Election update: Orlando-area turnout lags, Republicans embrace early voting

ORLANDO, Fla. — After two days of early voting, turnout in the Orlando metro area appeared to lag behind other parts of the state – even as some counties boasted about record numbers.

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According to Department of Elections data, 12.3% of registered voters in Seminole County, 12.4% in Orange County and 13.7% in Osceola County had cast a ballot by the time locations opened Wednesday.

Across all counties, the average turnout was 15.1%, though that included counties that had not yet started reporting early voting data.

In Seminole County, Supervisor of Elections Chris Anderson said he has been noticing voter apathy as he monitors different early voting locations, including watching some people show up and decide not to vote.

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“They want to do a little more research,” Anderson said. “”I don’t see the same enthusiasm [compared to past elections].”

Anderson said the past two presidential cycles have produced consistent turnout numbers – approximately 78.5% -- reinforcing his belief that more people will show up on election day itself, if they don’t vote early.

One of the most noticeable trends through the first few days of voting so far has been a newfound sense of enthusiasm from Republicans, who have seemingly embraced early and mail-in voting far more than they did in 2020, when conspiracies abounded.

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Many Florida counties have reported nearly half as many mail-in ballots so far as they collected during the entire 2020 cycle from Republicans. Democrats hadn’t submitted as many, relative to four years ago, but the party embraced mail-in voting during the last cycle, giving it a longer runway.

The lone exception was Sumter County, home of The Villages, where Democrats quickly flooded the elections office with mail-in ballots, leading to a 33% overall turnout for the party before Wednesday morning.

“Each meeting [the chairman] would say ‘Trump wants us to vote early,’” Fran Greene, Headquarters Captain for the Flagler County Republican Party triumphantly said.

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For many elections preceding the Trump era, Republicans led early and mail-in turnout. Greene said there was no organized effort to push their voters toward mail-in ballots, specifically, this time around.

“What I’ve seen is a lot of people who don’t care – who know we’ve got to vote for Trump,” she said. “There’s a whole different attitude now.”

Greene’s parting comment – the numbers now won’t compare to the final two weeks – echoed the message from Seminole County’s Democratic party, commonly referred to as the SemDems. As of Tuesday morning, their turnout was a tenth of a percentage lower than their GOP counterparts, though significantly higher than NPA and third-party voters.

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“Saturday and Sunday we expect a packed house,” Chairwoman Lynn Moira Dictor said. “We are doing everything we can. We are texting people, we are phone banking people.”

Across the border in Orange County, the lower turnout rates contrasted with the lines seen at most early voting sites and announcements about newly-set voting records. Some theorized that differences in processing times, especially for bigger counties, could be leading to the appearance of a disconnect.

Still, with the presidency, a senate race and six constitutional amendments on the line, it underscored the necessity for both parties to do as much as they could to get their voters to cast ballots – and reach out to NPA voters who might align with them, and who have so far left a lot of potential votes on the table.

“This year it’s going to be closer than ever and we need to go,” Dictor said.

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