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The history of voting in Lee County

Lee County has the largest population of any of the Southwest Florida counties, with a population of 618,754 according to the 2010 census.

Of those residents, 71 percent are white, 18.3 percent Hispanic and 7.7 percent of the residents are black.

As of Nov. 8, 185,838 residents are registered to vote as Republican, while 116,848 are registered as Democrat according to Lee County Elections website.

Another statistic from Lee County Elections details a record number of early voters raising this elections bar to 100,893, as well as a staggering number of voters using the mail-in method, with 154,781 ballots received.

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Historically, the Lee County vote has been won by conservative voters, with nearly every major election in the past 50 years being taken by the right.

In 2012, according to Politico.com, Lee County was won by presidential Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, with 57.9 percent or 154,112 votes, while Democratic nominee Barack Obama had secured 41.4 percent of the vote. Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson was able to attract 0.4 percent of the vote while all other candidates accounted for 0.2 percent.

The 2008 election looked similar for Lee County. According to U.S. Election Atlas, Republican nominee John McCain took Lee County with 54.6 percent or 147,608 votes while Obama had won 44.34 percent.

This is in contrast to Florida as a whole, where Obama won with 50.91 percent and McCain received 48.10 percent.

Even in close elections, Lee stays predominantly conservative in votes.

In 2000, Republican nominee George W. Bush won Florida with 48.85 percent, narrowly defeating Democratic candidate Al Gore by .01 percent.

Lee County showed more support for Bush who took the county with 57.57 percent, while Gore pulled in only 39.90 percent.

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