More than 750,000 Floridians have already voted by absentee ballot. GOP still holds 6-point edge

The daily update in the absentee-ballot voting war is like the others: Bigger than the day before; and Republicans leading in ballots already cast, but not like they used to. Republicans are ahead by 5.3 percentage points (note: it looks like 6% in the numbers below due to rounding). But that's down compared to this point in 2008, when their cast ballots were 17 points higher than Democratic absentee ballots cast, according to Democrats.**

Still, it's a GOP lead. Expect that to change when in-person early voting, which Democrats dominate, begins Saturday Oct. 27.

The current totals; voted ballots:

PARTY	Voted	%
REP	335,056	45%
DEM	295,322	39%
IND	117,474	16%
TOTAL	747,852

Outstanding requests:

PARTY	Requested	%
REP	677,394	40%
DEM	679,756	40%
IND	334,644	20%
TOTAL	1,691,794

Top 15 AB-voting hotspots, which account for 68 percent of the ballots cast (R/D=Republican-Democrat):

County	Total	REP	DEM	R/D
PIN	78,413	32,294	31,274	1,020
DAD	59,881	26,883	22,786	4,097
HIL	55,260	22,088	23,704	(1,616)
ORA	40,320	15,693	18,195	(2,502)
BRO	36,341	10,763	20,012	(9,249)
SAR	34,455	15,401	13,606	1,795
BRE	29,535	14,507	10,664	3,843
POL	26,701	11,271	11,601	(330)
LEE	23,980	12,437	7,129	5,308
VOL	23,714	10,936	8,711	2,225
PAS	21,619	9,244	8,487	757
CLL	21,596	13,103	4,777	8,326
DUV	21,234	10,649	7,881	2,768
MRN	18,149	8,571	7,143	1,428
SEM	17,281	8,952	5,548	3,404

**One of the reasons Democrats are doing better with absentee ballots is that they have to because the GOP-controlled Legislature cut back on in-person early voting hours relative to 2008, when Democrats swamped the polls during a cumulative 120 hours of early voting over 14 days. Now, the days are limited to eight and the hours to 96 (note: the hours were always capped at 96 total, but then Gov. Charlie Crist issued an executive order that kept the early voting polls open longer).

We last explored this in an article when the vote hit the half-million mark