Florida's early voting shatters first-day record

Florida shattered its opening day record for in-person early voting Monday, with at least 350,000 people casting ballots and election officials continuing to count statewide late into the night. Voting by mail, which started earlier this month, racked up more than 2.5 million ballots headed into Monday, more than double the 1.2 million during the same timeframe in 2016.

More registered Republicans than Democrats turned out to vote on the first day of early voting in Florida, according to data reviewed by The Washington Post.

The difference wasn't huge, with 43 percent of those showing up to vote being registered Republicans compared to 42 percent who were registered Democrats. The remaining voters in the group of 339,152 people who cast in-person votes on Monday were registered with a third party or were unaffiliated. 

Turnout on the first day of early voting in the critical swing state was up nearly 17 percent compared to four years ago when roughly 290,000 cast ballots, the Florida Department of State reported.

FAMU is once again host to an early voting site, located in the H. Manning Efferson Student Union Multipurpose Room, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily, now through November 1, 2020.  Election Day is Tuesday, November 3, 2020.