Florida is voting early. Here’s how many Democrats and Republicans are showing up
Floridians braved the rain and fears of COVID-19 to head to the polls in record numbers Monday on the first day of early voting, with slightly more Democrats casting ballots in person than Republicans.
A total of about 366,000 people voted: about 154,000 Democrats, 153,700 Republicans and 55,000 unaffiliated voters, according to data from the Florida Division of Elections.
In the past, Democrats have generally had an edge in early voting. This year, so far, they’ve built up a lead of 482,000 votes, including mail ballots. But Republicans are expected to vote heavily in person, in part because of President Donald Trump’s months of criticism of the mail voting process. Slightly more Democrats are registered to vote in Florida than Republicans, but Republicans narrowed the gap this year to just 134,000.
Florida Democratic strategist Steve Schale, who led Barack Obama’s 2008 Florida campaign and is CEO of the pro-Biden Unite Our Country Super PAC, said Monday that several days of early voting will need to pass before anyone can analyze trends or make sense of the turnout.
“The biggest thing about 2020 is there’s no model for it,” he said. “There’s no history we can look back at.”
He added that Monday’s big showing statewide was largely expected.
In Manatee County, 5,322 people cast ballots in person Monday. That included 2,651 Republicans, 1,795 Democrats, 811 with no party affiliation and 65 registered with other parties, according to the Florida Division of Elections.
Democrats in Manatee continue to outpace Republicans in returning mail ballots. As of Tuesday morning, Democrats had returned 22,782 mail ballots, compared to 18,526 from Republicans, 9,455 from voters with no party affiliation and 558 from voters registered with other parties.
He said he thinks one thing is clear: “Where we’re at right now is a very, very tight and competitive election.”Schale said it’s beginning to look like the number of ballots cast this fall will approach 11 million in Florida, far more than the 9.4 million in 2016. But he also said it’s difficult to predict how many people will vote and in which manner, because the pandemic has turned everything upside down.
The question of how many ballots will be rejected for signatures that don’t match or for other reasons will also be a factor in the election. Josh Mendelsohn, the CEO of Hawkfish, a Democratic tech firm founded by billionaire Michael Bloomberg, said rates for rejected mail ballots have so far been “relatively consistent with the Florida norm”
As of Monday morning, he said, there were about half a percent of ballots that were rejected. A total of 4,390 Democrats had failed to sign their ballots properly, he said, as had 2,172 Republicans.
“The expectation and hope is that parties are reaching out to folks … letting people know they do in fact have the ability to cure and remedy areas in their ballots,” Mendelsohn said.
Monday was also the first day for voters to drop off their mail ballots at early voting centers. Over 27,000 people did so in Miami-Dade, more than the 19,000 that utilized the boxes over the entire 14 days of the August primary.
This story was originally published October 20, 2020 at 3:20 PM.