Duval Early Voting Tops 232,400, Up 19 Percent From the 2022 Midterms, Elections Office Figures Show

Jacksonville's early vote is final, and it is bigger than the last midterms. More than 232,400 people cast ballots in Duval County by the end of early voting on Sunday, a 19 percent increase - 34,474 more ballots - compared with the 2022 midterms, according to the Duval Supervisor of Elections Office figures published in a November 2 community action alert read directly by the Local News Desk this run. A state early-vote tracker built on the Florida Division of Elections file puts Duval's county total at 232,183 through November 1, the same order of count by a slightly different cut.

By registration, Democrats lead Republicans among Duval's early and mail voters by 26,734 votes, the elections office figures show, although Republican voters have historically turned out in large numbers on Election Day itself. Overall turnout in the county, counting mail ballots and early voting, stands at 35.5 percent - just under the statewide turnout of about 39 percent the office reported. Registration describes who has voted, not how they voted.

What is left is Tuesday. Election Day voters must vote at their assigned precinct, polls run 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., and anyone in line at 7 p.m. may vote. A vote-by-mail ballot can no longer be counted on to arrive by mail: it must be returned to the Supervisor of Elections Office at 105 East Monroe Street in downtown Jacksonville by 7 p.m. on Election Day, and the office can be reached at 904-255-8683 with questions, the alert noted.

The county's 24 early voting sites are now closed. The desk's ballot-contents file (SQ-20261102-045) lists what Duval voters are deciding - the Senate special election, the governor's race, three statewide amendments and the 1-mill school tax - and this file closes the desk's Duval early-vote book, the local companion to the Florida Desk's final statewide count (SQ-20261102-036).