Vote-By-Mail Ballots Set to Go Out

Vote-By-Mail Ballots Set to Go Out

By The News Service of Florida

Potentially millions of ballots could hit the mail starting Thursday for the Nov. 3 general election in Florida. County supervisors of elections are required to send out their first big batches of vote-by-mail ballots between Thursday and Oct. 1.

Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections Craig Latimer said in a news release that his office will put more than 355,000 ballots in the mail on Thursday. Hillsborough County has already sent out more than 6,800 ballots to overseas and military voters. Overall, more than 4.7 million vote-by-mail ballots have been requested by Florida’s 13.89 million voters.

As of Wednesday, Democrats statewide had requested 2.18 million ballots to 1.48 million sought by Republicans. Another 990,341 had been requested by voters without party affiliations, and 55,640 were set to be sent to voters registered with third parties.

Ballots go out earlier to overseas voters and military personnel, and 2,136 had been returned Wednesday. Democrats had returned 1,190, Republicans had returned 526, and unaffiliated voters had returned 384. Another 36 had been completed by third-party voters.

In 2016, when 3.47 million vote-by-mail ballots were sent out, Republicans returned 1.08 million of the ballots and Democrats returned 1.03 million, as President Donald Trump won the state by 112,911 overall votes.

Florida Republicans have been working to counter Trump’s attacks this year on voting by mail in other parts of the country. With some states sending absentee-ballot applications to all registered voters and expanding election laws to allow voters to cast ballots from home amid the coronavirus pandemic, Trump has decried the possibility of election fraud. Trump, however, has said Florida — a crucial battleground state — is an exemplar of how mail-in voting should be conducted.

Florida requires voters to request mail-in ballots before elections officials can provide them. The state adopted its “no-excuse” absentee-voting system in 2002, and in 2016 switched the name from “absentee” to “vote-by-mail.” Floridians have until Oct. 5 to register to vote.

26 Responses to "Vote-By-Mail Ballots Set to Go Out"

  1. I don’t know how anyone trusts mail in ballots? In 2008 after thousands of military absentee were not counted, I made it a point for me to allows vote in person. If you cant trust the people that are elected to do their job with integrity, who can you trust but yourself.

  2. O/T – Ben Crump, sit down and be quiet… you are an affront to any law-abiding citizen in the United States of America… you promote violence against women pretending to be something else only for yourself satisfaction and monetary gain.

    Your victimization and racism claims are no longer relevant and people are moving to the side of the truth… and not your inciting violence.

    Ben Crimp, you are a disgrace to America and you are a disgrace to your profession.

  3. For decades and decades, we were able to pull this process off in just one day, with a larger voting population and inferior technology. Ask yourself why this has suddenly become an impossible task. Now we need weeks upon weeks of early voting, millions of mail ballots floating around, and of course billions in USPS bailouts. Funny how it seems that we’ve come so far, only to go backwards. I do not worry about foreign interference in our elections. I worry more about DC Establishment and Media PAC* interference.

    1. > For decades and decades, we were able to pull this process off in just one day, with a larger voting population and inferior technology.

      When, exactly, did more people vote in a Presidential election than in 2016?

      > I worry more about DC Establishment and Media PAC* interference.

      Probably you should be concerned about Citizens United and the notion that money == speech and corporations are people then. You should tell your Senator and Congress people that you want them to pass campaign finance reform.

      1. Read my post again… s l o w l y this time. And try it with an open mind instead of a hateful heart.

        Comprehension is a wonderful thing.

        1. Um.

          The reality is that more people voted in 2016 than in any past election result, thereby invalidating your fantasy that ‘for decades’ we had a ‘larger voting population’. What am I not comprehending?

          If you are worried about Media PAC interference (we agree on this point), you are essentially worried about special interest money flowing into elections; exactly the thrust of Citizens United. There are many models around the world to try to address this kind of thing, but the reality is that Republican’s steadfastly refuse to consider any style of campaign finance reform legislation. What am I not comprehending?

          1. There’s a difference between voting “population” and “people who voted”. Kind of like the number of cars in Tallahassee versus the number of cars that drive on a particular road… try to keep up.

            There’s also a difference between “influence” and “interference”. Again, focus on comprehension, and try to keep up.

            Actually, one of the few things I agreed with Justice Ginsburg on was Citizens United… and to be clear, both sides of the aisle are replete with campaign finance corruption. See numerous reports on the Clinton Corruption Foundation, Momo Cortez, and Omar to name a few. But again, both sides are guilty of this. The difference in our perspective, is that I can admit that reality.

          2. > There’s a difference between voting “population” and “people who voted”.

            Both of those things have done nothing but increase though! If both values are up in the past decades (they are), then your statement that

            ” For decades and decades, we were able to pull this process off in just one day, with a larger voting population and inferior technology.”

            is nonsensical; we did not have a larger voting population in the past decades, either in absolute terms of American citizens, or in terms of the number of people who actually voted. Both have increased.

            > Actually, one of the few things I agreed with Justice Ginsburg on was Citizens United… and to be clear, both sides of the aisle are replete with campaign finance corruption.

            But only one side of the aisle that actively blocks campaign finance reform bills, Republicans. That isn’t a matter of perspective, it is a matter of reality.

          3. You’re clearly an Alinsky study, particularly with respect to the game of semantics. You do need to check your facts though. Your perspective is not a “perspective” at all. Your blind allegiance to a warped ideology will forever block you ability to accept facts and reason. Thanks for playing though.

          4. @Edward Lyle –

            “You do need to check your facts though.”

            Which ones, in particular?

            https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/voter-turnout-in-presidential-elections

            In 2016 there were 136M ballots cast. Do you see any values greater than 136,000,000 before 2016?

            In so far as CU, Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Scalia and Kennedy voted in the majority. Excepting Kennedy, all strong conservatives.

            Here is a clip of the hyprocrite of the century, Moscow Mitch Mcconnel arguing for campaign donation limits. (In 1987!)

            https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4901636/user-clip-republican-mitch-mcconnell-argues-citizens-united

            Now here he is arguing against campaign finance reform.

            https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/433154-mcconnell-works-to-freeze-support-for-dem-campaign-finance-effort

    2. Encourage all your liberal friends to vote by mail. Approximately 20% get rejected due to user error. I’ll be in the voting booth on Election Day.

  4. So long as they aren’t sending out ballots blindly to everyone , this is t really any worse than usual. I’m a bit concerned that you dont need to prove identity when requesting, just name and birthdate. But i suppose intercepting ballots isn’t practical.

    1. California and many other Democrat States are doing just that. They are sending them to everyone on the Voter Rolls, Dead or Alive. This is FACT and has been proven many times over. One State, (I think NJ) has to redo their Votes because of that and to many were Fraudulent Votes.

        1. NO JON, what other States do is EVERYONES problem.

          On the News yesterday, in PA, they found Military Mail In Ballots in the Trash and ALL were Votes for TRUMP.

          Vote Tampering and Fraud should be LIFE in Prison.

  5. When the Democrats scream that their vote didn’t count and is lost in the mail or they didn’t put their signature on it or the signature doesn’t match or someone already voted with the same name twice…don’t say I told you so… What is so hard about physically going in to early voting and making your vote count? Wake up sheeple! Just another way the Democrats try to cheat…

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