You dont have to declare a party to vote. The primary is held the same time as quarterly election (for local issues or to fill some vacancies) so a lot of people vote on the day of the republican primary.The primary is semi-open which means that when you get to the polling place you can just say you are republican and you get the ballot with the republican primary candidates and the local stuff. If you say you arent, you just get the ballot with the local stuff. A lot of people went to vote and decided to vote in the Republican primary because they could (like talking the free mint at the restaurant). So while they said they were republican, they likely are not and there is nothing binding them to that distinction.
I did the math for my county (which is the 24th largest) and saw that registered republicans were ahead of Dems in early voting but waaay behind the unaffiliated group. So you have some republicans who voted early but a fair amount are people who just wanted to vote in the republican primary and the label followed them to the general election. The unaffiliated are likely those who voted just for local stuff (or not at all) in the primary so the party label didnt follow them.
It should also be noted that the majority of the republican early votes were from mail in ballots and the Dem/Unaffiliated votes were in person. All the mail in votes have been counted while early voting in person is still going on. So naturally you will have more 'republican' labeled votes because they count them all at once instead of the piecemeal approach. Its like spending 100 dollars in one day where someone else spends 5 dollars a day. Yeah the 100 dollar amount will show up as more initially but over time the 5 dollars will add up and surpass the 100 threshold.
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