LAUDERHILL, FLA. (WSVN) - Voting season for the election is around the corner, and Broward County is getting a head start by sending mail-in ballots to voters who requested them. While all voters living in Broward County who requested a mail-in ballot should be receiving theirs soon, the first batch of ballots are set to be delivered Thursday.
Peter Antonacci, the Broward County Supervisor of Elections in Lauderhill, has been printing and preparing the mail-in ballots for several weeks, and they have been loaded onto the U.S. Postal trucks to be mailed to the voters who requested the ballots.
About 240,000 mail-in ballots are going out Thursday and another 40,000 to 50,000 ballots will be mailed out in the upcoming weeks as voters continue to send in their applications requesting to vote by mail.
In Broward County, more than 300,000 requests have been made to vote by mail. Antonacci said about 100,000 more people requested to vote by mail than this time last year.
Christina White, Supervisor of Elections for Miami-Dade County, said, “Voting by mail is a method that has continued to increase with each passing election because of the convenience of it, so we’ve seen an upward trend over the years. However, with this particular election, with COVID, more people are also signing up for it.”
“Six weeks ago, we mailed to every Broward voter, about a million voters who did not ask for a vote-by-mail ballot, a postcard that said, ‘Would you like a mail-in ballot?’ and what you see behind me is the process of those postcards coming back to us saying ‘Please send me a vote-by-mail ballot,'” he said. “People are a little uncomfortable showing up in person for some place that could have crowds, so they’re availing themselves to the convenience of kitchen table voting.”
The deadline to request a mail-in ballot for the Aug. 18 primary election is Aug. 8.
White said, “We’re anticipating that the large majority, possibly half of our voters will vote by mail in this election.”
Antonacci said, “We believe, and all my supervisors believe, it’s a very safe and secure process, so if you ask for a ballot and you sign it and bring it back, we have systems in place that will validate you’re the right person that’s executed that ballot.”
Every ballot has a barcode that is read by computers as it is processed. Broward County expects more than 100,000 more ballots going out next month ahead of the election.
Antonacci prioritized election security, saying, “Don’t let anyone else fill out your ballot. Don’t let anyone else help you with it unless it’s a family member, and certainly don’t give your ballot to a stranger.”
For the general election, which takes place Nov. 3, the deadline to request a mail-in ballot is Oct. 24.
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