Florida Early Vote Reaches 5,272,601 Ballots as the Last Early Sites Close, With Miami-Dade at 485,722
The newest statewide count put 5,272,601 ballots in before Election Day — 10 percent ahead of 2022 at the same point — with the Republican registration edge narrowed to 2.8 points and Miami-Dade already past its entire 2022 early vote.
Florida's early vote closed on Sunday evening with the newest statewide count — compiled from the Division of Elections' data with the latest day's figures via civicAPI — showing 5,272,601 ballots returned through November 1, up 113,064 on the day and 10 percent ahead of the same point in 2022. It is a materially bigger number than the state's Sunday-morning count of 5,159,537 that this desk reported at midday, because it carries the final day of in-person early voting in counties like Miami-Dade and Broward that ran through Sunday.
The party-registration shape narrowed to the tightest reading of the cycle: Republicans had cast 2,136,362 ballots (3 percent more than at this point in 2022), Democrats 1,986,806 (13 percent more) and unaffiliated and other voters 1,149,433 (21 percent more) — a registered R+2.8 gap against R+6.7 at the same point in 2022 and R+10.3 in 2024. Registration is not a vote, and the ballots themselves stay sealed until counting; what the figures measure is who has already done the work of voting. By method, 3,344,978 ballots were cast in person and 1,927,623 returned by mail.
Miami-Dade County, the state's largest electorate, finished early voting with 485,722 ballots — 104 percent of its ENTIRE 2022 early vote, with a Democratic registration edge of 2.7 points in the county — and Broward followed with 415,681 ballots, 106 percent of its 2022 early total. With the 28 Miami-Dade sites closed at 7 p.m. Eastern, the remaining doors are narrow ones: mail ballots must reach the supervisor of elections by 7 p.m. on Election Day, Tuesday November 3, and in-person voting moves to assigned precincts, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
