After nearly two weeks of casting ballots by mail and after nearly a week of early voting in about a third of Florida’s counties, nearly 835,000 ballots have already been cast eleven days before Florida’s Aug. 28 primary election. Those are the latest number posted on the Secretary of State’s website as of Friday morning.
Most of those ballots, 785,400, were mailed in by voters. Republicans continue to dominate the vote-by-mail numbers with 366,865 ballots cast. Democrats have cast 312,854 mail-in ballots. That’s a difference of 54,000.
Early voting numbers are not as large since only 22 of 67 counties opened early voting locations in their areas this week as permitted by law. Of those 22 counties, Democrats maintain a lead with 24,715 votes cast while Republicans have submitted 21,353, a nearly 3,400 difference.
Miami-Dade County, one of the counties to open early voting this week, had the most early voting ballots cast with 10,700, followed by Palm Beach County with 9,262, Hillsborough with 8,714, and Duval with 7,059.
The early voting numbers will start to jump beginning this weekend as state law requires all counties to open early locations.
Florida’s early voting rules require polls must begin 10 days before election day, with counties being allowed to add extra days. Polls must be open at least eight hours daily.
During early voting, voters can cast their ballots at any site in their county of residence. Dates, times and location vary by county.
For a complete list of early voting schedules, click here.