(The Center Square) – Vote by mail numbers are down in Florida compared to the 2016 election when former President Donald Trump won his first term in office.
Florida county elections officials have mailed 2.03 million ballots to those who requested them, down from 2016, when there were 3.35 million ballots sent to voters, a 65% drop.
The Florida secretary of state’s office will be updating both vote by mail and early voting numbers on its website daily. Early voting in Florida started on Tuesday.
So far this election season, 477,778 Republican ballots have been mailed to county election offices (36.6% of the total), 555,450 Democratic (42.5%), 26,375 other (2%) and 247,038 nonaffiliated (18.9%) for a total of nearly 1.31 million votes or 64.5% of ballots mailed.
In early voting, there have been 202,036 ballots cast by registered Republicans, 108,832 by registered Democrats, 7,794 by other party registration and 58,373 nonaffiliated.
In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, 4.48 million voted by mail. There were 1.14 million ballots that were not submitted or 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%).
Thoe voting early numbered 3.87 million, split 1.43 million Republicans, 1.58 million Democrats, 779,627 unaffiliated, and 89,990 others.