How a vote-by-mail mixup got fixed, and more election tales

It took three weeks, four phone calls, a hand-written request by fax and the intervention of Broward Supervisor of Elections Pete Antonacci. But Margaret Kempel finally got her vote-by-mail ballot Friday. In a FedEx envelope.

Kempel, a Democrat who lives in Dania Beach, has voted in Broward since 1996. “I’m a habitual super-voter,” said the former executive director of the Port Everglades Association, a port business group. She has spent this summer in the village of Northbrook, Ill., a Chicago suburb, on family business and is closely following local elections from a distance — and she’s determined to have her vote count.

The elections office sent a mail ballot to Kempel’s condo in July, but she wasn’t there, and the post office returned it as undeliverable. Elections officials say the postal service doesn’t forward ballots. She emailed the elections office July 22 asking that a ballot be sent to Illinois. The email bounced back. She sent another request July 30, and faxed her signature to Fort Lauderdale. The elections website says it mailed “Ballot 2” on Aug. 3. Kempel said it never arrived.

“Nothing, nothing, nothing,” she said.

After Kempel shared her story with me, I started asking questions, and the next thing Kempel knew, she got a very welcome call from Antonacci, telling her a mail ballot was being sent overnight with a prepaid return FedEx envelope. Kempel’s ballot has to reach Broward by 7 p.m. Tuesday or it won’t count.

That’s persistence, and Antonacci deserves credit for getting it fixed. It should inspire every voter whose vote-by-mail ballot is still sitting on a coffee table at home.

Trump gets his mail ballot

Speaking of voting by mail, President Trump and his wife Melania both received their requested mail ballots in Palm Beach County, despite his continued demagoguery about the unreliability of what he calls “universal mail-in voting.” There is no such thing in Florida and most states. In Florida, a voter must request a mail ballot. Nor is there any evidence to support Trump’s baseless claim that voting by mail leads to rampant fraud.

The Sun Sentinel’s Anthony Man reports that a representative of the Trumps picked up mail ballots for both of them. The ballots must be returned by 7 p.m. Tuesday, or they won’t count.

Through Thursday, 1.9 million Floridians had sent in mail ballots for Tuesday’s primary. Of that total, 50% of all returns were from Democrats and 35% were from Republicans, a reversal of the results in the last presidentialyear primary in 2016. If anything close to the current trend continues in November, Trump can probably kiss Florida and its 29 electoral votes goodbye.

The year of the text

The notable lack of personal interaction between candidates and voters this election has forced a dramatic surge in the use of text messaging in campaigns. Candidates are texting to ask for support and to prod voters to send in vote-by-mail ballots. If you have not been texted by any candidate, it’s a clear sign that you’re not engaged enough in the political process.

Texting political messages is advertising, plain and simple, but there’s no legal requirement that the sender include a disclaimer identifying the source. As texting becomes even more ubiquitous in the general election, it’s obvious that this is a disclosure loophole that the Legislature must address.

The rapid rise in text messaging brings with it the predictable problems that accompany any changes in political messaging, such as the spread of anonymous messages by candidates attacking opponents.

Chad Klitzman, a Democratic candidate for supervisor of elections, has a team of volunteers texting voters, and that may have prompted a rival to circulate texts, charging that Klitzman has “no real experience and needs training. He’s not ready!” Klitzman said he traced a sender’s phone to the campaign of a rival candidate, Jennifer Gottlieb. Asked by email to respond, she sent photos of one of her campaign signs that was vandalized.

In Klitzman’s texts to voters, he introduces himself to recipients, mentions his work in the Obama White House and his goal to modernize the elections office. He notes that he has Broward County School Board member Lori Alhadeff ’s endorsement and asks: “Can I count on your vote?”

‘The current senator’s wife’

Amid Florida’s endless parade of roadside political signs, this one caught our attention on a roadside in rural Dixie County.

Jason Holifield of Cross City is a Republican candidate for a state Senate seat. His better-known and much betterfinanced opponent is Jennifer Bradley, the wife of Sen. Rob Bradley, who has held the seat for eight years and must leave office because of term limits. The sprawling District 5 Senate seat covers all or part of 11 counties in northeast Florida.

“My opponent is the current senator’s wife,” Holifield’s sign reads. “He is termed out.”

Termed out? Try absorbing that message while you’re driving past at 50 miles an hour.

Finally, this friendly reminder (you may have heard it before): Be sure to vote by Tuesday.