Primary voting goes smoothly, voters say,

In what may have been a dress rehearsal for November’s general election, Tuesday’s primary contests under the cloud of a pandemic ran relatively smoothly in South Florida, with only a few reported hiccups preventing voters from casting a ballot in person.

Some voters were frustrated that they could not hand deliver a mail-in ballot at their local precinct, as had been allowed during early voting, and instead were required to drop off their ballot at a designated secure drop box. Others were confused by a recent relocation of their polling place. And still others were told to come back later after their local precinct had run out of paper ballots.

But overall the voters who turned out at the more than 1,400 precincts in MiamiDade and Broward on Tuesday said it was a personal imperative to cast a ballot in person.

Some said they voted in person out of concern over recent changes at the U.S. Postal Service slowing down the mail and potentially affecting their ballots. For others, voting in person on Election Day is a tradition — or simply more satisfying and reassuring than mailing in a ballot.

The pandemic was expected to have an impact on voter turnout in Miami-Dade, the state’s hardest hit county with 146,990 confirmed cases, and in Broward, which has the second-highest number of infections in Florida with 67,193.

But voters said they felt safe at local schools, churches and other public places, with poll workers enforcing social distancing measures and providing additional precautions, such as individually wrapped pens and lots of hand sanitizer.

Florida Secretary of State Laurel Lee said close to 6,000 precincts across the state opened without issue Tuesday morning as more than 2.7 million Floridians had already cast their vote, including 2.2 million voting by mail.

That compares to 1.8 million votes cast through early voting and vote by mail prior to the August primary in 2016.

Florida’s primary is a trial run for the general election, which is expected to have an unprecedented volume of mail-in ballots as voters stay away from the polls because of the coronavirus.

About two hours into Primary Election Day, the number of campaign volunteers lining the entrance to Scott Lake Elementary School in Miami Gardens outnumbered the number of individuals walking in to cast their vote. But for those who decided to vote in person, it was an easy decision — even during a pandemic.

Lillian Carter, 71, started her morning by voting at Scott Lake Elementary, just as she has done during every election for the past 41 years.

“I feel it’s important for me to cast that vote myself, physically,” Carter said. “Voting is something that I don’t take for granted.”

Voting this time around — during a pandemic, in a COVID-19 hot spot — went smoothly, Carter said.

“We had the social distancing, we had to be that six feet apart, everything was pleasant, professionally done, [a] very good experience.”

At the Miami-Dade Public Library branch in Coral Gables, Miguel Gil, 55, was one of many voters who arrived as polls neared closing at 7 p.m. Gil came out to vote despite having requested a mail-in ballot.

“I prefer to come in person. I trust it most,” said Gil, who added that he looked forward to voting for President Donald Trump in November. “I don’t trust the post office right now. I feel it will get lost or manipulated.”

Alex Molinos, 30, said he, too, was hesitant about voting by mail and decided to vote at the library. He was relieved to see the polling place was stocked with hand sanitizer.

“I decided it was better to go in person and make sure my vote is being counted,” he said. “I think as long as social-distance practices are being followed in the voting booths then I’m not concerned.”

At The Answer Church near downtown Hollywood, voters queued up in socially distanced lines. They used individually wrapped pens to fill out their ballots.

Jeanna Rhoulhac, 61, said the primary election was about getting “all the best candidates in place” for the general election in November. But there was a visceral purpose to her voting in person.

“There’s something about dropping it in the thing,” she said of the ballot box. “Then you don’t worry about, ‘Was it counted? Was it not counted?’ The definitiveness of it all.”

Though there was no president, governor or U.S. Senator on the ballot, a number of significant local offices will be decided. In Miami-Dade, voters chose their preference for mayoral candidate and commissioners as well as state attorney. In Broward, voters decided on sheriff, elections supervisor and state attorney.

As of Tuesday morning, the majority of ballots in South Florida had been cast by mail and during early voting, according to the Florida Division of Elections. Miami-Dade reported nearly 250,000 votes by mail and Broward had an about 200,000, election records show. An additional 40,000 persons voted early in Broward and 68,000 voted early in Miami-Dade.

Election supervisors said they expected fewer than 100,000 people to visit the polls in Miami-Dade and fewer than 70,000 in Broward.

Though Tuesday’s primary elections in South Florida were devoid of the highstakes drama of past elections, there were reports of people turned away from the polls.

Val Glenister, a 29-yearold public affairs consultant from Miramar, said she volunteered with Ruth’s List Florida, a group that advocates for pro-choice, Democratic women candidates, to visit precincts in Broward on Tuesday.

Glenister was passing out handbills for a Democratic candidate and said she was pleasantly surprised with how smoothly things were going.

But when she arrived at a polling place in Tamarac on Tuesday afternoon, Glenister said, some voters told her they were turned away. Poll workers said they were following orders from a supervisor who asked them to crack down on “voters who may be trying to vote twice.”

Glenister told the Miami Herald in a phone interview that about a dozen voters were turned away during the time she was there.

“People were questioning it and calling the Supervisor of Elections’ office,” said Glenister, who is running a 2021 campaign for a seat on the Miramar city commission. “As a poll worker you have a right to speak up if you know better.”

Steve Vancore, a spokesman for the Broward Supervisor of Elections, said the office received no reports of people voting twice.

The Tamarac precinct was one of three — including Lighthouse Point and Coconut Creek — that ran out of ballots on Tuesday afternoon and instructed voters to return later, Vancore said.

He said that poll workers at those precincts should have instructed voters to use an electronic kiosk called “ExpressVote” after running out of paper ballots. But poll workers at those three precincts didn’t know how to use the kiosk, he said. More paper ballots were delivered to the precincts on Tuesday afternoon, he said.

“The other 574 precincts knew how to work the ExpressVote and never ran out of ballots,” Vancore said.

In Miami Beach, voters at North Shore Park and Youth Center discovered that their polling place had been moved five blocks north and combined with another precinct at Biscayne Elementary School.

Poll workers said the precinct had been moved because the school remains closed due to the pandemic and that resources could be conserved by combining the polling places.

Perhaps because of the change, only 12 voters had shown up to vote by 9 a.m., a time when polls are typically busy as people stop to cast their ballots on the way to work.

By lunchtime, also a time when polls see a bump in voters, Sarah Rifkin was at the Wynwood Community Resource Center to cast her ballot. Rifkin said she voted in person because she worried that a mail-in ballot would not be counted correctly. But, the 25-year-old said she felt safe voting in person.

John Morris, 25, went with Rifkin to vote. He said he also felt voting in-person was the safest bet.

“It was a little nervousness on whether or not vote-by-mail would be in on time to actually count,” he said. “We just wanted to assure we actually had a say in this election,” he said.

Looking ahead to the November presidential elections, Rifkin and Morris, both Democrats, said they plan to vote in person, but are worried about more crowded polling stations.

“Especially with what’s happening in the last week or so with the post office, I just don’t know,” Rifkin said. “But I feel safer casting it physically than voting by mail, which I have done before. I just don’t trust it now.