Elections supervisors in Orange and Osceola counties will close their books with record numbers of requests to join parties from unaffiliated voters. The latest data show more than 7,000 voters joined a major party in order vote in Florida’s closed primary on March 15th.
"As a presidential campaign begins to gear up as this one is, those who may be caught up in the middle are making decisions on which side to go to," Orange County supervisor of elections Bill Cowles.
Out of the 954 party change requests made in Osceola County between December and the February 15th deadline, 508 voters switched to democrat and 428 became republican. About 200 voters in major parties left those parties.
"We’ll have to wait to see if it holds up in terms of after we get past this presidential preference primary, do they revert back or do they stick?" says Cowles.
Elections staff in Orange County still have about 3,000 voter forms to sort through before the books close this week.