What Time Do Polls Open on Election Day in Florida? 7 A.M. - and 5.4 Million Floridians Have Already Voted
It is one of the most-searched questions in America today, and Florida's answer is simple: polls open at 7 a.m. Tuesday and close at 7 p.m. What is not simple is the crowd that will not be in those lines - 5,402,229 Floridians, nearly 40 percent of the state's registered voters, have already cast a ballot.
'What time do polls open on election day' sits at No. 6 on the Google Trends US list read by this desk this morning, with 'voting near me' at No. 5 - and in Florida the answer is 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. local time on Tuesday, November 3, at your assigned precinct. Anyone standing in line at 7 p.m. when polls close is still eligible to vote. In-person early voting has ended, so Tuesday's precinct - not an early-voting site - is the only in-person option left.
The lines will be shorter than the turnout, because so much of Florida has already voted. The Florida Division of Elections counts 5,402,229 votes cast as of Monday morning, out of 13,672,122 registered voters - almost 40 percent of the electorate before Election Day begins. Republicans hold the early lead in ballots cast, 2,174,589 to the Democrats' 2,039,578, and 3,460,854 of the votes came in person at early-voting sites, where Republicans cast 1,495,880.
The last loose end is the mail. Just over half a million requested mail ballots - 515,059 - had not been returned as of Monday morning, and for those voters the instruction from election officials is blunt: do not mail it now. Florida does not count ballots that arrive late, and the Postal Service does not guarantee arrival in time. A mail ballot can still be hand-delivered to the county supervisor of elections office by 7 p.m. Tuesday, or surrendered at the precinct so the voter can vote in person instead.
