DUVAL COUNTY, Fla. – Between an assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump and an-all new presumptive Democratic nominee, a lot has changed in the last week and a half politically. What has also changed is the number of people switching parties in Duval County.
Duval County Supervisor of Elections, Jerry Holland, shared the numbers of people who switched parties with News4JAX.
“In a primary time, we do get some switching because people want to vote in some partisan primaries,” Holland explained. “We seemed to have really, a week of unusual increase. Which was the week immediately after the attempted assassination.”
From July 13, the day of the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, to July 22nd:
- 94 registered Democrats changed their party registration to Republican
- 152 voters registered as “No Party Affiliation” changed to Republican
- 37 Republicans changed to Democrat
Holland said with President Joe Biden’s announcement occurring just one day before the deadline to switch, it’s harder to gauge if that event played a role.
Holland said one thing is clear, voters appear to be energized.
“We want to see the voters excited about the election and both sides are,” Holland said. “Now more than ever, it seems like the Democrats are excited about the change in their nominee. The Republicans are excited about their nominee. So, we’re expecting a very good turnout in November, somewhere between 75 and 80%.”
While some things have been changing with voter registrations, Holland is also gearing up for Thursday, when the Supervisor of Elections Office will test the voting equipment for accuracy.
The pre-election test is open to the public and is required by Florida Statute 101.5612(2) ahead of the Aug. 20 Primary Election. The test verifies that the tabulators will correctly count votes cast.
The Logic and Accuracy test is a random sample of one precinct tabulator performed from each of the 14 Jacksonville City Council Districts, one Early Voting site, and all four high-speed tabulators (DS950).
“What’s important is, we seal the equipment up, so no one can tamper with it,” Holland said. “And we prepare it to go out on Election Day or early voting.”
The Logic and Accuracy testing happens in all of Florida’s 67 counties. Greg Benton is a registered voter and said he’s confident his candidate of choice will win in November. He’s just ready to cast his ballot.
“Every vote counts,” Benton said. “It might seem like one vote might not make a difference, but as we saw in the last one, it definitely does.”
Holland encourages people not to wait until Election Day to cast their ballot. He encourages early voting.
“November is going to be critical,” Holland said. “We had to reduce precincts due to a lawsuit last year because it wasn’t an equal amount of precincts per city council district. Which means there’s going to be less voting locations on Election Day. So, we increased the early voting sites.”
News4JAX reached out to supervisors of elections in other area counties. Nassau County Supervisor of Elections, Janet Adkins shared for the period of July 21 through July 23:
- 59 Nassau County voters changed their party affiliation
- 15 Nassau County voters changed their party to Democrat
- 18 voters changed to something else
Click here to see Clay County’s available cross-tab documents.
St. Johns County Supervisor of Elections Vicky Oakes said local races are the driving force behind party changes. Click here to see its numbers.