TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (The News Service of Florida) - Voters in 18 of Florida's 67 counties began casting ballots this morning (August 13th), for the August 28th Primary Elections.
Early voting is mandated from Saturday, August 18th through the 25th, but local supervisors of elections have the discretion to begin sooner and to keep early-voting locations open on Sunday, August 26th.
Several large counties like Duval, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Hillsborough opened their early voting locations Monday, along with a host of Florida’s smallest counties. Marty Bishop is the Supervisor of Elections for 97 hundred people in rural Jefferson County in North Florida. At his one early voting location, people had been showing up at a steady pace all morning.
“They enjoy it, where than can walk in and they don’t have to worry about being at a precinct at a certain time," said Bishop. "They don’t have to worry about any lines. A lot of people take advantage of it, because of that.”
Slightly more than 13 million Floridians are registered to vote in advance of the primary, according to new figures from the state Division of Elections. There are more than 640 thousand more voters this year than during the 2016 election cycle. Democrats outnumber Republicans, but just barely, as both parties gear up for a fierce battle in November for a U.S. Senate seat and the governor’s office.
