WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — WPTV News checked in with each of the five Supervisor of Elections offices in our viewing area to get a pulse of how the first week of early voting went for the 2024 general election.
They told WPTV News journalist Victor Jorges they're pleased with the turnout they saw during the first few days of early voting and the vote-by-mail ballots coming in.
They anticipate the turnout will be more than for the 2020 general election, potentially breaking records in several counties.
In Palm Beach County, Supervisor of Elections Wendy Sartory Link said a good number of people are also using the county's appointment system. She said at least 40,000 people have used this tool.
"We're very excited about that," Sartory Link said. "The system is reportedly working very, very well."
In St. Lucie County, the first couple of days of this year's early voting period saw double the same number of votes as that same period during the last election.
Supervisor Gertrude Walker wrote to Jorges saying, "To compare, during the 2020 General Election, after the first 3 days of Early Voting we had a total of 14,516 votes cast. However, for the 2024 General Election, a total of 29,357 votes were cast through Early Voting after the first 3 days! Currently, Early Voting totals are at 33,901 votes cast, surpassing Vote By Mail totals."
In Martin County, Supervisor of Elections Vicki Davis said, "We have had a very strong turnout for the first week of early voting. In comparing our numbers to the 2020 general turnout for early voting they are comparable. In 2020 we had an 84% overall turnout with 41% of our voters casting votes during early voting."
Davis said they plan to either "meet or exceed" that percentage.
Early voting sites in Indian River County are seeing wait times of 15 to 30 minutes. The longest wait is at their main library branch with 30 minutes on average.
In Okeechobee County, Supervisor of Elections Melissa Arnold said things are "fantastic," and they are seeing a record number of voters cast their ballot early.
In Palm Beach County, where 37% of voters, or about 337,000 people, have already cast their ballot early, Link said misinformation on social media has been a big red flag for this upcoming election.
"We are constantly having to combat, whether it's from candidates, parties, groups, a lot of it actually is coming from overseas on social media, where there's a lot of misinformation and then it picks up," Sartory Link said.
She said the best way to get around that misinformation is to get your information from each supervisor’s website, so it's coming straight from their office. They ask that if you see anything suspicious online, you give them a call so they can investigate it.
Jorges also asked about website outages their office experienced early on last week during the first few days of early voting. Sartory Link said it only impacted the portal that the public can see, but not the votes themselves.
"There is no correlation whatsoever between the tabulation of somebody's vote and the website," Sartory Link said.
She also told Jorges they have a backup plan in case the system goes down again.
