Florida Early Voting Is Over: More Than 5.2 Million Ballots Are In, and Tuesday Belongs to the Assigned Precinct
At 7 p.m. Sunday the last early-voting sites in Florida closed. From here to the close of polls, there are exactly two ways left to vote: hand-deliver a mail ballot by 7 p.m. Tuesday, or vote in person at your own precinct on Election Day.
Early voting in Florida ended on Sunday night, November 1. The last open sites - in South Florida counties whose schedules ran through Sunday - closed at 7 p.m.; in Escambia County and most of the state, early voting had already ended on Saturday. According to the University of Florida figures reported Sunday evening, more than 5.2 million of Florida's more than 13 million registered voters have already cast a ballot, by mail or in person - which means the majority of the electorate still has its vote ahead of it, and all of it must happen on Tuesday.
The rule that changes on Election Day is the one that surprises voters every cycle: there is no more voting anywhere you like. As Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections Craig Latimer put it, on Election Day a voter's ballot is already printed and waiting at the polling site attached to their precinct - 'you must vote in the polling site attached to your precinct on election day.' Pensacola's polls open at 7 a.m. and close at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, November 3, and a photo ID with a signature - a driver's license or a passport, for example - is required.
The mail door has narrowed, too: it is now too late to mail a mail ballot and have any confidence it arrives. A voted mail ballot must be dropped off at the county supervisor of elections office by 7 p.m. Tuesday, or its owner can go to their polling place on Tuesday, surrender the mail ballot, and vote in person instead. And the homework warning stands: with six constitutional amendments on this ballot alongside the governor, Senate and local races, an unprepared voter can spend a long time in the booth. Reading the ballot before Tuesday is the fastest vote there is.
