In August, Santa Rosa County had roughly 23,600 people vote in the primary.
Election Day is just over 24 hours away and already over 37,000 have voted.
Supervisor of Elections for Santa Rosa County Ann Bodenstein reported on Sunday that 22,696 took advantage of the eight days of early voting.
So far 19,439 absentee ballots have been requested and as of Nov. 4 14,447 have been returned.
Bodenstein has predicted a 90 to 95 percent voter turnout and the early numbers are supporting her prediction.
If Bodenstein’s prediction is correct it would surpass the record of 81.6 percent of the county voting back in 1968.
Ironically the last presidential election drew 71.4 percent of the voters in Santa Rosa County to cast a ballot.
Currently of the almost 113,600 registered voters roughly 32 percent have voted.
Many of which were waiting to vote as early as 7 a.m. during the early voting period.
“I would get here as early as 6 a.m. to open the office and we already had people waiting to vote,” Bodenstein said. “There were times we had lines, but it didn’t seem to bother anyone.
“The lines moved in a steady fashion.”
Despite the big race on Tuesday’s ballot being the race for President of the United States there is two local races on the ballot as well.
Local races involve Santa Rosa County Sheriff Wendell Hall facing opposition from Chris Roper to see who will serve the next term as sheriff in Santa Rosa County, while Charles Elliott and Jenny Granse are running to see who will replace retiring Santa Rosa County School Board Member JoAnn Simpson, who currently represents District 4. Besides the Presidential and local races, there will be nine constitutional amendments as well as judge retention votes.
The Amendments on the ballot this year focuses on – health care services, veterans disabled due to combat injury getting a homestead property tax discount, a state government revenue limitation, property tax limitations when property values decline, state courts, prohibition on public funding of abortions, religious freedom, homestead property tax exemption for surviving spouse of military veteran or first responder, tangible personal property tax exemption, an additional homestead exemption for low income seniors, and the appointment of student body president to board of governors of the state university system.
According to Bodenstein, Governor Rick Scott could extend voting hours in the state of Florida by up to two hours, but that decision would not be made until around 1 p.m. local time on Election Day.
The Santa Rosa Press Gazette will be posting online returns election day and will have complete coverage of the election returns from the Santa Rosa Supervisor of Elections Office.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Election Day awaits