If you believe numbers on a spreadsheet, then early voting is off to strong start in several Florida counties. With a full two weeks before Election Day on November 6, more than 1 million people statewide have already voted by mail or at an early voting location.
According to a Tuesday report from the Florida Division of Elections, a total of 73,436 people have returned mail-in-ballots in Hillsborough, with 89,972 doing the same in Pinellas.
The same report says that 9,258 Hillsborough voters showed up at early voting locations, compared to 2,707 in Pinellas.
VOTE EARLY AND OFTEN
Tampa Bay early voting starts on October 22
That means that as of Tuesday morning, 175,373 total ballots have been cast by mail or at early voting locations across both Hillsborough and Pinellas counties. And the margins are thin when it comes to counting ballots by party affiliation.
Of those Hillsborough and Pinellas ballots, 40 percent (71,711) are from Republicans and 40 percent (71,300) Democrats. Hillsborough and Pinellas ballots with "other" or no party affiliation assignations account for 18 percent (32,362) of that total.
The Tampa Bay Times says that Miami-Dade County saw about 15,000 people at early voting sites on Monday. That figure represents three times as many people who voted in the county on the first day of early voting four years ago. By comparison, in Hillsborough county, 8,927 voters voted on the first day of early voting in 2014, according to a memo from the Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections.
Across Florida, 111,759 people voted early on Monday, with Democrats accounting for 44 percent of all early voting ballots cast and Republicans accounting for 40 percent.
Pinellas led all Florida counties in vote-by-mail ballots, which totaled 1,033,346 statewide through Monday. Across the state, Republicans accounted for 44 percent of all returned mail-in ballots; Democrats accounted for 38 percent.
So yeah, numbers are tight. Do you need anything else to make you believe that your vote counts yet?
See the full report via myflorida.com and a rinky-dink screenshot of Pinellas and Hillsborough numbers below.
This article appears in Oct 18-25, 2018.