Police called to clases at voting lines.

Police called as voting lines grow contentious

The disharmony of America is leading to clashes at South Florida’s polling places as voting brings the two angry sides into each other’s space.

Social media videos, police reportsandinterviews showthat the nation’s divide has turned the private and sacred right of democracy into a stressful and contentious experience bordering on intimidation.

Police have been called out dozens of times as dueling partisans turn to amplified speakers, airhorns, sirens and even cowbells in the tumult. Pembroke Pines police were called to their two polling sites 14 times within nine days.

The result is arguments, shoving, baiting, name- calling, blocked access and harassment near poll entrances. It’s become so extreme that one local candidate hired people to protect her.

In west Boca Raton, police were asked to investigate after a pollworker— trying to persuade campaigners to remove a giant Trump flag from a polling place entrance — reported being hit with an umbrella.

Pembroke Pines police responded when Mark Pilling of Cooper City was accused of causing a disturbance by airing his support of President Trump overanamplifiedspeaker nearan

early-voting site. He said he was just exercising his right to free speech, and police concluded he was breaking no law.

Supporters of Democrat JoeBidenshowedupshortly later at the same polling place with cowbells, horns and sirens. Pilling called the cops twice to report that he felt the other group was baitinghiminto doing something violent.

The dissension goes beyond the presidential race.

Hallandale Beach Commissioner Michele Lazarowsaysshewasforced to hire two men this week to buffer her fromagitators outside an early voting site whohollered that shewas a liar and a racist.

“I kept saying, ’Back off,’” Lazarowsaid. “Theywould not giveme the 6 feet [social distancing] space. They were standing on top ofme. I couldn’t get away.”

One man called her a witch, she says.

“Go back in your cave,” another said, just inches fromher face.

The Broward Sheriff’s Office has arrested only one man for trespassing after he shouted racial slurs as people voted at the African American Research Library in Fort Lauderdale. Police noted that he likely had a mental illness.

Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Wendy Sartory Link put campaigns on notice last week reminding them that voter intimidation is a felony and that the state attorney and Sheriff’s Office have been alerted to reports of intimidation her office is receiving.

Shesaidsomeindividuals are violating a 150-foot zone aroundpoll entranceswhere no solicitation is allowed, intimidating people preparing to vote.

Outside that zone, agitators have shouted at people, followedthemto their vehicles and disrupted traffic at entrances, which Sartory Link called a form of voter suppression that will not be tolerated.

“Wewant passionate and engagingelections,” shesaid. “We respect and encourage your right to free speech. However ... we will contact law enforcement should any poll workers or voters observe/report any threatening, harassing or intimidating conduct by anyone.”

“At one level, it’s the beauty of our democracy that people are protesting, people are speaking,” said Steve Vanacore, a spokesmanfor theBrowardCounty Supervisor of Elections Office.

Vanacore is proud of the massive effort to get people to the polls early.

But more people means more divide.

“It has definitely gotten worse thanwhat I observed four years ago,” said Luis Garcia of Boynton Beach, a supporter of Joe Biden for the presidency.

Garcia believes the president’s rhetoric, his call for masses to flood to the polls to assure the election is fair, has emboldened many people.

People on the other side contend that Democrats have become radicalized.

Garcia has been rounding the polling places trying, as he sees it, to tamp down the vitriol, something he views as voter intimidation.

“It’s no longer amatter of political difference. It has becomean ideologicalwar,” Garcia said.

Vanacore said a lot of the calls are the result of what he calls ambient tension of an important election conducted during a pandemic.

Most complaints — disturbances such as campaigners being loud — are outside of the election office’s jurisdiction, and most issues are resolved in real time by the people on site, without police involvement.

“People are anxious about early voting, aboutCOVID,” Vanacore said. “They’re anxious about people exercising their right to free speech.”