With less than a week before Election Day on Tuesday, Nov. 3, states across the U.S. are seeing record voter turnout in early and absentee voting, and ballots cast as of Oct. 28 had already exceeded the total voter turnout in 2016.
In Florida, early votes as of Oct. 28 had come to approximately 72.2% of the total votes cast in 2016, well-ahead of the national average of 53%, according to statistics from the U.S. Elections Project. Early voting in the state saw nearly 3 million in-person votes with a week left until Election Day, and approximately 4 million of the nearly 6 million requested absentee ballots returned.
Brenda Karlin, of St. George Island, told the Panama City Reporter that she has already cast her ballot in this election, and that she made sure to vote in every race. While the presidential race is important to her, she said the local elections matter as well.
“Every single local election matters,” Karlin told the Reporter. “We’re voting for our state representative right now, and the judges that are up. We also have some very important ballot initiatives.”
In this important election, Karlin said that she feels her choices in voting came down to standing up for the nation’s founding principles.
“The things that are most important to me are standing up for our Constitution, Declaration of Independence, values of life and personal responsibility – self-governance,” she said.
If someone said they didn’t intend to vote, Karlin said she would have a question for them.
“I would ask them to answer this question: 'Who would you want to decide? Make decisions for you and your family? Do you want someone in Washington, D.C., to decide, or do you want someone, in my case, in Tallahassee to decide, or do you want to decide?'”
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