Overall voter turnout for the midterm election in Florida was 60.9 percent, the second-highest in the last 30 years.
This year’s total was about 7 percent ahead of the 2022 midterm election, but two percentage points behind 2018, when Gov. Ron DeSantis was first elected.
“The turnout results, the percentage of turnout and the enthusiasm of people wanting to vote just proves that we are doing the right thing,” said Secretary of State Cord Byrd.
“Over 8 million Floridians decided they were going to come out and choose the people that were going to represent them, whether it’s at the local city level, the county level, the state level or in Washington, D.C.” Byrd continued.
DeSantis attributed Florida’s turnout in part to Amendment 3, the property tax proposal he pushed legislators to put on the ballot.
“Had Amendment 3 not been on the ballot, you know I don’t know that we turn out the voters that we ended up turning out,” DeSantis told reporters last Wednesday. “People wanted to vote yes on that. And then many of them ended up voting Republican later on down the ballot.”
Of the 8.3 million Floridians who voted in the midterm, 7.94 million checked off the ‘yes’ or ‘no’ box on the amendment. Approved by nearly 62 percent of the vote, the measure increases the non-school homestead property tax exemption from $50,000 to $250,000 over two years.
Two other amendments on the ballot were rejected and attracted about 100,000 fewer votes.
All 67 Florida counties saw more than 50 percent of voters cast ballots.
Turnout ranged from a high of 73.6 percent in Sumter County, home to The Villages, to a low of 51.9 percent at the western end of the Panhandle in Santa Rosa County.
Other rural counties with turnout just over 50 percent included Hendry County at 52.4 percent, Hardee and Okaloosa counties at 52.6 percent and Okeechobee County at 53.7 percent.
Jefferson County east of Tallahassee was the only other county topping 70 percent, with 70.1 percent turnout.
Leon County was at 68.6 percent, Sarasota County at 67.4 percent and Madison County at 66.8 percent.
At 55.1 percent, Duval County had the lowest turnout among more urban counties.
Orange County was at 57.8 percent turnout, Broward County at 60.4 percent, Miami-Dade County at 60.5 percent, Hillsborough County came in at 63.2 percent and Palm Beach County was at 64.9 percent.
About two-thirds of the 8.3 million votes were cast ahead of Election Day, either by mail or at early voting sites across the state.
Machine recounts have been called for one state legislative seat on the Space Coast where a Democrat appears to have defeated the incumbent, and for a Congressional seat Republicans are holding onto in South Florida.
The unofficial results will be confirmed at the state Elections Canvassing Commission meeting on November 17th.
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