Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
BALLOTS BY DISTANCING
Pandemic primary finishes with huge mail turnout and few South Floridians voting in person
One result was clear long before the polls closed in Tuesday’s primaries and nonpartisan elections in South Florida: In an era of COVID-19, Broward and Palm Beach county voters overwhelmingly prefer voting by mail and were far less likely than usual to vote in person.
For much of the day, until polls closed at 7 p.m., the pandemic primary meant someone could walk in to a neighborhood polling place and find no one there but poll workers. The absence of voters contributed to a 2020 apocalyptic feel, with masks, social distancing, and lots of sanitizer.
“Every place we have heard from it seems the voter turnout is light. They are like voting deserts, with very few in-person voting,” said Rick Asnani, a veteran Palm Beach County-based political consultant who managed Sheriff Ric Bradshaw’s re-election campaign.
Still, overall turnout was high. “Turnout was high,” Broward Supervisor of Elections Peter Antonacci said, via his spokesman, during a break in the election Canvassing Board meeting. “Overall this will go down as the highest turnout primary election in history with most of that driven by voting by mail.”
There was much more lastminute activity than usual involving mail ballots.
It was too late on Tuesday for people to mail their ballots back, since Florida has a strict deadline of 7 p.m. on Election Day and postmarks don’t count.
People had the option of voting in person or turning in their mail ballots at supervisor of elections offices.
At the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Office headquarters west of West Palm Beach, the parking lot resembled that of a shopping mall on Black Friday, with brief traffic jams as voters waited for spaces.
Supervisor of Elections Wendy Sartory Link said at a news conference lots of people were also dropping off mail ballots at satellite offices, which accepted them until 5 p.m.
H. Wayne Clark, a candidate for the Republican nomination for sheriff in Broward, said he and his campaign team saw people trying to turn in their mail ballots at neighborhood polling places on Tuesday. That’s not allowed under Florida law. People can vote in person or bring the ballot to an elections office. Clark said he saw lots of people leaving with their ballots in hand.
A huge number of Broward voters — 12,200 — dropped off their mail ballots Tuesday at the Supervisor of Elections Headquarters drop box in Fort Lauderdale, said Steve Vancore, Antonacci’s spokesman.
Elections supervisors in both counties had crews picking up as many late ballots as possible at postal sorting facilities.
Antonacci said at an early evening Canvassing Board meeting that more than 9,000 mail ballots were received Tuesday, and it would take some time to process those.
“We’ve got our work cut out for us,” he said. “We’ll just just have to be patient.”
Through Monday, Broward had received a record-breaking 198,861 mail ballots. Another 40,040 people had voted at inperson early voting centers, fewer than voted early in the August election two years ago.
Palm Beach County had received 174,036 mail ballots, a record, through Monday. Another 24,088 had voted at in-person early voting centers, fewer than voted early in August 2018.
Polling places were set up with the pandemic in mind. Pens weren’t reused. Voter check-in was modified so poll workers didn’t have to touch driver licenses. Hand sanitizer was widespread. Poll workers wore masks. And people were assigned to clean constantly.
At Sugar Sand Park in Boca Raton, where facilities were closed due the pandemic, one room was open to accommodate socially distanced voting.
The few voters there entered through one door and left through another.
Despite the pandemic, voter Matthew Wittkin said he didn’t want to vote by mail.
“I don’t necessarily trust the Post Office and when [the ballot] leaves me, what happens to it,” Wittkin, 51, said. “I’d rather know that I went there and handed it in.”
Elections officials in Broward and Palm Beach counties reported what Antonacci termed “some manageable glitches.”
One precinct in Lighthouse Point reportedly ran out of Republican ballots on Tuesday afternoon.
“The poll workers were just as frustrated as I was because they were trying to get in touch with the supervisor’s office,” said Melissa Dickman, who said she was unable to get a ballot to vote at Lighthouse Point City Hall.
She said the poll workers were apologetic, but she said what happened was unacceptable. “It’s pathetic. They had all year to plan for this, and now it’s game day and they can’t do it.”
Vancore said he had heard of the problem there and at Wynmoor Village in Coconut Creek. He said each polling place has Express Vote machines that can produce additional ballots and wasn’t sure why they hadn’t been used.
“Somebody either didn’t know how to use them or the machine wasn’t working,” he said.
Wi-Fi hot spots at polling places in Lake Clarke Shores and Jupiter had problems upon booting up Tuesday morning, but were resolved quickly, Link said, adding that all votes cast at every location, including those, were counted.
The pandemic affected the personnel available to handle the election. About 100 Palm Beach County poll workers canceled over the past few weeks because they showed symptoms of COVID-19 or flu-like illnesses,
Link said. She said the positions were filled.
Registered Democrats and Republicans were at the polls to pick nominees to represent their parties in November elections for Congress, the Florida Legislature and County Commission. Florida is a closed primary state, which means only registered Democrats and Republicans were allowed to vote in the party primaries.
There were also some elections for all Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach county voters. Those races include judicial and school board contests. A candidate who gets more than 50% of the vote wins. Otherwise, there’s a runoff in November.
Some primaries (such as the contest for circuit court clerk in Broward and supervisor of elections in Palm Beach County) are open to all voters because only Democrats are running. Because there’s no other candidate in November, the winner on Tuesday will get the four-year term in the job.