A Manic Morning ElectionSmith Exclusive: Party, Race/Ethnicity, and Age Breakdown of >90k Floridians Who Successfully Registered to Vote During Extended Week following FDP Lawsuit

With an extra hour from daylight savings, I was able to crunch some new numbers…

According to the Florida Department of State, Division of Elections transparent by rather cryptic website, over 107k voters registered between October 11 and October 28.  According to the DSDE’s website, “Pursuant to a court order, Florida’s voter registration deadline for the 2016 General Election was extended from October 11 to 5:00 PM on October 18. The Department of State’s Division of Elections is committed to ensuring that all eligible Floridians who submitted a complete voter registration application by the extended voter registration deadline can vote.”

As the expert who crunched the numbers for the plaintiffs in that federal lawsuit (Florida Democratic Party v. Richard Scott) I’m obviously interested in the numbers of new registrants.

For some reason, DSDE’s website of daily activity reports provides only the “total number of voter registration applications verified and made active, and voter registration applications in the verification process, on or after October 11.”

Here’s the final running count provided by DSDE.

Date	Applications Verified & Active (Registered Voters)
10/11/16 – 10/28/16 (4:12 PM)	107,085

I’m not sure why October 11 registrations are provided as the start date of the running total, as that was the regular final day (bookclosing) to register to vote in Florida prior to the court’s extended week of VR.  The DSDE’s processed voter registration dates also run through October 28; these voters who were processed after the October 18 extension should be eligible to cast regular ballots in the November 2016 General Election, as the DSDE states that, “The Department will be providing updated daily numbers until the state provides statistical bookclosing (voter registration) reports for the upcoming General Election.” [emphasis added]

Below are the party and demographic breakdowns of the 90,695 Floridians who were successfully processed by the state’s 67 county SOEs and the DSDE and recorded in the statewide voter file as being registered to vote on October 12 (the first extended day per the court’s order) through October 18, 2016.

PARTY

Democrats: 28,357 (31%)

Republicans: 23,410 (26%)

NPAs: 36,414 (40%)

3rd Parties: 2,514 (3%)

 

RACE/ETHNICITY

Black: 10,782 (12%)

Hispanic: 19,239 (21%)

White: 45,050 (50%)

All Others: 15,624 (17%)

 

AGE

18-29: 32,448 (36%)

30-44: 22,939 (25%)

45-59: 18,042 (20%)

60-105: 13,810 (4%)

Other (Pre-Registrant; Over-105; Redacted): 3,456

 

These October 2016 figures comport to my expert report in the FDP v. Scott lawsuit, where I find that in 2012, the more than 116,000 individuals who successfully registered to vote in the final six days before the October 9, 2012 bookclosing were disproportionately more likely to be racial/ethnic minorities and younger (I was not asked to look at the party of the registrants by the plaintiffs).

Gaining a hour of sleep (work) feels pretty good, but not nearly as good as I feel having done my part to extend the voter registration deadline in Florida.  Pretty amazing what a little tweet can do…