Florida Sees Strong Turnout as Early Voting Begins for November General Election

In-person early voting for the November 5 general election kicked off on Monday across Florida‘s 67 counties, with a significant turnout reported in several regions. In South Florida, particularly in Broward and Miami-Dade counties, thousands of voters cast their ballots on the first day of early voting. Broward County saw more than 17,000 ballots cast by early Monday afternoon at 29 locations, while Miami-Dade County reported over 33,000 ballots at 33 locations.

The early voting period is mandated to start at least 10 days before the election and end on the 3rd day before the election, although supervisors of elections can offer additional days starting as early as the 15th day before the election. Early voting sites are open for at least 8 hours a day but no more than 12 hours per day.

Despite some technical issues, including website outages affecting several county elections offices, the voting process itself was not disrupted. The outages, attributed to a Tallahassee-based vendor VR Systems, affected public-facing websites but did not impact the ability to cast ballots. Backup versions of the websites were quickly put in place to provide essential voting information.

Voters are also utilizing secure ballot intake stations located at early voting sites and other authorized areas to return their vote-by-mail ballots. These stations are continuously monitored by employees of the Supervisor of Elections’ office and are available only during specified hours.

The early voting period will continue through at least November 2, with some counties, including those affected by recent hurricanes, allowed to extend voting through Election Day. In South Florida, voters can also cast their votes on November 4 at county elections offices.

The early voting numbers reflect a high level of voter engagement, with nearly 1.2 million Floridians having already voted by mail. Democrats currently lead in returned mail ballots, but Republicans are expected to close the gap as the election approaches).