HOLLYWOOD, Fla. -- Some Democrats alleged Monday that the long lines at early voting locations could be remedied but that Republicans refused.

The first week of early voting is being deemed a huge success. As of 5 a.m. Monday, the secretary of state said that more than 1 million voters have hit the polls so far. During the 2004 presidential election, only 244,000 voters took advantage of the two weeks of early voting and more than 98,000 voted by mail.

Early Voting Tracker | Video

Despite the turnout, many critics are claiming disenfranchisement because of restricted voting hours.

"You can't take the politics out of politics," said Broward County Democratic Chairman Mitch Cesar. "It's been very clear that the Republicans don't like to encourage votes in certain areas of the state, Broward County being the No. 1 location."

Cesar and other party leaders pointed out that most early voters are Democrats. In Broward County, 70 percent of early voters are Democrats, whereas only 14 percent are Republican and 16 percent are independent. In Miami-Dade County, 57 percent of early voters are Democrats, 25 percent are Republican and 18 percent are independent.

That is why, Democrats claimed, Republican Gov. Charlie Crist, who has the power, refused to extend the early voting restrictions of only eight hours per day and only eight hours total on the weekends. Those limits were enacted by the predominantly Republican Florida legislature in 2005.

With the historic turnout during the 2008 early voting period, Republicans denied that their refusal to step in is politically motivated.

"This issue coming up now and the way it's coming up now -- it didn't come up last week. It came up five days into the early voting, and I think it's playing politics on the other side," said Broward County Republican Chairman Chip LaMarca.

Republicans said that if Democrats wanted to change the early voting hours back to the extended hours, they should have done so in Tallahassee months ago. To that, Democrats replied that no one could have foreseen the amazing turnout.

Not only Democrats want the hours extended. The city manager of Parkland, who has no political affiliation, plans to make a request to the governor to extend the hours because voters in her community are fed up with the long lines. City commissioners in Parkland are expected to take up the issue on Tuesday.