(The Center Square) – According to Florida data, 5.35 million voters cast ballots early after early voting ended on Saturday, up 38.14% from 2016.
Data from the Florida secretary of state’s office shows 2.83 million votes have been cast via mail, up 3.74% from the 2016 election when former President Donald Trump won his first term in office.
Florida county elections officials have mailed 3.53 million ballots to those who requested them, up from 2016, when there were 3.35 million ballots sent to voters, a 5.1% increase.
The Florida secretary of state’s office updates both vote by mail and early voting numbers on its website daily. Early voting in Florida started on Oct. 22.
Mail-in numbers this year are down 26.9% 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 989,738 ballots cast by registered Republicans (34.9%), 1.18 million by registered Democrats (41.7%), 61,241 by other party registration (2.16%) and 600,485 nonaffiliated (21.19%).
Out of the 696,106 ballots yet to be returned are 222,404 Republicans, 278,124 belong to Democrats, 18,834 for other party registration and 176,744 nonaffiliated.
In early voting, 2.55 million Republicans, 1.51 million Democrats, 135,173 other party registrants and 1.16 million nonaffiliated have cast ballots.
In 2020 4.48 million voted by mail with 1.14 million ballots that were not submitted. That represented 20.3% of the 5.62 million mailed to voters.
There were 4.33 million that cast ballots early, with 32.9% by registered Republicans and 32.3% by Democrats.
Republicans had 1.5 million mail-in ballots (31%), along with nearly 2.19 million by Democrats (45%), 1.09 million unaffiliated (22.5%) and 66,345 by others (1.37%).
There were 615,885 ballots that were not submitted in 2016, or 18.4% 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%), 1.05 million Democrats (38.4%), 69,318 listed as other (2.5%) and 504,895 with no party affiliation (18.5%).
Those voting early numbered 3.87 million, split 1.43 million Republicans, 1.58 million Democrats, 779,627 unaffiliated, and 89,990 others.
