Absentee Voting in Miami, Dade County, Florida

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Miami-Dade County, Florida’s largest election jurisdiction, which attracted attention on Election Day for long wait times at the polls, also experienced a dramatic rise in the number of absentee voters in November 2012 as compared with 2008.

According to a recent report from the Miami-Dade County Supervisor of Elections, in Miami-Dade 243,953 absentee ballots were cast in 2012, up 37 percent from the 177,550 such ballots cast four years ago. Approximately 170,000 absentee ballots were received in the 15 days before Election Day and, of these, more than 55,000 were received on Election Day or the day before. This challenged staff resources, especially since only 60 out of 150 staff hired to open absentee ballots consistently showed up to work as scheduled.