TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (The News Service of Florida) - Voters in nearly half of Florida’s 67 counties began casting ballots this Monday morning, for the Nov. 6 general election.
Counties statewide are required to start early voting Saturday, but they have the authority to start as early as Monday.
Several large counties like Orange, Miami-Dade, Broward and Hillsborough are now open for voting, along with a host of Florida’s smallest counties.
Marty Bishop is the Supervisor of Elections for 9,800 people in rural Jefferson County in North Florida, which had the third highest voter turnout percentage in the state during the August primary.
Since the ballot includes numerous federal, statewide, and local races, as well as 12 proposed constitutional amendments and other local referendums, Bishop hopes voters do their research before coming to the polls.
“If you don’t want to wait in line, with all of those amendments that are on the ballot and everything, we are encouraging the voters to pre-mark the sample ballots that they received," said Bishop. "They can bring those with them and just transfer them over to their real ballot and it’ll go a lot quicker than trying to read the amendments in the booth.”
13.2 million Floridians are registered to vote in next month’s election, according to figures from the state Division of Elections.
That’s an increase of more than 500,000 voters from the 2016 election.
There are nearly five million registered Democrats in the state, slightly outnumbering 4.7 million Republicans. Another 3.6 million voters are registered with a minor political party or no party affiliation.
