by Steve Wilson
Vote by mail numbers in Florida have exceeded numbers from the 2016 election when former President Donald Trump won his first term in office.
Florida county elections officials have mailed 3.52 million ballots to those who requested them, up from 2016, when there were 3.35 million ballots sent to voters, a 5.07 percent increase.
The Florida secretary of state’s office update both vote by mail and early voting numbers on its website daily. Early voting in Florida started on Oct. 22.
That’s still down 27.3 percent compared to 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, when 4.48 million cast their ballots through the mail.
In mail-in voting, there have been 753,060 ballots cast by registered Republicans (36 percent), 884,410 by registered Democrats (42.3 percent), 42,810 by other party registration (2.04 percent) and 410,401 nonaffiliated (19.6 percent).
Out of the 1.42 million ballots yet to be returned are 453,519 Republicans, 571,381 belong to Democrats, 36,934 for other party registration and 364,047 nonaffiliated.
In early voting, 1.31 million Republicans, 681,035 Democrats, 55,249 other party registration and 458,540 non-affiliated have cast ballots.
In 2020 4.48 million voted by mail with 1.14 million ballots that were not submitted. That represented 20.3 percent of the 5.62 million mailed to voters.
There were 4.33 million that cast ballots early, with 32.9 percent by registered Republicans and 32.3 percent by Democrats.
Republicans had 1.5 million mail-in ballots (31 percent), along with nearly 2.19 million by Democrats (45 percent), 1.09 million unaffiliated (22.5 percent) and 66,345 by others (1.37 percent).
There were 615,885 ballots that were not submitted in 2016, or 18.4 percent of all ballots mailed that year.
According to state data in 2016, there were 3.35 million who voted by mail, with 1.1 million Republicans (40.6 percent), 1.05 million Democrats (38.4 percent), 69,318 listed as other (2.5 percent) and 504,895 with no party affiliation (18.5 percent).
Those voting early numbered 3.87 million, split 1.43 million Republicans, 1.58 million Democrats, 779,627 unaffiliated, and 89,990 others.
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Steve Wilson is a regional editor at The Center Square.
Photo “Supervisor of Elections Office” by City of Jacksonville.
