TIME TO HEAD TO THE POLLS
Nearly 2 million Floridians voted early or by mail in primary election
More than 400,000 South Florida voters don’t have to worry about problems at the polls today because they’ve already cast their ballots.
For those who haven’t voted yet, the polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Voters are deciding a variety of federal, state and local offices, including competitive races for who will be the Republican and Democratic nominees for governor. Local elections include school board and judicial races.
Election Day voters should go to their assigned precincts and bring a valid picture identification with a signature to receive a ballot.
The number of voters who chose to vote by mail or at an early voting site account for 12.6 percent of Broward’s registered voters, 12.5 percent of Miami-Dade’s and 10.3 percent of Palm Beach County’s.
Those percentages will increase as they don’t include mailed-in ballots received Monday and today. Early voting ended Sunday, but voters using vote-by-mail ballots have until 7 p.m.
today — either by mail or delivered in person — to have them received by their county’s supervisor of elections to be eligible to be counted.
Current vote totals in Broward and Palm Beach counties are more than double what they were four years ago when the last mid-term primary was held. So far this year, 146,533 Broward voters have cast ballots early or by mail, compared with 64,136 in 2014. Palm Beach County has had 94,572 ballots cast so far this year. In 2014, it only had 46,089 early and mailed-in ballots.
In Miami-Dade, 175,084 votes have been cast so far this year, up from the 119,450 early and mailedin ballots cast in 2014.
Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor Susan Bucher said one reason behind the voter increase is there are more voters overall.
“Since 2014, Palm Beach County has added 300,000 registered voters,” Bucher said.
Statewide, about 1.86 million voters cast ballots as of early Monday.
The statewide turnout is substantially ahead of the pre-voting in 2014, when 1.2 million voters statewide voted early or by mail.
The numbers show an uptick for Democrats, from being 41 percent of the early and mailed-in vote in 2014 to 44 percent this year. Meanwhile, Republicans have dropped from 47 percent of the early vote in 2014 to 46 percent this year.