An early ballot collection box. | AP Photo Florida's Democratic voters outnumbering GOP voters in submitting mail-in ballots But Republican voters outpacing Democrats in absentee ballot requests

In the race to return mail-in ballots, Democratic voters have surpassed Republican voters, according to the latest data released by the state elections office.

The data shows that 210,734 Democratic voters submitted mail-in ballots compared to 210,707 Republican voters.


Although it's only a 27-ballot gap between the two groups of voters, Democrats have historically lagged far behind Republicans when it comes to absentee ballots. Democrats typically fare better with early in-person voting, which begins next Monday, while Republicans generally have stronger turnout on Election Day.

A total of 77,289 voters registered as No Party Affiliation and 14,359 voters of other parties have also sent in ballots through the mail, according to state officials.

In all, 513,089 voters in Florida have submitted mail-in ballots, or about 21 percent of the nearly 3 million who applied to vote through the mail.

But Republican voters have, so far, requested more mail-in ballots than Democratic voters, according to the data compiled by the state Division of Elections.

GOP voters requested 981,773 ballots; Democrats asked for 941,157 ballots, and those with no major party affiliation have requested 504,518 ballots.

The numbers are on pace to set records, but it’s unclear at this point how much that will remake the electorate.

So far, of those who have requested ballots, 26 percent of Republicans voted either early in-person or on election day in the 2012 presidential election. For Democrats, one-quarter of those submitting mail-in ballots voted by a different means in 2012.

That means that a big chunk of voters requesting vote by mail ballots are not new voters for either party, but represent a shift in the method in which they are voting. So instead of voting early in-person or on Election Day, they are voting by mail. That's largely because both major parties and outside groups have run campaigns encouraging their supporters to request vote by mail ballots.

"Both major parties are essentially cannibalizing early and election day voters in order to increase their [vote-by-mail request] totals," read a memo earlier this month prepared by Ryan Tyson, a Republican who works as vice president of political operations for Associated Industries of Florida.

It’s also no guarantee that those requesting ballots will actually return them, a dynamic that is especially true for the largely Democratic-leaning low income and minority voters, who are often less politically active.

In the August primary, more than 1 million Florida voters failed to return their absentee ballots after requesting them from the state.

Based on the Real Clear Politics average of polls, which has Hillary Clinton topping Donald Trump 47-43, she would an early lead of just under a 100,000-vote lead among mail-in voters.

