Florida voters so far have requested 413,000 absentee ballots for the Jan. 31 Republican presidential primary, says the Republican Party of Florida, which keeps daily tabs on ballot activity in the state’s 67 counties.

That total is roughly double the number of absentee ballots requested at the same stage before the 2008 Republican primary, said RPOF spokesman Brian Hughes, who called this year’s absentee ballot volume a sign of heightened GOP enthusiasm.

About 46,000 absentee ballots have been returned so far, Hughes said.

By comparison, about 122,000 people voted in last week’s Iowa caucuses and about 250,000 are expected for Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary.

In Palm Beach County, Elections Supervisor Susan Bucher said her office has mailed out 6,331 Republican primary absentee ballots and voters have already returned 1,034.

Bucher said a handful of Michele Bachmann supporters called last week to ask for new absentee ballots after Bachmann dropped out. The voters said they had marked their ballots for Bachmann but hadn’t mailed them in. Voters can request do-over ballots, but once a ballot is mailed in, the elections office accepts whichever ballot it receives first and won’t count others, Bucher said.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 9th, 2012 at 4:36 pm and is filed under 2012 campaigns, elections, George Bennett, Republican Party of Florida. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.