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Florida's vote total surges before Election Day

ORLANDO, Fla. — Roughly half of all active registered voters in Florida have cast ballots, sparked by a surge during the final days of early voting.

Numbers released by the state Division of Elections Monday show that nearly 6.42 million voters have either voted early or voted by mail. There are nearly 12.9 million active registered voters.

Early voting wrapped up over the weekend. Election supervisors can continue to accept mailed in ballots.

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The new numbers show Democrats have built up a more than 87,000 vote lead over Republicans in Orange and Osceola counties. So far 2.55 million Democrats have voted compared to 2.47 million Republicans.

“Turnout in Orange, Osceola has been through the roof,” said Steve Schale, who ran President Barack Obama’s two Florida campaigns, but is unaffiliated this tear.

“Miami-Dade has had 88 percent of its entire 2012 election turnout to date. There could be over 1 million votes coming out of Dade County alone,” he said.

The Orange County Supervisor of Elections Office said it expects polls will likely be busiest at the start and end of the day Tuesday.

WFTV political analyst Maria Padilla is predicting a heavy turnout Tuesday.

“I would imagine that there’s going to be a very big last push momentum to sort of finish off the election season with a bang,” Padilla said.

Orange County has added 25 precincts, 100 machines to count ballots and extra positions to deal with the crowds.

Seminole County moved some precincts to bigger buildings.

Hispanic voting is up 139 percent and Orange County leaders pushed to get African-Americans to the polls in greater numbers.

Rafael Vasquez, the manager of popular Lechonera restaurant in Orlando, told Channel 9 the election has dominated discussions among customers of his business.

“Now they know who they want. They know who’s going to win,” said Vasquez.

Vasquez said he expects a wave of Hispanic voters will show up at the polls.

The "Souls to the Polls" initiative helped get nearly 1,000 people to early polling places.

“I tell them that their vote still counts,” said the Experience Christian Center’s Rev. Derrick McRae. “I think there’s been a strong effort to make younger African-Americans feel as if their vote did not count, but if your vote did not matter they wouldn’t do so much to try and suppress it.”

More than 1.23 million voters registered with no party affiliation have also voted.

Florida could surpass its overall vote total from 2012. During that presidential election more than 8.5 million people voted.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.