Luis "Louie" Aguila, Sara Peacock
• 13th Judicial Circuit, Group 13: Nina McGucken Alvarez, Jim Wimsatt

Both judicial contests are two-candidate races, so they end tonight. The School Board seats have three candidates each. If someone clears a majority, the seat is settled; if nobody does, the top two carry on to the Nov. 3 general election.

The county commission primaries

Three commission seats are being contested in party primaries. Democrats in District 3 choose between Twanda E. Bradley and Gwen Myers. Democrats in District 7 pick between Aileen Rodriguez and Cindy Stuart. Republicans in District 5 decide between Donna Cameron Cepeda and Stacy Hahn.

Those winners advance to November, where the board's makeup will set county property tax rates, land use and growth approvals, and transportation spending for the next four years.

Three districts where today is the whole election

Voters in State Senate District 16, State House District 62 and State House District 63 have what Florida calls a Universal Primary Contest on their ballot. Every candidate in those races shares a party affiliation and would be unopposed in November, so state law opens the contest to all voters in the district and the winner takes the seat outright. In Senate District 16, that is Fentrice Driskell against Michele K. Raynor. House District 62 has Kyandra Darling and Wengay "Newt" Newton. House District 63 has Jacqueline Coffie-Leeks, Robin L. Lockett and Conrad Schupay.

Four money questions

Three small special dependent tax districts are asking their own residents for permission to raise the ceiling on annual assessments. These are neighborhood-level charges, not countywide taxes, and only property owners inside the district see the question.

District	Proposed annual cap
Country Place	Up to $75 per residential parcel
East Lake Park	Up to $150 per owned parcel (from $100 set in 1998)
North Lakes	Up to $125 per improved residential parcel

The largest question belongs to Temple Terrace, where residents are voting on a general obligation bond of up to $50 million for a public safety complex: a new police station and Fire Station 3, on a five-acre site the city bought at 7911 Harney Road in 2024 for $1.6 million.

The case the city has made is one of arithmetic. Its police department has worked out of the same 11,000 square feet since the early 1980s, when Temple Terrace had just over 11,000 residents and 26 sworn officers. Today it has 57 sworn officers and more than 28,000 residents in the same building, which it shares with City Hall. There is no secure indoor intake area, so people being processed wait in patrol cars in the City Hall lot. On the fire side, the last station opened in 1986. Emergency calls went from 3,067 in 2014 to more than 4,800 in 2025, and response times in the proposed Station 3 area currently run 8 minutes 29 seconds against a target of 6:40.

The bond would be repaid through a separate property tax line. The city estimates a first-year impact of 0.90 to 0.98 mills, which works out to roughly $179.89 to $185.39 a year on a property with $200,000 in taxable assessed value, or about $15 a month, on a 30-year bond. Full details are on the city's General Obligation Bond 2026 page.

Before you go

Bring current, valid photo and signature identification. Florida accepts a dozen forms, including a driver license, passport, military ID, student ID or a debit or credit card; if your photo ID has no signature, bring a second document that does. Without acceptable ID you can still cast a provisional ballot, which the canvassing board reviews afterward.

One trap worth knowing: vote-by-mail ballots cannot be dropped at Election Day polling places. They must be inside one of the five Supervisor of Elections offices by 7 p.m. or they do not count. More than 100,000 Hillsborough voters had already cast ballots by the final weekend of early voting, the elections office said. You can confirm your precinct and pull up your personalized sample ballot at VoteHillsborough.gov.

Unofficial results begin posting after the last polls close tonight. Whatever survives today moves to the Nov. 3 general election, and in Temple Terrace, council has already scheduled budget and millage hearings for Sept. 3 and Sept. 17 that will reflect the bond outcome either way.

Stay with Tampa Community Website for local coverage, follow us on Facebook, and tell us how voting went at your precinct today by joining the conversation in our Community Forum. For more on the decisions shaping the county, read our government and politics stories and our education coverage.