Florida Sees Historic Early Voting Turnout
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MIAMI (CBSMiami) -- "Put your phones on mute as you go through the door," an announcement is heard Saturday morning as voters line up at a polling station in Miami.
With just a day before the early voting period ends, Floridians are taking advantage.
"I think we should decide who's going to decide for us," said Cathy Johnson. "And I think that's the most powerful thing that we can do is have the choice to decide who's going to make choices for us."
Around the sunshine state, 2.8 million people have already cast ballots -- a third of them coming from South Florida.
In Miami-Dade, the tally is at 606,000. In Broward, about 500,000. Overall, more than 5 million votes have been cast early in Florida, about a half a million more than in 2012.
"This if very important to me to vote. I know where we come from," said Elgin Wright. "I know what we went through to get to where we are today."
Wright doesn't miss a vote. He knows how powerful the African-American vote can be and campaigns are doing what they can to woo black voters, too, especially Hillary Clinton.
"If they do show up, Hillary Clinton is most likely going to win Florida and is most likely going to be the next president of the United States," said Charles Zelden, a professor at Nova Southeastern University.
He explains that not only are black voters crucial in determining the next president, so are Latin voters -- and they've registered in big numbers.
"What Barack Obama was, as a driver for votes in the African-American community, Donald trump, in the opposite direction, is driving the Latin vote," said Zelden.
