What about Fred’s early votes in FL?

TW pointed this out to me in an email: anyone who voted early for Fred Thompson have just been disenfranchised.

Well, sort of; I suspect that Thompson is still going to be on the Jan 29th ballot. But it does mean those voters do not have a chance to vote their second preference.

And how many voters might we be talking about? Nearly 80,000 ballots have been cast by registered Republicans as of yesterday, while 100,000 “unaffiliated” voters have cast ballots. We’re still trying to track down how unaffiliateds are handled in Florida.

Some news reports indicate that it is a “closed” primary, but this can’t be true. Do unaffiliated voters pick up a ballot when they get to the polling place? I’d appreciate an email to paul.gronke@gmail.com if anyone knows.