Florida's Ballots Pass 5.4 Million on Election Day Eve - More Than Every Early Ballot Cast in 2022
Sunday's county reports pushed Florida's pre-election total to about 5.40 million ballots - 241,518 added on the last day alone, and already more than the 5.06 million early ballots cast in the whole 2022 cycle.
Florida has already voted in record midterm numbers before a single Election Day ballot is cast. The civicAPI count compiled from state and county election offices, read Sunday night, put ballots returned through November 1 at 5,401,055 - up 241,518 on the day and 13 percent ahead of the same point in 2022. A second tracker, On Point Politics, read the same night at 5,402,503. Both move well past the Florida Division of Elections' own Sunday-morning file, which counted 5,159,537 ballots through Saturday.
The shape of the vote is in-person. Of the civicAPI total, 3,467,811 ballots were cast in person during early voting and 1,933,244 came back by mail. By registration, Republicans account for 2,175,027 of the ballots and Democrats 2,039,175 in the civicAPI party split, with On Point modeling the electorate at 40.3 percent Republican and 37.8 percent Democratic; registration shows who has voted, not how. Sunday's additions came from the counties that kept early voting open through November 1, after Escambia and most of the state closed their early sites on Saturday.
The comparison that frames Tuesday is 2022: Florida's early ballots have already reached the full 5.06 million early ballots cast in the entire 2022 midterm cycle, with Election Day itself still to come. What remains is Tuesday, November 3 - polls open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. local time at assigned precincts, and mail ballots must be in the county supervisor of elections' hands by 7 p.m. to count.
