More Than 5.4 Million Floridians Have Voted: Republicans Lead the Early Ballots, Democrats Lead the Mail

Florida's early vote is final, and it is large. More than 5.4 million Florida voters had cast ballots as of Monday morning, the Florida Division of Elections reported in figures carried by the USA TODAY Network-Florida's Daytona Beach News-Journal on November 2 and read directly by the Florida Desk this run - almost 40 percent of the 13,672,122 voters registered as of September 30.

The Division's breakdown, as of 8 a.m. November 2: 5,402,229 total ballots - 2,174,589 from registered Republicans, 2,039,578 from registered Democrats, 1,049,454 from voters with no party affiliation and 138,608 from other affiliations. The two halves of the early vote lean opposite ways: Republicans lead early in-person voting 1,495,880 to 1,206,968 out of 3,460,854 cast in person, while Democrats lead returned mail ballots 832,610 to 678,709 out of 1,941,375. Registration is not a vote choice; the figures describe who has voted, not how.

One number in the file is a deadline, not a statistic: 515,059 mail ballots that were requested had not been returned as of Monday morning, the News-Journal reported. A mail ballot that is not received by 7 p.m. Tuesday does not count in Florida, and the Post Office does not guarantee timely arrival for a ballot mailed this late - the Division's advice, carried in the file, is to deliver it to the county elections office in person. In Duval County that office is at 105 East Monroe Street. Everyone else votes Tuesday at their assigned precinct, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., and any voter in line at 7 p.m. may vote.

This is the Florida Desk's 12:00 state file, staged in the 11:29 cycle. It closes the desk's early-vote book - the successive Division totals the desk has filed since October 31 - and the next Florida election file is Election Day itself.