More than 31,000 Suffolk voters have cast ballots during early voting since the polls opened on Saturday, according to the Suffolk County Board of Elections.
Turnout has been brisk at every one of Suffolk’s 12 early voting polling places, including the site in Riverhead Town, where voters lined up outside the senior center hours before doors opened on each of the three days of early voting so far.
This is the first presidential election in New York since early voting became law last year.
In 2016, there were 677,167 votes cast in the presidential election in Suffolk, according to Suffolk BOE data.
Nearly 193,000 Suffolk voters applied for absentee ballots for the 2020 general election as of yesterday, according to data provided by the Suffolk County Board of Elections.
There were more than twice as many absentee ballot applications from registered Democrats than Republicans: 91,651 Democrats versus 43,539 Republicans. Absentee ballot applications from voters not affiliated with any political party numbered 47,212.
Absentee ballot requests from Democrats also outnumbered requests from Republicans by more than a two to one margin in the First Congressional District, where 47,640 Democrats and 23,731 Republicans requested absentee ballots; 24,902 “blank” or unaffiliated voters also requested absentee ballots. A total of 102,185 voters in the First CD requested absentee ballots as of yesterday.
Similar ratios were seen in the First Senate District, where 49,568 voters requested absentee ballots: 23,505 Democrats, 11,068 Republicans and 12,042 blanks.
In the Second Assembly District, 19,294 voters have requested absentee ballots: 8354 Democrats, 4871 Republicans and 4,828 blanks.
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