RIVIERA BEACH, Fla. — Angela Brown was among the voters who dropped off her vote-by-mail ballot Friday at the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections, making sure her vote was counted.
The mail-in ballots deposited at the drop box will end up at the election warehouse in Riviera Beach.
Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Wendy Sartory Link said Friday that ballots cast in the 19 municipal elections throughout the county began arriving this week.
As many as 127,000 ballots were mailed to voters, likely a carryover from the November presidential election.
"I think because, with this one, you had so many more people who signed up for vote-by-mail that they now are still on that cycle, because many of them requested to continue," Sartory Link said.
One change from November is an immediate audit of the ballots after they've been counted, a process by which, Sartory Link said, can reduce a recount from 50 days to three.
The volume of ballots this time is expected to be considerably less than the presidential election.
Sartory Link said she believes the vote-by-mail system in Palm Beach County is safe and works the way it is currently.
But Republican lawmakers, including Gov. Ron DeSantis, have proposed some tighter restrictions on mail-in voting this legislative session, including possibly reducing collection locations for mail-in ballots and not allowing multi-year requests for vote-by-mail ballots.
Sartory Link said that could be costly for the county, considering how many people have already signed up for multi-year requests.
"It will be expensive, because we will need to notify all those people who believe they have a vote-by-mail still on file," she said.
