Mail In Ballots Pour In As Early Voting Starts

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TALLAHASSEE (CBSMiami/NSF) - More than one million mail-in ballots have already been cast in the general election, as early-voting polling locations opened Monday in most counties.

County elections supervisors reported that more than 1.2 million votes had been cast through vote-by-mail ballots as of Sunday afternoon, with 500,632 by Republicans and 483,019 by Democrats. Another 31,507 ballots had been cast by people registered with minor parties and 188,191 by Floridians without any party affiliation.

Another 1.95 million vote-by-mail ballots had been mailed out but hadn't been returned by voters.

In the 2012 presidential-election year, 2.38 million people voted by mail, 2.4 million used the early-voting option and 3.74 million went to the polls on Election Day.

All but 17 of Florida's 67 counties opened early-voting locations on Monday.

Early voting is mandated from October 29th through November 5th. However, county elections supervisors have the discretion to begin sooner and to keep early-voting locations open on November 6th.

The News Service of Florida contributed to this report.

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