Nicolas Riancho was one of over 30,000 Alachua County voters to cast his ballot on Election Day, even as early in-person voting increases in popularity.
Since the 2016 General Election, early in-person voting has increased in Alachua County by roughly 42%. However, there are about half as many mail-in ballots since the 2020 Election.
“I think [voters] should strive to go the day on, but if for some reason you can’t, then early vote,” said Riancho, a 22-year-old master’s student at the University of Florida.
Riancho said he plans to vote on Election Day in the next general election, and there was no line to vote at his polling location.
However, the Reitz Union polling location at the University of Florida did have a line on Election Day. Voters at this location are mostly UF students, many of whom are not from Alachua County.
Typically, college students can register to vote in either their hometown or where they attend college, according to vote.gov. For voters that did not update their registration to Alachua County beforehand, they were given yellow registration forms to fill out.
This was especially important for students who requested a mail-in ballot but never received it.
Over 3 million Florida registered voters voted by mail, but for some, voting-by-mail does not match the excitement of going in-person.
Dave Gilland, 65, said he voted early in-person last week to avoid a possible long line, but in past elections voted on Election Day.
“I think probably people are charged up, and they want to do it. They’re excited about it or anxious about it,” Gilland said of the rise in early in-person voting.
In Florida, 5,363,879 people voted early in-person, comprising almost half of the roughly 11 million ballots counted, according to the UF Election Lab. The early voting total was not quite as high as the pandemic election of 2020, but it did surpass all other previous Florida general elections, according to the lab’s data.
Gilland compared early voting to Christmas because everyone wants to open their presents earlier, and now vote earlier.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
