Florida's Early Vote Is Final at More Than 5.1 Million Ballots: Republicans Lead by About 155,000 — Half Their 2022 Edge — and 550,106 Mail Ballots Are Still Out
The Division of Elections' Sunday count puts Florida's pre-Election-Day vote at more than 5.1 million ballots: 2,098,673 cast by registered Republicans and 1,943,328 by registered Democrats, a lead of about 155,000 against the roughly 298,000 Republicans held at this point in 2022. Democrats have already beaten their entire 2022 early total — and more than half a million mail ballots are still in voters' hands, due at elections offices by 7 p.m. Tuesday.
Florida has already voted in numbers that would decide most elections, and the shape of that vote is narrower than the last midterm's. More than 5.1 million ballots were cast before Election Day, according to the Florida Division of Elections' statistics compiled Sunday morning: 2,098,673 by registered Republicans, 1,943,328 by registered Democrats, and 1,117,536 by voters with no party affiliation or a minor party. The Republican registration lead stands at about 155,000 ballots — roughly 3 percentage points — against a lead of about 298,000 at the same point in 2022, when Republicans cast 2,168,758 early ballots. Democrats, meanwhile, have already cast more ballots before Election Day than the 1,870,486 they cast in all of 2022's early and mail voting. Registration records who cast a ballot; it does not record how anyone voted.
The two parties also voted differently. Democrats lead the mail: 815,396 Democratic mail ballots returned against 668,424 Republican. Republicans lead the early-voting rooms: 1,430,249 cast in person against 1,127,932 Democratic. Statewide, 3,256,797 Floridians voted early in person and 1,902,740 by mail in the Sunday count. That split is why the last 36 hours of this election are a logistics contest as much as a persuasion one: one side's remaining vote is disproportionately sitting in envelopes, the other's in Election Day lines.
The envelopes are the live number. The Division counts 550,106 mail ballots sent but not yet returned — each one worthless after 7 p.m. Tuesday, when it must be in the county supervisor of elections' hands, and none of them accepted at a polling place on Election Day. Orange County's own mechanics were filed by this station this morning: hand-delivery at the Kaley Street headquarters or the West Oaks Mall satellite office. Polls open Tuesday at 7 a.m. and close at 7 p.m. local time. Florida's early vote has already exceeded five million; how much of the remaining half-million pieces of paper make it home will be part of the story of who wins it.
