VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. — Friday marks day five of early voting here in Florida. The Volusia County Supervisor of Elections claims they are already breaking records for voter turn out. Hundreds of voters waited outside the DeLand polling place to cast their ballot. 

What You Need To Know

  • Nearly 150,000 people have voted early and by mail in Volusia County so far

  • Only 132,000 people voted early and by mail for all of 2016 

  • Volusia County officials think they could see an 85% voter turnout

“I walked right in most of the time,” said Reggie Lord, thinking back on his past voting experiences. This time he thinks he waited about 75 minutes. 

At some points, the line was so long that it wrapped around the shopping plaza. 

“We are over 107,000 that have voted by mail, 40,000 that have voted by early voting so we are at about 35% turnout already,” said Volusia County Supervisor of Elections Lisa Lewis. 

Back in 2016, she says only 72,000 people total voted by mail and 60,000 voted early.

“So I think we are going to break both those," said Lewis. "We’ve already broken one, we’ll break the other one I am almost positive.”

She believes they could even hit 80% to 85% voter turn out come election day. It was only 73% in 2016.

“I was hoping that we would have a great turn out and you know you hope for the best and I think we are achieving that,” said Lewis. 

Another reason these lines are so long is because of social distancing. Lewis says they don’t have as many voter booths at each polling place to keep people safe. However she says so far, everything is running smoothly at all seven of Volusia County's early voting locations.