Mail-In Ballots Top 500,000 Across State

Posted

Tallahassee, FL - Voting in the Nov. 6 general election has already surpassed the half-million mark.

Numbers posted Wednesday morning by the Florida Division of Elections show 554,350 people had cast vote-by-mail ballots.

Also, the latest figures came as a number of counties hit hard last week by Hurricane Michael --- Bay, Calhoun, Franklin, Gulf, Holmes, Jackson, Liberty and Washington --- remain unable to provide post-storm voting updates.

Gadsden County on Wednesday provided its first update since Oct. 10, noting that of the 356 votes cast, 268 were from Democrats, 73 from Republicans, 14 from unaffiliated voters and one from a third-party voter. According to the Division of Elections, Republicans statewide had returned 247,530 vote-by-mail ballots to 207,171 by Democrats, 96,629 by unaffiliated voters and 3,020 by people registered with third parties.

The counties with the most vote-by-mail activity were Lee, with 49,557 ballots returned; Hillsborough, 48,363; Pinellas, 47,794; Broward, 31,819; Miami-Dade, 31,578; and Orange, 29,569.

Another 2.5 million vote-by-mail ballots have been requested, with just over 1 million still unreturned by Democrats and nearly 960,000 by Republicans.

Florida’s 13 million registered voters will also have the option of going to polling places for early voting, which runs statewide from Oct. 27 to Nov. 3, though county supervisors can add some extra days.