Shots fired into polling place after voting machine arrives
Windows broken, but police say no one entered clubhouse in Margate neighborhood
Gunshots were fired through the window of a Margate neighborhood clubhouse during a break-in shortly after voting equipment was delivered for Tuesday’s primary election.
But police found no evidence of any entry into the locked room where the voting equipment is being stored, Margate police spokesman Effrain Suarez said Saturday.
Still, authorities are not discounting the possibility that the break-in was related to the Thursday delivery of a vote-tabulating machine at the clubhouse of Paradise Gar
dens IV at 7700 Margate Blvd., Suarez said.
“There’s no indication that the machine was tampered with or touched where [it was] stored,” the spokesman said. “The room where the machine was in was not entered.”
Tuesday’s primary features races for state representative and state senator, state attorney, public defender, clerk of the circuit court, supervisor of elections, several judge seats and the county sheriff.
David McKenna, a resident of the 55-and-over community where the break-in took place, said he and his neighbors couldn’t help but suspect that the break-in had something to do with the machine’s arrival.
“Someone doesn’t want us to vote,” he said.
Community rooms and clubhouses of senior communities throughout the area are regularly used as polling places.
But this is the first time anyone can remember someone breaking into the clubhouse, McKenna said.
Crime tape surrounded the clubhouse for hours on Friday as investigators searched for clues, he said. At one point, six patrol cars were parked outside
“There’s no indication that the machine was tampered with or touched where [it was] stored.” Effrain Suarez, Margate police spokesman
the building.
Three shell casings were found on the ground, McKenna said. Suarez confirmed Saturday that “an undisclosed [number] of bullets were fired.”
Apparently the intruder or intruders scaled a perimeter fence that protects the clubhouse pool and fired the shots into a window, McKenna said. They then threw a piece of concrete into the window.
Suarez would not say whether police believe anything was stolen. “That’s all under investigation,” he said.
The Broward County Supervisor of Elections has received no other reports of break-ins or vandalism at any other polling place, said spokesman Steve Vancore.
Elections workers verified that the tabulator was not tampered with, Vancore said.