Voting Underway-In Florida. Does it mean anything?

Slipping quietly under the radar, Floridians have begun casting their ballots in our presidential primary.

The actual election day is January 29, which has caused Florida no end of grief for jumping ahead of the approved 4 early states, Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada.

But Florida has a wide open absentee voting process, meaning you don't have to have a reason for voting absentee. In fact, we're beginning to call it "vote by mail" instead of "absentee" down here.

The percentage of votes cast by mail has been gradually increasing, to over 30% percent in the 2006 Novemember election. Some predictions are putting it at over 40% for the presidential primary.

(The St Pete Times reports on Florida absentee voting here.)

The Florida Division of Elections is reporting that to date 237,390 absentee ballots have been requested and as of this morning, 7,453 have already been returned. (Numbers are somewhat incomplete, as numbers for 3 of the largest counties, Palm Beach, Orange and Lee are not available.)

Given that the Democratic candidates are forced to completely ignore Florida, what does one make of our presidential primary?

What impact will the results have when they are reported on January 29?

In addition to the presidential primary, there is a significant constitutional amendment on the ballot that seeks to cap the amount of property taxes that can be collected, so interest is expected to be high, despite the Democrat's boycott.

The Florida Democratic Party has attempted to keep interest high, with mixed results. (See the report in the Miami Herald here on their absentee ballot efforts.) My observations, as someone very active in Broward County Democratic politics, is that interest in the Democratic presidential primary is lukewarm at best.

So what are your thoughts on the Florida primary?