TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (The News Service of Florida) - Nearly half the Floridians registered to vote in Tuesday's elections had already cast ballots as of Monday morning.
The state Division of Elections website reported that 6.42 million votes had been cast in person at early-voting locations or with vote-by-mail ballots.
Florida has 12.86 million registered voters. Early voting ended Sunday. Vote-by-mail ballots will continue to be received by county supervisors of elections offices through Tuesday.
Of the ballots cast, Democrats had accounted for just over 88,000 more votes than Republicans. Democrats topped the GOP in getting people to early-voting locations, 1.58 million to 1.425 million.
Republicans had returned more vote-by-mail ballots, 1,047,119 to 980,440. Voters without party affiliation had cast nearly 1.24 million ballots, while those registered with third parties had submitted 154,326 ballots.
University of Florida political-science professor Daniel Smith, who specializes in voter-registration issues, on Monday reported that 4.2 million votes had been cast by white voters, up from 3.3 million in the run-up to the 2012 presidential contest.
The number of Hispanics voting before the election had increased from about 552,000 in 2012 to around 976,000 this year, Smith posted on his blog electionsmith.com.
The number of black voters casting ballots before Election Day had grown from approximately 764,000 in 2012 to more than 834,000 this year.
