A line of voters at an early voting center in Florida.PETER FOLEY / EFE
A week after deciding who will be the president of the United States for the next four years, in one of the key entities to win the elections, voters have mobilized.
Since early voting centers opened on October 19 in Florida, more than 6.4 million voters have gone to the polls.
This represents 67% of the total number of voters who exercised their right in 2016. And with these figures, plus those expected on election day, the entity is approaching a participation record on November 3.
The crisis due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has revolutionized the campaign, has mobilized thousands of people who chose the two alternative options to the polling day queues: mail-in voting and early voting.
Most States have relaxed the requirements to vote by mail, without the need to present a justification that they used to ask for.
By the end of September, mail-in vote requests had already exceeded 2016 levels in nearly all territories.
And the latest figures from the United States Election Project on Tuesday indicate that 44.6 million have decided that route.
And in Florida, this figure has accounted for almost four million, of the 14 million voters the State has.
Early voting, which has involved queues of up to 11 hours in some states of the country these days, already has 22.3 million ballots throughout the country.
And in the southern state it has left more than 2.5 million to date.
In a week, Florida is about to reach the 2016 total early votes (6.5 million), which add up the votes by mail and the anticipated face-to-face votes, and the trend indicates that this number could be exceeded in the next seven days.
Florida is one of the states that makes public the partisan breakdown of its voters.
In the United States, the voter registry allows you to register with a party - Democrat or Republican or other minors - or as an independent.
This registration does not imply that you have to vote for one or the other, but it does reveal a trend.
Data from the Election Project reveal that six days after the close of early voting, registered Democrats who have voted account for 41%, while Republicans represent 37.1%.
The entity is key to winning the presidential elections, it has 29 electoral votes of the 270 that are necessary to win in the elections and is one of the most disputed by the two candidates, Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
The early voting figures, although they reflect a trend towards high total participation in the elections, are also a sign of the entity's dispute.
The polls give Trump a slight victory in the state, but in 2016 the American public learned to dismantle the polling board after Trump's surprising victory.
And what's more, the Florida race is so tight that the statistics from the polling platform, Real Clear Politics, change in favor of one or the other in a matter of days.
The ghost of Florida hovers over the last days of the electoral battle.
The dispute between George Bush and the Democrat Al Gore of the year 2000 in this state is still present: Bush obtained a minimum advantage, with 1,784 ballots in his favor.
Winning over the Hispanic electorate, especially Cuban (900,000 voters) and Puerto Rican, may mean winning the game in one of the entities with the most undecided vote in the country.
To get an idea of the battle for Florida, in 2012, Barack Obama triumphed there with only 0.9% difference against Mitt Romney and, in 2008, with 2.8% against John McCain.
Early voting data foresee a high turnout, exceeding the 139 million votes in 2016. But experts demand caution, as the pandemic has been able to encourage other forms of voting and that fewer people go to the polls on election day .
In any case, a week before the elections, almost half of all 2016 voters have already voted early, this is more than 65 million people across the country.
Subscribe here to the
newsletter
about the elections in the United States