Record voter turnout expected in Duval County

Duval County Supervisor of Elections Mike Hogan is expecting record voter turnout at the polls on Election Day, after early voting and mail-in ballots hit record numbers.

Story: 4,300 Duval County voters get wrong polling location info

Hogan hasn’t been getting much sleep lately, as he readies his Election Day team of 1,900 people for what’s to come.

More than 227,000 voters took advantage of early voting in Duval County, exceeding the early turnout record of 183,000 in 2008.

Those ballots indicate a very tight race in Duval County, with numbers showing a slightly larger turnout for Democrats.

More than half of all registered voters in Duval, St. Johns, Clay and Nassau counties have already voted early or by mail.

“This is a very unusual race. I’ve talked to supervisors all over the state that have done multiple presidential races and they said there’s been nothing like this in the past,” Hogan said.

Hogan said he’s added more security to the polls this year.

“There’s almost a fear out there. There’s a lot of concern about fraud. So I think all that has heightened this election,” Hogan said. “This year, because of the nature of things that we’ve seen around the country, we do have more security. It’ll be invisible to our voters, but we do have more security on the streets for this election.”

Hogan said Duval County’s 280 vote tabulators all got a full checkout by the information technology department before they went out.

Three weeks ago, a state audit validated that the county’s tabulators were counting accurately.

Cox Media Group