More than 7,000 voters mostly independent changed their status before last week’s deadline to participate in the closed primary. And those are the unofficial numbers. In Osceola County where independents outweigh republicans about 950 no party voters joined a party. 508 switched to democrat. And 428 became republican.Orange County elections supervisor Bill Cowles was expecting the change as the race heats up.

"We’ll have to wait to see if it holds up in terms of after we get past this presidential preference primary, do they revert back or do they stick", asked Cowles.

Elections staff still have about 3,000 voter forms to sort through before the books close this week.