Elections
Escambia County Supervisor of Elections Robert Bender joined me this last week on Rick’s Blog Live to walk through where the county stands heading into the November 3 general election, and the short version is this: the primary tabulation checked out, and the county is giving voters more time and more ways to cast a ballot than it has in years.
Primary Accuracy
Bender’s office ran every primary ballot through an independent audit system after the election. The result was a 99.99 percent match between the county’s tabulators and the audit, with just twenty-nine individual votes out of roughly two hundred thousand ballots showing any difference, mostly ovals that weren’t filled in cleanly enough for one system to read the same way the other did.
“Twenty-nine votes off, over ninety-nine point nine nine percent. We’ve had that in every election that’s been used, so we know we’ll show that the results are being properly tabulated in November.”
- That accuracy came despite a wave of new poll workers this cycle. Bender said the county had a little over 500 election workers trained and ready, then lost roughly 50 the week before the primary when they called out. His office scrambled to fill the gap from the pool of already-trained backups.
Key Dates Voters Need to Know
- Oct. 5: Deadline to register to vote (online by end of day, or postmarked if mailed)
- Oct. 8–9: Sample ballots go out in the mail to voters without a vote-by-mail request on file
- Oct. 19–31: Early voting, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., at all ten county locations; voters can use any location
- Oct. 22: Last day to request a vote-by-mail ballot
- Nov. 3: Election day, polls open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at your assigned precinct
Why The Extra Early Voting Days Matter
For the general election, Escambia moves from eight days of early voting to 13. Sample ballots landing about a week before early voting opens gives voters time to research the two-sided ballot, which includes three constitutional amendments and a county referendum on the Local Option Sales Tax, before they head to a poll.
- Turnout is the open question. Bender said midterm, gubernatorial-cycle elections typically pull turnout in the low 50s in Escambia County, but the last open gubernatorial race, eight years ago, hit 61%. In 2018, little-known Republican Congressman Ron DeSantis faced the Democratic mayor of Tallahassee, Andrew Gullum.
- The county already ran about two points ahead of the state average in this year’s August primary.
Vote By Mail
Military and overseas voters are already moving: The office mailed roughly 1,800 vote-by-mail ballots and emailed another 700 to military and overseas voters last week. Domestic vote-by-mail ballots, an estimated 22,000 to 23,000 of them, are being inserted and mailed out this week.
- For more information, visit escambiavotes.gov.
