Find official Collier County results HERE.
Find official State of Florida election results HERE.
Polls will close tonight in Florida at 7:00 PM. In this post, I look at when we will know Florida election results: what we are likely to know tonight and the timeline for what will come later, and where you can go to get real-time results over the hours and days ahead.
I will not write about the presidential race since that is not a focus of Sparker’s Soapbox, and you can easily find those results elsewhere.
What’s on the Florida Ballot?
But first, a reminder of what’s on the Florida and Collier County ballots.
Florida voters statewide will decide:
- Which presidential and vice-presidential candidates will receive Florida’s 30 electoral college votes;
- If Rick Scott returns for a second six-year term as Florida’s junior U.S. Senator or if the state elects its first Democratic Senator since electing Bill Nelson in 2012 ;
- If any of the state’s 28 U.S. House seats will change party;
- If Democrats can chip away at Republican control of the state Legislature, flipping some Republican seats while protecting Democratic incumbents in contested districts;
- If the two Supreme Court justices and 23 District Court of Appeals judges who are up for merit retention votes will serve another six-year term;and
- The outcome of six proposed amendments to the state constitution.
What’s on the Collier County Ballot?
In addition to the races that will be decided by voters statewide, Collier County voters will decide:
- If Republicans Byron Donalds, Mario Diaz-Balart, and Scott Franklin are reelected to represent the parts of congressional districts 19, 26, and 18, respectively, that are within the county;
- If Republicans Adam Botana and Lauren Melo will return to represent state House Districts 80 and 82, respectively, and if Republican Yvette Benarroch or Democrat Charles “Chuck” Work will represent the District 81 seat currently held by term-limited Bob Rommel;
- If Republican Collier County Commissioners Rick LoCastro (District 1) and Burt Saunders (District 3) will be reelected to another four-year term;
- If incumbent Collier Mosquito Control District Commissioner Russell Burland will be reelected to a second term; and
- If incumbents Al Duffy and Dominick P. Biondo will return for another term on the Greater Naples Fire Rescue District Board of Commissioners.
They will also decide on a referendum to extend the “tax-neutral flexible funding for Collier County public schools.”
For background on all the above voter choices, see my 2024 Election Posts.
What Will We Know Tonight?
We are very likely to know the results of Florida’s county and statewide elections tonight.
That’s because Florida election law allows ballots to be processed as soon as they are received and counted as soon as the county has completed public testing of the automatic tabulating equipment, which starts at least 25 days before early voting begins. (The results are kept secret, and releasing them early is a felony.)
This is not the case in all states, each of which has its own election laws. (ncsl.org)
Florida also ends early voting two days before Election Day, giving county officials more time to tabulate the results. In Collier County, early voting ended on Saturday, Nov. 2 (the statewide default), although counties had the option to extend it to Sunday, and a few did.
So, there will almost certainly be enough votes counted to project Florida’s winners on Election Night. When the polls close, the already-received results will be posted, and then more will be added as returns come in from around the state.
In Collier County, the Supervisor of Elections office will post the first set of preliminary election results on their website www.CollierVotes.gov and their Facebook and Twitter pages.
The initial posting will represent a combined total of results from Early Voting and Vote-by-Mail ballots.
Following the posting of the initial election results, they will post results from Election Day precincts every 45 minutes or sooner. The updates will continue until results from all precincts voting in this election have been reported.
What Happens Next?
Even with Florida’s streamlined process for processing ballots and counting and curing votes, tonight’s results will be incomplete.
Votes that will be counted after Election Day include:
- Ballots from absent military and citizens overseas, who have up to 10 days for their ballots to be delivered as long as they are postmarked by Election Day
- Provisional ballots cast at polls by voters without proper ID or with minor errors that were later “cured” or verified to be eligible. If additional information is needed, Florida voters have until 5 p.m. the second day after the election to present it.
- Ballots that were challenged and later cured and tallied.
The following timeline of the statewide process is from the Florida Election Watch website.
First Unofficial Returns
The counties’ unofficial returns are due to the state Division of Elections by noon on Saturday, Nov. 9. If the first set of unofficial returns indicates that a candidate for office was eliminated or defeated by a margin of ½ of 1% or less of the total votes cast, a judicial candidate for retention was retained or not retained, or an issue was approved or rejected, a machine recount will be ordered.
Second Unofficial Returns
On Thursday, Nov. 14, if a machine recount had been ordered, results are reported in the Second Unofficial Returns no later than 3:00 PM.
A manual recount of overvotes and undervotes will be ordered if the second set of unofficial returns indicates that a candidate for office was eliminated or defeated by a margin of ¼ of 1% or less of the total votes cast, a judicial candidate for retention was retained or not retained, or an issue was approved or rejected.
A manual recount will not be ordered if the candidate or candidates defeated or eliminated request in writing that a recount not be held or if the number of overvotes and undervotes is fewer than the number of votes needed to change the election’s outcome.
Official Returns
Official Returns from the counties, including the results of any manual recount, are due by noon on Monday, Nov. 18.
Certification of Results
On Tuesday, Nov. 19, the state’s Elections Canvassing Commission will meet at 8:00 AM to certify the Official Returns for the state.
How to Follow the State and Local Results
Follow the state’s election results, including results by county, at the Florida Election Watch website.
Follow your county’s election results at your county Supervisor of Elections website. In Collier County, that’s colliervotes.gov; click the link at the top of the page that says “Preliminary Election Night Returns.” You can also sign up to receive election notifications from the Collier County Supervisor of Elections by texting COLLIERVOTES to 91896.
In Lee County, find election results at lee.vote. For other Florida counties, find your Supervisor of Elections website HERE.
Next from Sparker’s Soapbox
I will publish my next Sparker’s Soapbox post after the results are official and I have had the opportunity to analyze them. My goal will be to give you a deeper understanding of the results and how they might affect our local and state governments, both now and in the future.
With this understanding, I hope you’ll want to stay informed in the months ahead. If we don’t monitor what our elected officials do while in office, we won’t be informed enough to reward or hold them accountable in 2026.
Thank you for wanting to be a more informed voter!