Elections
Overall turnout landed between the county’s 2022 and 2024 primaries. Bender said early voting broke records this cycle, though vote-by-mail participation continued a statewide decline tied to Florida’s 2021 law requiring voters to renew mail-ballot requests more frequently.
- Vote-by-mail returns were still coming in on Wednesday, but the early picture: Bender said the county sent out a little over 23,000 mail ballots and had roughly 15,000 returned, just under a 75% return rate. That’s a bit higher than the 2024 general election, when the county sent out more than 40,000 mail ballots and saw somewhere north of 35,000 returned.
Here’s what voters need to know heading into November:
- Early voting expands to 13 days, using the same 10 early voting sites
- Hours extend by 30 minutes, running 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. each day
- Voter registration books reopen, and voters can change party affiliation ahead of the deadline
- Voters with an “all elections” mail-ballot request are automatically set to receive a November ballot; mail ballots go out in early September
- Ballot design is underway now, pending final language on Amendment 3, expected by the end of this week
How the count gets verified: Bender’s office is auditing 100% of precincts, 100% of ballots, and every race, comparing hand-scanned results in the ClearBallot audit system against the tabulation system. In 2024, that audit matched the official results at a 99.998% rate.
- Full election results are posted at ricksblog.biz, and detailed county data is available at EscambiaVotes.gov.
