RIVIERA BEACH, Fla. — Tuesday's primary vote in Palm Beach County showed a high number of people voting by mail and absentee ballot.
There were a lot of COVID-19 precautions at the elections tabulation center in Rivera Beach on Tuesday. But the workers and the vote-counting machines appeared to be working without any problems.
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About 100 poll workers did not come in, but there were plenty of extra poll workers ready to take their place, Supervisor of Elections Wendy Sartory Link said.
The bulk of the ballots in the primary were clearly from mail-in ballots. Many voters chose to drop the ballots off themselves, especially Tuesday.
Sartory Link said there were no issues with the post office delivering ballots, which included several deliveries on Tuesday. The last collection of mail-in ballots that were dropped off at election offices numbered 4,000.
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Turnout was expected to be close to 25 percent, but the majority of voters, 180,000, cast their vote by a mail-in ballot.
"We wanted people to know if you're nervous and not feeling comfortable, this is a way to be safe, and we do have a lot of people that we know requested a vote-by-mail ballot, and then still went and voted in the polls because it was their safety backup. So, we do know we have a lot of that, but a lot of people obviously sent it in," Link said.
All of this has many thinking about the presidential election in November.
Voter turnout is expected to be much higher for the November election with a large majority of voters choosing to vote by mail-in ballot.
Link is on track to keep her position as Palm Beach County supervisor of elections.
She's held the position since 2019 after being appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis. That position was previously held by Susan Bucher.
