Mail balloting drives robust turnout by Democrats, Republicans
■ Florida Democrats registered absentee voters for months leading into Tuesday’s August 18 primary while President Donald Trump attacked mail ballots.
by mail ballots, Florida voters showed up this summer in remarkable numbers, turning out amid a pandemic at the highest rate seen in a presidential-year August primary since 1992.
More than 3.8 million voters participated in Tuesday’s election, according to data posted late Tuesday by the
Florida Division of Elections. In South FlorFueled ida, more than 900,000 ballots were cast — more than two-thirds of them by mail.
The increased participation generated expectations of a high-turnout presidential election between President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden this November. And if Florida is expected to once again be a key electoral battlefield, mail ballots — one of Trump’s most
controversial foils this year — will almost certainly play an unprecedented role.
In Miami-Dade, where the number of votes in Tuesday’s election surpassed the number cast in the 2018 midterms by about 100,000, voter participation was up across the board this summer. But Democrats emerged from Tuesday’s election especially enthusiastic about mail voting, which helped boost turnout among voters between the ages of 18 and 34 and among voters who’d never before participated in an August election.
Prior to Election Day, the party built up a 50,000 advantage over Republicans among mail voters, which helped push liberal MiamiDade Commissioner Daniella Levine Cava into a runoff for county mayor against conservative Miami-Dade Commissioner Esteban “Steve” Bovo.
“This is what the entire party has been working on,” said Miami-Dade Democratic Party Chairman Steve Simeonidis.
Statewide, Democrats voted overwhelmingly by mail, casting more than 1.1 million mail ballots before Election Day began. Republicans, who once used absentee voting to build up preElection Day leads over Democrats, submitted at least 766,000 mail ballots, with results still being tallied Tuesday night.
Terrie Rizzo, chairwoman of the Florida Democratic Party, said in a statement that August’s results show that the party’s organizing efforts and shift to a massive mail ballot registration drive when the pandemic hit are yielding dividends.
“We’re seeing an explosion in turnout in our Democratic counties, and early returns show that Florida Democrats are making inroads in Republican strongholds that we have not been competitive in for decades,” she said.
Republicans, though, turned out Tuesday in elevated numbers, too.
Many showed up on Election Day, heeding Trump’s warnings about mail ballots. At the Coral Gables Branch Library, Miguel Gil said he received a mail-in ballot but chose to vote at his neighborhood poll.
“I prefer to come in-person. I trust it most,” Trump supporter Gil, 55, said after voting. “I don’t trust the post office right now. I feel it will get lost or manipulated.”
Rob Schmidt, a Republican pollster with McLaughlin & Associates, said conservative turnout was up in all the races he was watching Tuesday night. But he said Election Day was key to Republican turnout, as more than 100,000 people showed up to vote Tuesday.
“You can look no further than Bovo’s performance tonight to demonstrate how the Republican base came out strong, albeit by a different method [Election Day] than in years past,” he said by text.
With the two parties suddenly switching preferred methods of voting, Democrats issued warnings Tuesday about mail ballots and the U.S. Postal Service, which has been subject to cuts under Trump-appointed Postmaster General Louis DeJoy.
Outside the U.S. Postal Service’s distribution center in Opa-locka, U.S. Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Debbie Mucarsel-Powell warned that DeJoy was “taking a crowbar” to the post office in an attempt to disrupt the election.
Shortly after the Democrats’ press conference in Opa-locka — one of many by House Democrats across the country — DeJoy issued a statement saying he would delay plans to cut back on postal service expenses until after the November election. “To avoid even the appearance of any impact on election mail, I am suspending these initiatives until after the election is concluded,” DeJoy said.
But Miami Congresswoman Mucarsel-Powell told the Miami Herald that “the damage has already been done.”
“What he has done and what the president has done is undermine the trust of Americans in our Postal Service,” Mucarsel-Powell said.
Throughout Florida, voters have the option of depositing mail ballots into safety bins secured by local elections officials. Nearly 20,000 people took advantage in Miami-Dade. But on Tuesday, some voters said at the polls that they were worried about sending their vote through the postal service.
“I feel safer casting it physically than voting by mail, which I have done before,” 25-year-old Democrat Sarah Rifkin said while voting at the Wynwood Community Resource Center. “I just don’t trust it now.”
For Florida Democrats, the issue is crucial. Mail ballots are making up an increasing number of the party’s vote share amid the pandemic, and leading some in the party to believe Biden could have an edge heading into November following Tuesday’s results.
But Trump Victory Spokeswoman Danielle Alvarez said Democrats’ warnings of an attack on the elections through the postal service is a “scandal that Democrats have faabricated because Republicans are better at winning elections and our record proves it.”
And Christian Ziegler, a Sarasota County Commissioner and vice-chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, said voting in August doesn’t mean much in November.
“I don’t think August is any indication of what’s going to happen in November,” he said. “In our party, the excitement in 2020 is driven by one individual, and that’s President Trump. Obviously, in a primary election, Donald Trump isn’t out there pushing a campaign to turn out the vote.”