FLORIDA — Early voting kicked off Monday in Duval and St. Johns Counties for the November General Election, and long lines of enthusiastic voters were seen at precincts. Early voters told Action News Jax they are eager to cast their ballots in what has been a highly charged presidential election season.
“I’m happy it’s coming to an end. I’m tired of listening to the negativity of each side,” early voter Jim Myer said.
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“It’s been crazy, chaotic, and kind of nasty,” early voter Connie Reins said.
As voters made their way to the polls, many expressed the same feelings about the current election climate.
“This is people are out here today. They are doing their due diligence and get it off their shoulder,” Reins said.
In St. Johns County, Supervisor of Elections Vicky Oakes said people were doing just that when nine of their precincts opened at 8 am.
“In the first two and a half hours we have already seen 2,000 voters,” Oakes said.
Meanwhile, in Duval County, Supervisor of Elections Jerry Holland reported a steady stream of voters at Duval’s 24 voting sites.
“We have over 31,000 voters which is about 5% of our votes who have cast a ballot in this race,” Holland said.
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With 650,000 registered voters countywide in Duval and another 230,000 in St. Johns, both Supervisors of Elections are seeing if early voting turnout will exceed the 2020 presidential election.
“We’re predicting higher turnout than 2020,” Holland said.
“We’ll have to wait and see. At the end of our very first day, we had 9,500 voters four years ago,” Oakes said.
Holland also addressed ongoing issues with the county’s election website, which has faced downtime since the primary election.
“It does not affect tabulation or reporting. It’s something we’ll have to evaluate. If this issue continues, then we’ll look at the other website provider for 2026,” Holland said.
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Early voting in Duval County ends on Sunday, Nov. 3. St. Johns County ends on Saturday, Nov 2 and election day is Tuesday, Nov. 5.
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