Early voting in South Florida gets off to busy start
The 2008 election officially began at dawn Monday with long lines, singing union members and a handful of hiccups.
From Coral Gables to Aventura, South Beach to West Kendall, polling places had the feel of Election Day.
In reality, it was just the first of 14 early voting dates scheduled before the general election on Nov. 4, but that didn’t stop hundreds from lining up around Miami-Dade County, even before the polls opened at 7 a.m.
The queues, and some technical problems, made voting a slow slog, with people waiting in line anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour.
”I expected it to be much faster,” West Kendall resident Esperanza Acosta said. “Election Day is going to be a big mess if people don’t vote early.”
Lines at the Miami Beach City Hall Monday morning were the picture of unhappiness. News traveled fast among the 20 or so voters waiting at 7 a.m. that technical problems were slowing down voting. Some of the computers used to check in voters weren’t working, though there were no problems with the optical scan machines used to count ballots.
”This is a typical Florida election,” grumbled voter Mike Frank, wearing a black-and-white ”Barack is my homeboy” T-shirt.
About 40 minutes later, a poll worker told reporters everything was ”fine” but referred further comment to the elections department. Miami Beach voter Danny Reynolds, who arrived at 7 a.m. on the dot, was still in line and piping mad.
”I think it’s ridiculous,” Reynolds said. “They’ve had plenty of time to prepare for this, and they should have worked on those machines and made sure they were working yesterday.”
Elections department spokeswoman Christina White said two of the location’s four check-in computers ”were down for maybe a total of 10 minutes” when the polls opened.
”We’re looking into why,” she said.
Most places, however, the slowdown was due to a huge turnout.
The sun hadn’t fully risen in the sky when Blanche Norwood, 57, made her way to a voting booth in the lobby of Miami-Dade County Hall.
Only 13 others had voted ahead of Norwood, who works at Treasure Isle Nursing Center in North Bay Village.
”It’s very important to me to get my ballot cast,” said Norwood, an avid Obama supporter who questioned where her ballot was being taken after she entered it into the machine. “They said they’re locking it in a bin and at the end of the day they get a police escort to the elections department.”
Norwood said she was told by a poll worker that she couldn’t vote wearing an Obama T-shirt. She said she was told she’d either have to take it off or turn it inside out. But that was quickly cleared up by site clerk Javier Gonzalez, who said voters are permitted to wear what they wish.
By 7:30 a.m., the line at County Hall was about two dozen deep. Eight at a time were permitted to pick up their ballots, which took about a minute each. Then voters were off to the 39 voting booths and the 12 scanners. There were also five Ivotronic machines for folks with disabilities.
Out front of County Hall a small group was milling around holding signs for and against many of the ballot questions. For the most part, though, it was business as usual at County Hall.
The Service Employees International Union had representatives helping a few people to the polls, and WMBM-1490 AM set up shop about 100 feet from the polls, awaiting Bishop Victor Curry, who was set to do a radio show.
Kim Diehl, 33, a communications worker with SEIU had just voted.
”We voted early because we want to be the first in line at this historic occasion,” she said.
The parking lot was full at the Aventura Government Center at 6:45 a.m., with the line 20 to 30 deep before the doors even opened.
Laura Mills of Aventura power-walked to the polls and was among the first to cast her vote.
”We expect to see a bigger rush than ever of people voting,” Mills said. “We want to make sure our vote counts and get out here and do it quick.”
At the West Kendall Regional Library, about 30 early voters lined up before 7 a.m.
Thirty minutes later only a handful had finished voting.
One voter walked into the library — and came right back out. The line was too long, so he would come back later.
Congressional candidate Raul Martinez made a carefully orchestrated entrance at County Hall shortly before 9 a.m., surrounded by about a dozen singing SEIU members.
The group had just finished having breakfast at the University of Miami, then hopped on a train to County Hall and descended the escalator to the front entrance.
Martinez, smiling and waiving to friends, said it’s important to vote early.
”We’re asking everyone to vote as early as they can so they can have a smooth vote,” said Martinez, who voted for Barack Obama. “This is what’s important. The ballot is very large.”
Though anecdotal, these cases were early indications that the enthusiasm for this historic presidential election is as high as expected.
In all, there are 20 early polling places in Miami-Dade; Broward, with 17 early voting locations, begins casting ballots at 10 a.m.
Begun in 2002, early voting in Florida is now an oft-used convenience — along with a make-or-break time for many political campaigns. Yet that does not mean voters won’t encounter lines, with a recent Pew Charitable Trust report suggesting the switch to optical-scan ballots may slow down early voting.
Election officials see early voting — along with mail-in absentee ballots — as a crucial way of reducing Election Day waits.
This is especially true this year, with hundreds of thousands of newly registered voters across South Florida. The booming voter rolls helped Broward County crack the million-voter threshold this election season. Broward now boasts 1,008,656 registered voters, with Democrats showing the biggest recent gains — and holding well more than a 2-1 overall lead over Republicans.
Miami-Dade, too, has seen a substantial jump in new voters. Since the beginning of this year, the voter rolls have added nearly 160,000 names, for a total of 1,243,315 voters. Overall, Democrats hold a 554,001-382,286 advantage over Republicans, with independent and minor-party voters accounting for the rest.
The original source of this article can be found at:
www.miamiherald.com / Mon, Oct. 20, 2008
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