Early Voting Closed With 227,185 Lee County Ballots Cast — About 45 Percent of the Electorate Voted Before Election Day
Lee County heads into Election Day with 227,185 ballots already cast in early and mail voting, while Florida's statewide early total reached 5,159,537 — with registered Republicans accounting for 40.68 percent of ballots cast and Democrats 37.66 percent.
Election Day in Lee County starts with nearly half the work already done. A total of 227,185 ballots had been cast in the county through the close of early voting on Saturday, October 31, according to the official Florida Division of Elections figures compiled in the Florida Early Vote Tracker — about 45 percent of the 504,641 voters eligible to vote in this election. Supervisor of Elections Jenna Persons-Mulicka has predicted final turnout of more than 60 percent, which means Tuesday's precinct voting decides how far past that line the county goes.
Statewide, 5,159,537 Floridians cast ballots before Election Day. By voter registration — which records the party a voter is registered with, not how anyone voted — Republicans accounted for 2,098,673 ballots, or 40.68 percent; Democrats 1,943,328, or 37.66 percent; and other and unaffiliated voters 1,117,536, or 21.66 percent. Those shares describe who has voted so far, not who is winning: no votes are counted or released before the polls close.
What remains is the Election Day file itself. Polls are open Tuesday, November 3, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at each voter's assigned precinct, and mail ballots can still be hand-delivered to the Elections offices until 7 p.m. Tuesday — they cannot be returned at precinct polling places. The Elections office says preliminary, unofficial local results will be released shortly after 7 p.m. Tuesday, and any voter whose mail ballot is flagged for a signature cure has until Thursday, November 5, at 5 p.m. to cure it.
