Tens Of Thousands Register To Vote In Florida During Extra Week
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TALLAHASSEE (CBSMiami/NSF) - Florida's voter rolls may jump by more than 60,000 people due to a federal judge ordering an extra week for registration.
Secretary of State Ken Detzner's office said 36,823 applications submitted since October 11th had been verified, and another 26,773 were in the verification process.
The registration deadline was originally October 11th, but U.S. District Judge Mark Walker extended it a week because of Hurricane Matthew.
"All Floridians who submitted a complete voter registration application in person by 5 p.m. today (Tuesday), or postmarked by today (Tuesday), will be verified and registered to vote by the start of mandatory statewide early voting, which begins on October 29," Detzner said in a statement.
Detzner's release didn't break down the registration applications by party.
The Florida Democratic Party went to federal court to get the deadline extended after Hurricane Matthew forced evacuations of residents and closed government buildings in the days leading up to the original October 11th deadline.
The latest registration numbers came as elections officials reported that 758,420 Floridians had already cast vote-by-mail ballots for the November 8th general election. Of those, Republicans accounted for the largest number of returned ballots, with 316,400. Democrats had gone slightly ahead earlier in the week, but the latest numbers showed 305,626 Democrats had returned vote-by-mail ballots. Also, ballots had been returned by 20,303 people registered with third parties and by 116,091 independents.
Related: State Election Officials Warn Rule Change Could Cause Chaos
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The News Service of Florida contributed to this report.