TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) — Despite concerns surrounding coronavirus safety and slowdowns with the postal service, the Leon County supervisor of elections says they're already seeing some record numbers of voter turnout.
As of the afternoon count on Monday, Mark Early, the supervisor of elections says about 12,500 voters had cast a vote in person.
Additionally, between 6,000 and 8,000 others utilized the vote-by-mail dropbox either to avoid the lines or keep their social distance.
"Certainly the vote by mail volume is been dramatically higher than ever before," said Earley. "We've surpassed already. We still have two days of collecting vote-by-mail ballots and we've already surpassed the highest number of vote-by-mail we ever received which was a 2016 general with about 36,000. We are well above that at this point, so turnouts been very good actually so far."
Early says, for now, it's business as usual in Leon County when it comes to counting mail-in votes on time.
"We've had a meeting with the secretary of state and postal officials," Earley said. "We don't have anything definitive, but certainly the news I'm hearing is concerning me. We don't need a slow down in the post office, we need business as usual. I think if it is business as usual the post office can easily handle our volume, so I have no concerns with that."
The early voting period has now ended, but if you still have a vote by mail ballot and weren't able to send in time, you can still make sure your vote counts by visiting the supervisor of elections office on Apalachee Parkway and submitting it through their drive-thru between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.
You must be in the line before 7 p.m. in order to drop off your ballot.
