Voting by mail expected to be popular choice this year

Reporter: Nicole Gabe Writer: Jackie Winchester
Published: Updated:
Ballots in midterm elections. Photo via WINK News.
Credit: WINK News

Stand in line or mail it in? Those are the choices we have when we cast our ballots in August for the Florida primary and in November’s general election.

There’s already a clear trend of how people plan to vote this year, so Southwest Florida counties are getting ready.

Lee County Supervisor of Elections Tommy Doyle predicts 60 percent of all registered voters will vote by mail.

“I can see in this upcoming election we will have in-person voting and vote by mail, and vote by mail will be the biggest part of it,” he said.

Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties will push to make that number much higher by sending every registered voter a mail-in ballot.

That isn’t an option in Collier County.

“We do not have the resources to do all mail ballots this year,” said Jennifer Edwards, Collier County supervisor of elections.

In other words, they don’t have the money.

The cost of the paper, printing and postage for hundreds of thousands of registered voters on short notice could only happen with help from the state.

The other hurdle is convincing people who vote by mail that their vote will count.

“People don’t trust the post office,” Doyle said. “People don’t trust people handling it, worried about their ballots getting thrown away.”

He said people should be “very confident” that their mail-in ballots will be counted.

“It’s going to be interesting to watch as we get closer to Election Day, for both the August primary and general election to see what changes for all of us,” Edwards said.

To get a mail-in ballot, you can visit the Supervisor of Elections website in the county where you live.

LINKS
Lee County | Lee mail-in ballot information
Collier County | Collier mail-in ballot information
Charlotte County
DeSoto County
Glades County
Hendry County

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