JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Early voting sites will open to registered voters in Duval County in less than a week.
But voters are already utilizing the tool they have available: vote-by-mail ballots.
Supervisor of Elections began sending them out on September 24th, nearly 3 weeks ago.
When Action News Jax Courtney Cole last checked the vote-by-mail numbers on the Supervisor of Elections website, more than 66,000 ballots have already been returned.
Action News Jax Courtney Cole asked Mike Hogan, Duval Supervisor of Elections what’s being done to prepare for early voting, which begins Monday, Oct. 19.
“We are already delivering equipment to the early voting sites. We’re getting signs up, everything you would normally do to get ready for an election,” Hogan said.
Robert Phillips, the Chief Elections Officer, told me the tabulators were successfully checked during Logic & Accuracy testing last Friday.
They are nearly 20 early voting sites, including the two newest sites: The Prime Osborne Center and FSCJ Deerwood Campus.
Our neighbors in some of our local Georgia counties have already begun early voting.
When Cole asked if they plan to make any changes in Duval, based on what they’ve seen in Georgia already, Hogan said, “We’re looking for a bigger crowd. We knew that all along. So we were prepared for that, as we were trained 2200 people right now. So we’re going to have enough staff on site.”
In order for early voting days and election day to go as smoothly as possible, Hogan told Action News Jax voters need to be familiar with the ballot.
Hogan said sample ballots have been mailed out to every voter in Duval County.
The most helpful thing you can do is get it filled out before you come out to vote to make the process quicker.
If you don’t see yours in your mailbox yet, you can also find it under, “My voter status” on the Duval Supervisor of Elections website.
Hogan told Action News Jax Courtney Cole he’s expecting more and more people to participate in early voting, the same way, “more and more people voted by mail this time.”
In Duval County, Hogan said they’re expecting a 90% turnout in this year’s general election.
If voters turn out as predicted, the Supervisor of Elections said it will be a first.
When Cole asked Hogan how soon we could know the final count for Duval, he replied, “Well, we always give out unofficial results. We’ll give out unofficial results that evening of the third.”
But even after that, Hogan said military, overseas, will have 10 extra days to get their ballots in.
“Now typically, provisionals and the mail ballots that are coming in from the military, doesn’t really change races,. But as you know, Florida, we’re kind of a split state. We had three recounts in 2018,” Hogan said.
A voter Cole spoke to today said they think it’s going to take a while before we know if Duval county voted red or blue.
“I think it’s going to take a little bit longer. You’re gonna have a lot of mail-in votes,” Carlton James said.
Dathras laughed a little bit before she told Cole, “I think it’s going to be a while.”
Hogan said they are trying to do everything can to stay ahead of the game.
“On the second day of early voting, we have all of our I.T. folks in the field making sure everything is going to work,” Hogan said.
As for how long they’ll be there, counting election day votes:
“We’re going to work until we finish them,” Hogan said.
Cox Media Group
