It’s the Sunday before Election Day. How many people are going out of their way to tell you the whole shebang is already over?
Don’t believe a word of it. Florida has 13.7 million registered voters. As of Saturday morning, roughly 4.7 million had cast their votes.
And there is still plenty of time for anyone who’s duly registered to show up to vote. While early voting ended Saturday in Lake and Volusia counties, it runs through 4 p.m. today (Sunday) in Brevard, 7 p.m. in Seminole County and 8 p.m. in Orange and Osceola counties. On Tuesday — the official Election Day — polls will be open at hundreds of precinct locations across Central Florida.
That hasn’t stopped prediction markets and political prognosticators from going wild with claims that in races across Florida, the die is already cast.
It ain’t over
What are those claims based on? Modern political polling is so flawed it can’t be trusted. And many of the predictions are based on who has voted, not how they voted.
Those results are far from conclusive. Democrats had a wave of intense enthusiasm from vote-by-mail totals, but Republicans have been showing up in force at early voting sites. And voters who aren’t affiliated with either party are also turning out in significant numbers. In fact, Seminole County had beaten its early/mail balloting totals from the 2022 midterm by Friday — but as with other Central Florida ounties (with the possible exception of Orange County) the numbers don’t support any kind of landslide.
“A registration advantage doesn’t guarantee victory. Neither does strong early turnout. Registration numbers don’t determine who wins. The voters who show up and cast their ballots do,” said Semole Supervisor of Elections Amy Pennock, who was overseeing a canvassing board meeting on Saturday.
As usual, Pennock makes a good point. Does anyone really know what is going on in those voters’ heads, or how it might influence their vote?
Will some Democratic voters stay home because they believe a widely predicted “Blue wave” that regains control of Congress is in the bag? What about Republicans who have been disgusted by the anti-constitutional antics of President Donald Trump, or the never-ending shenanigans of Gov. Ron DeSantis? Neither of those men is on the ballot — but Trump’s endorsement is now sitting heavily on the shoulders of GOP candidates like gubernatorial hopeful Byron Donalds, and two of DeSantis’ worst cronies, whom he rewarded with Cabinet-level positions (James Uthmeier as attorney general, Blaise Ingoglia as chief financial officer) are now seeking the approval of the voters they’ve repeatedly disrespected and disenfranchised.
Meanwhile, some websites have firmly projected that Democratic candidates will lose in districts that were redrawn to heavily favor Republicans. But in one such district, Florida’s District 9, Republican Dan Green is not well-known despite a barrage of TV ads that are long on patriotic imagery but short on specifics. He’s running against Rep. Darren Soto, who was tagged in early October by Roll Call as one of the nation’s most vulnerable Democratic incumbents just because so many of his new constituents are Republicans.
Whoever made that prediction clearly hasn’t met Soto, who is popular, hard-working and so thoroughly moderate that he leads a bipartisan problem solver’s caucus devoted to common-sense consumer friendly legislation. If the local voters who know and like Soto make an effort to get to the polls, we think he stands a good chance of hanging on to his seat.
Another supposed long shot — James Pericola, a Democrat with deep roots in public service who’s running in District 11 — is up against Republican Joe Strada. Local voters probably know that Strada’s business is the target of multiple lawsuits from employees and consumers, including a projected class-action lawsuit accusing his company of shoddy electrical work that could eventually include thousands of homes.
The bottom line is this: Nobody will know for sure, until ballot tallies start to roll out on Tuesday night. While some issues are clearly partisan — including the country’s current economic misery, the long-running war in Iran and the attacks on the Affordable Care Act — others are grounded in basic decency. Regardless of party, Floridians want and deserve candidates with high personal integrity. They expect their leaders to respect voters’ wishes instead of trying to trample them (as Uthmeier has repeatedly done). Most of all, they want leaders who put their needs and priorities above those of billionaire donors and malignant special interests.
Last-minute lies
There’s one more thing to be concerned about, something supervisors across the region are hearing more and more about: Ugly rumors (many distributed by text message) that elections workers are somehow tampering with ballots. Voters need to know how difficult it would be to pull something like that off: Ballots are never left unattended, and are never opened and tallied outside of public meetings that are recorded and preserved, along with the paper ballots themselves. Florida has had rocky vote-counting experiences before, but local elections supervisors have learned from those decades-old mistakes. And the state’s 67 county elections supervisors are marching in lockstep to defend the integrity of the vote.
If you haven’t already voted, there is still time, and plenty of information to judge the candidates who best meet your own values. Ignore the voices who say your vote is pointless, or that your local races have already been decided. It’s not true. Pick your candidates, find your polling place, and vote — because it matters, and because you refuse to be taken for granted.
The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Krys Fluker, Executive Editor Roger Simmons and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. Use insight@orlandosentinel.com to contact us.