Last Day to Vote Early in Florida: Most Counties Closed Saturday, but Miami-Dade Votes Sunday

Florida's early voting season is ending on two different days, depending on the county. The state's mandatory early voting period ran through Saturday, October 31, and most counties cast their final early ballots then - in Northeast Florida, for example, most sites closed Saturday while Duval County alone continued, and in St. Johns County the last day was Saturday, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., according to the county-by-county guides read by this desk.

South Florida is in the group that votes one more day. Miami-Dade County's early voting concludes Sunday, November 1 - its 28 sites open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., and during early voting any registered county voter may use any site, regardless of precinct. Several other Florida counties extended the same way, among them Hillsborough, Manatee, Pinellas and Sarasota in the Tampa Bay area, whose guides list Sunday hours. The statewide appetite has been large: more than 3.1 million Floridians had already cast ballots as of October 27, according to state data reported in the Northeast Florida guide, and this desk's own tracker files put the statewide total past 5 million by Saturday afternoon.

Two deadlines now matter more than the calendar. First, a completed vote-by-mail ballot must be RECEIVED by the voter's county Supervisor of Elections office by 7 p.m. on Election Day, Tuesday, November 3 - a postmark does not count, the FOX 13 guide stresses, so a ballot still in hand on Sunday belongs at an early voting site or the elections office, not in a mailbox. Second, Sunday is the last day of the any-site rule: on Tuesday, polls are open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. local time, voters must use their assigned precinct, and anyone in line by 7 p.m. will be allowed to vote.