South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Army of poll watchers in South Florida is on Biden’s side
Despite the president’s call for an army of poll watchers, most of the Election Day watch dogs inside polling places in South Florida will be there for Joe Biden.
Newlyreleased, certified rosters of voters who will be allowed inside to monitor voting and challenge any cheating show the Democrats have mustered unprecedented numbers of poll watchers for Election Day. And Republicans don’t have enough watchers to cover every polling place.
In Broward and Miami-Dade counties, more than 2,000 Democrats or Biden supporters, and629 Republicans or Trump supporters are certified as poll watchers for the 941 polling places — about a third more poll watchers than in the last presidential election. Palm Beach County had not released the rosters late Tuesday.
“Pretty incredible,” Broward Democratic Chair Cynthia Busch said. “It’s been a year or more of work.”
In their ranks are high-powered attorneys and lobbyists, a former elections office general counsel, former state senator and experienced political activists.
Travis Stoller, 37, a Republican and small business owner in Pompano Beach, said he signed up to bea Republican poll watch er for the first time. All the president’s talk of fraud inspired him to do it.
“I really believe in the election process, and I think everything should be fair,” Stoller said. “I just want to be somebody who’s there to make sure it’s fair, that there’s nobody cheating or doing anything unscrupulous .” With so many signed up, each side could send
places, peering over voting, or accusing people of voting illegally. The law allows one pollwatcher for each candidate, and one for each party, inside the 941 Election Day polling places in Broward and Miami-Dade counties.
The Democrat advantage should not be a surprise. Of the 3.8 million registered voters for this election in the three South Florida counties, 44% are registered Democrats, and26% Republicans. The remaining 30% have no party affiliation, or belong to a smaller party.
But Trump has pleaded for his supporters to watch over voters inside the polling rooms, suggesting Democrats will cheat.
“We all know that the Democrats will be up to their old dirty tricks on Election Day to make sure that Trump doesn’t win,” Erin Perrine, director of press operations for the Trump campaigns, says on a poll watcher recruiting video. “We cannot let that happen. That is why our goal is to cover every polling place in the country with people like you.”
The specter of inexperienced poll watchers hyped by accusations of election stealing led to concerns about unwarranted challenges of voters, and delays. Election experts said that could happen, but appears unlikely on any major scale in Florida, where poll watchers’ behavior is extremely limited by law. Frivolous accusers would themselves be committing a crime. So would those who intimidate voters. In fact, poll watchers can’t even speak to voters.
“Certainly given the calls for watching that we’ve seen fromthe president and others, there is a little bit of a heightened concern,” said Eliza Sweren-Becker, voting rights and elections counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice. “But I think part of that concern is driven by that fear-mongering rhetoric, andwe should not give in to that rhetoric by substan-
tiating that fear in advance. Voters should feel comfortable going to the polls and knowing that poll watchers and challengers have limits in their behavior.”
County commissioner and former state Sen. Steve Geller said he’s worried about unauthorized, selfanointed “poll watchers” showing up to interfere.
“The divider in chief, I mean the president, has been tweeting and ... telling people to just show up to watch the polls, which violates the law,” Geller said, “but that’s never been anything that bothered him.”
He said voters should watch out for anyone
demanding ID or paper work outside the polls.
Geller cited a flareup Oct. 22 at the African American Research Library in Fort Lauderdale as an example of what he fears. According to the Broward Sheriff’s Office, a man with a New York address went inside where people were voting, andwas “yelling racial slurs and yelling about the voters buying into terrorism.” The man’s politics were not clear, and police noted he “may suffer from some sort of mental disorder.” A witness said he threatened to shoot people in the parking lot, and tore up political signs. He was arrested for disorderly conduct.
Poll watchers must be registered voters in the county where they’re assigned; they can’t bused in from elsewhere. They are appointed by campaigns or political parties, ahead of Election Day. (The deadline to submit names was Oct. 20.)
Once inside, they can speak only to poll workers. They must wear an ID badge with their name on it. In Palm Beach County, they also “actually wear a sign that says I’m a poll watcher, not a poll worker, and I cannot speak with you,” elections Supervisor Wendy Sartory Links aid, explaining that voters sometimes try to ask them questions.
Barry Richard, an attorney who represented George W. Bush during the 2000 presidential vote recount, said some of the frightening chatter simply isn’t realistic.
“The rhetoric about sending people into Florida to poll watch, that’s not the case,” he said. “... When we hear they’re going to send people into the polling place to video what’s going on, Florida law does not allow photography in the polling place.”
Charles Lichtman, leader of the Democrats’ legal team in Florida, said pollworkers aren’t always well-versed in election law. A pollwatcher can challenge a voter’s legitimacy, or dispute polling clerks who aren’t following the law, he said. Challenges — if a pollwatcher believes a person already voted somewhere else, for example — must be in writing on as worn affidavit.
“Any elector or poll watcher filing a frivolous challenge of any person’s right to vote commits a misdemeanor of the first degree,” Florida law reads.
Poll watchers can monitor closely to make sure a voter who speaks a foreign language gets the right ballot, or that voters aren’ t given the wrong information about what identification can be accepted. They also can help communicate to their own party leadership or elections headquarters about issues like lines that are toolong, or ballots that are running out.
” The goal should be to have Election Day be as smooth as possible,” Lichtman said, “no chaos.”
Bro ward Republican State Committeeman Richard DeNapoli said the Republicans have no history here of obstructing voters in the polls.
“We’ve got more poll watchers than ever before signed up. We have a nice long list,” DeNapoli said. “We’re just there to make sure every thing’ s going properly .”