By now, most of us have probably gone to the various early voting tracking websites like this one.
http://elections.gmu.edu/...
It's great to go there for some overall state early voting information, but it's only good for a general understanding of early voting. I've been tracking the Florida numbers this past week mainly because each night they update their numbers for each county. This allows you to drill into the numbers to see where the early voters are coming from. It also allows you to see the daily ebb and flow of the early voting electorate and where they are coming from.
https://doe.dos.state.fl.us/...
Listed below are the top 10 early voting locations in terms of percentage increase in turnout for this week so far.
Counties | Location | 10/26 Early Votes | 10/27 Early Votes | 10/28 Early Votes | 10/29 Early Votes | Percent Change Sun.-Wed. | Percent Change Sun.-Mon. | Percent Change Mon.-Tue. | Percent Change Tue.-Wed. | 2004 County Results |
Palm Beach | Boynton Beach Library | 1,472 | 2,106 | 4,612 | 6,071 | 312.43% | 43.07% | 118.99% | 24.03% | 61%-39% Kerry |
Palm Beach | SW County Library | 1,851 | 2,604 | 5,046 | 6,658 | 259.70% | 40.68% | 93.78% | 24.21% | 61%-39% Kerry |
Palm Beach | Boca Raton City Hall | 1,889 | 2,594 | 4,549 | 6,118 | 223.88% | 37.32% | 75.37% | 25.65% | 61%-39% Kerry |
Broward | Weston Library | 3,259 | 5,148 | 6,218 | 7,558 | 131.91% | 57.96% | 20.78% | 17.73% | 64%-35% Kerry |
Palm Beach | Jupiter | 3,584 | 4,386 | 6,773 | 7,957 | 122.01% | 22.38% | 54.42% | 14.88% | 61%-39% Kerry |
Broward | SOE Lauderhill Mall | 5,136 | 6,106 | 8,203 | 10,705 | 108.43% | 18.89% | 34.34% | 23.37% | 64%-35% Kerry |
Glades | Glades Co. Courthouse | 188 | 239 | 311 | 373 | 98.40% | 27.13% | 30.13% | 16.62% | 58%-41% Bush |
Marion | Reddick Library | 847 | 1,090 | 1,323 | 1,638 | 93.39% | 28.69% | 21.38% | 19.23% | 58%-41% Bush |
Dade | Model City Library | 5,349 | 6,367 | 7,917 | 10,226 | 91.18% | 19.03% | 24.34% | 22.58% | 53%-47% Kerry |
Putnam | EV1 | 3,623 | 4,961 | 5,820 | 6,770 | 86.86% | 36.93% | 17.32% | 14.03% | 59%-40% Bush |
As you'll notice 7 of the top 10 locations are in counties won handily by John Kerry in 2004 and the top 6 were all in either Palm Beach or Broward counties. Besides small Gadsden county, these two counties gave Kerry his widest margins in 2004.
Tuesday, October 28th seemed to be the big early voting day in Palm Beach county. Even in the other Palm Beach county early voting sites, they had increases of anywhere from 25-50 percent Tuesday from their Monday numbers. I don't know what caused this spike on Tuesday, but it is quite astounding. Those top two sites in Palm Beach county literally doubled their turnout in one day. That can't be explained by just people deciding to vote on that day. There had to be a coordinated GOTV effort to get that many people out in one day.
If anyone has any first hand accounts of voting this past Tuesday in Florida, especially in Palm Beach county, I'd love to know what may have prompted this massive turnout.