Early voting kicks off throughout Florida
In-person early voting for the Nov. 5 general election began Monday throughout Florida's 67 counties.
Broward County reported more than 17,000 ballots cast by early Monday afternoon and Miami-Dade County had more than 33,000 cast.
The Florida Secretary of State website hasn't yet listed early voting numbers.
Vote-by-Mail ballots earlier were sent out. So far the total is 2,115,159, and the deadline to apply for one is 5 p.m. Thursday.
As early voting kicked off this week, 1,169,420 million voters throughout the state have already returned mail-in ballots, according to the state Division of Elections website. Broken down by party, it was 427,249 Republicans and 499,709 Democrats and 219,00 with no party affiliate and 23,462 other parties.
Early voting continues through at least Nov. 2 in Florida. In South Florida, including Broward, Miami-Dade and Monroe, there is an extra day. On Nov. 4, people can cast their vote at the county elections offices.
Monday's early-voting onset appeared unaffected by glitches and outages to numerous county supervisor of elections' websites, including in Broward County.
Tallahassee-based vendor VR Systems, which operates the sites, said in a news release Monday that the voters' ability to cast ballots wasn't affected and there does not appear to be "any malicious activity."
Florida News Service reported said its customers began experiencing intermittent website outages last week and that "static web pages" have been put in place.
"These web pages are at the same website address and include links to the most critical services voters in those counties rely on," the press release said. Similar website issues occurred during the August primary.
Broward County Supervisor of Elections Joe Scott told CBS News Miami they are searching for a different vendor because of the problem.
Pinellas and Taylor counties will be allowed to continue early voting through Election Day, due to disruption caused by Hurricane Milton and Hurricane Helene.
To vote in person, voters need to bring a valid photo identification with their signature on it. Those who do not bring proper ID can still vote with a provisional ballot. It will count if the signature on the provisional ballot matches the signature in their registration record. Different types of identification are acceptable.
Here is information on early voting:
- In Miami-Dade County, there are 33 locations.
- In Broward County, there are 29 locations.
- In Monroe County, there are two locations.
- In Orange County, there are 22 locations.
- In Palm Beach County, there are 29 locations.
