This season, more of us mailing it in

Use of early ballots skyrockets in state

Close to 1 million Florida voters have done more than made up their minds between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. They’ve already cast their ballots.

Voting by mail among Democrats and Republicans is far higher than it was at the same point in the countdown to the 2012 election.

Democrats are enjoying the biggest gain statewide, something that U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, a Broward-Palm Beach County Democrat and longtime Clinton supporter, sees as “a very encouraging sign. It’s very different from what we’ve seen in past elections. I think it shows the level of enthusiasm.”

In South Florida’s big three counties, mail voting is up. But voters in the area are lagging the state. As of Friday, 18.8 percent of the 997,123 mail ballots cast so far in Florida came from Broward, Palm Beach and Miami Dade counties. Those three counties are home to 26.8 percent of the state’s registered voters.

As of Friday, 416,778 Republi-

can ballots had been returned to supervisor of elections offices, a 48 percent increase from 2012. Democrats had cast 399,434 ballots, a 59 percent increase from the last presidential election.

“The Florida Democratic Party has successfully eliminated the historic Republican advantage in vote-bymail,” Scott Arceneaux, the state party’s executive director, said in a statement. “We look forward to building on this momentum as we head into the beginning of early voting and Election Day.”

Susie Wiles, senior Trump adviser and chief Florida strategist, emphasized that the Republicans have cast more ballots than Democrats. “We are very confident in our ability to mobilize our supporters on Election Day and the weeks prior. Our current lead in vote-by-mail ballots is a testament to the hard work our volunteers have put in and the unprecedented enthusiasm we’ve seen for Donald Trump in Florida,” Wiles said by email.

Republicans and Democrats both like it when their supporters vote early, either by mail or in person at early voting sites. Banking votes early from likely supporters — under the assumption that the vast majority of registered voters cast ballots for their party’s candidate — allows them to target efforts on people who need an extra push to get to the polls as Election Day approaches.

“Those are people who have that ballot right on their table,” said Rico Petrocelli, a former Broward Republican Party chairman who now serves as the county’s Republican state committeeman. “If you don’t chase those ballots, you’re running the risk of losing those votes.”

Petrocelli said mail voting is “super important” and warrants sustained efforts by campaigns and parties to reach out to people who have received mail-in ballots to encourage them to get them filled out and returned.

Political insiders and academics have theories about why mail voting is up, but no proof. “It’s really difficult to know what’s going on here, since there are multiple changes or factors that are going into the numbers,” said Michael McDonald, a University of Florida political scientist and one of the nation’s top experts on early and mail voting.

In the heavily polarized 2016 election season, many people may simply want to be done with the election. Mail voting is getting more attention as an option, a change from the era when absentee ballots were reserved for people who had to cite a reason they couldn’t get to the polls on Election Day. And it’s become more convenient in many places, such as Broward, which now provides return postage for mail ballots.

Republicans used to have a major advantage with mail voting. But Democrats have narrowed that traditional gap, and the two parties are virtually neck and neck.

That could be a good sign for Democrats. Or it could mean that Democrats are simply improving their outreach to people whose votes they’d have anyway — political insiders term it cannibalizing the Election Day vote — so it might not be a huge advantage.

“Is that just a shuffling of furniture? Is that just people voting at a different point in time or is it a new vote? It’s difficult for me to assess it from the outside,” McDonald said.

McDonald said the larger number of people who have received absentee ballots doesn’t mean they will actually vote. Once people sign up to get an absentee ballot, Florida keeps the request alive for two general elections and keeps sending them.

And, he said, there’s another quirk: The increase over 2012 is lowest in some northeastern counties where the effects of Hurricane Matthew were most extreme. And voted ballots aren’t coming in as strongly from counties that may still have lingering effects from Hurricane Hermine. It’s impossible to know, McDonald said, if the storms are the reason or if it will continue through Election Day.

Still, Democrats are happy about where they stand.

“I think it portends well for us,” said U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, a Broward-Palm Beach Democrat who has also been a longtime supporter of Clinton. While he said he is concerned that the Democrats may be capturing earlier the votes they would get anyway later, he added, “But at the same time, I’d rather have them in the bank then having a rainy [Election] Day or stormy day and them not come out.”

McDonald said the numbers show Democrats in a better position than they were at the same point in 2012. “I think they should be happy, but it should be tinged with caution. We still have two weeks left. This election is not over by any stretch of the imagination,” he said.

McDonald said he’s skeptical about suggestions that so many people will have voted by mail or through inperson early voting that the election will be decided before Election Day. “I don’t think that’s going to be true. Election Day can always look much different than the early vote. To say ‘insurmountable’ I think is a little bit too much bravado.”