Early voting in Florida, explained: Required days, optional days and hours
Florida voters do not have to wait for Election Day. Every county must offer in-person early voting for elections with state or federal races on the ballot. The rules for that window are set by state law, and they have changed several times.
Required and optional days
Under Section 101.657, Florida Statutes, early voting must start on the 10th day before the election and end on the 3rd day before. That is eight required days, ending on the Saturday before a Tuesday election.
Each county supervisor of elections may add days. The law lets them also open on the 15th, 14th, 13th, 12th, 11th or 2nd day before the election. The 2nd day is the Sunday before Election Day.
Daily hours and locations
Each site must be open at least eight hours and no more than 12 hours on each early voting day. Sites can include the supervisor's offices, city halls, public libraries, fairgrounds, civic and community centers, courthouses, stadiums, convention centers and government-owned senior centers. Sites must be spread out to give all voters in the county a fair chance to vote, and they must be named by the 30th day before the election, according to the statute.
For local elections held without state or federal races, supervisors may offer early voting at their discretion.
The 2011 cuts
The window has shifted over time. In 2004, early voting started 15 days before an election, and a 2005 change set it at 14 days, according to PolitiFact. A 2011 law, HB 1355, cut early voting to eight days and let counties offer six to 12 hours a day. The law also ended voting on the Sunday before Election Day, Governing reported.
The 2012 lines and the 2013 fix
In the 2012 presidential election, long lines formed in several urban counties, especially Miami-Dade, and some voters waited more than eight hours, according to Governing. Gov. Rick Scott declined to extend early voting that year, PolitiFact reported.
In 2013, the House passed a fix 118-1 on the first day of session, WGCU reported. Scott signed HB 7013 in May 2013. It set a mandatory minimum of 64 hours over eight days and allowed up to 168 hours over 14 days. It let counties choose whether to open on the Sunday before Election Day and widened the list of allowed sites, according to Governing.
The statute's history shows lawmakers have amended the section since, most recently in 2020. The eight-to-14-day framework remains in place.
How we reported this: This explainer was drafted with AI assistance from the sources linked above, and every fact was checked against those sources. See an error? Contact us and we'll correct it.
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