Will votes from the dead count in Miami-Dade? It depends on when they died
It may not matter enough to swing the presidential race in Florida — then again, you never know. But the Miami-Dade election department is considering whether to accept or reject 26 mail-in ballots cast by voters who have died in recent weeks before Tuesday’s general election.
Those potential votes, which are among a few thousand mail-in ballots with other irregularities, might end up being counted — depending on when the voter died.
“The policy is, if a vote-by-mail ballot is postmarked the day of death or before the day of death, the ballot is accepted,” Suzy Trutie, Miami-Dade deputy supervisor of elections, said Monday. “If not, it’s rejected.”
She said local election departments are notified of a voter’s death by the Florida Division of Elections, which gets its information from the Florida Bureau of Vital Statistics.
No one is suggesting that dead people are actually voting in this election — like the deceased Manuel “Manny” Yip, who cast a ballot in Miami’s scandalous 1997 mayoral election, thanks to campaign shenanigans.
This October, the 26 ballots cast by deceased Miami-Dade voters are among the 2,583 mail-in votes that so far are considered “invalid,” such as having no signature or a mismatched signature on the ballot envelope. The election department staff tries to correct the ballots by reaching out to voters who make mistakes by getting them to sign a signature affidavit.
The Democratic and Republican parties, working with the Joe Biden and Donald Trump campaigns, play roles in reaching out to voters whose ballots have flaws. Under state law, the parties are allowed to receive information about voters from local election departments. Both are mindful of Florida’s 2000 election, which, after a marathon recount, was decided by 537 votes.
After more than two weeks of vote-by-mail balloting, which to date has surged to 489,278 in Miami-Dade during the coronavirus pandemic, the error rate is extremely low compared to the past presidential election — 0.5%. In the 2016 race, the county’s mail-in ballot rejection rate was more than 1 percent. That encouraging trend is also holding steady in Broward and Palm Beach counties, according to records.
The deadline for returning mail-in ballots — there are still more than 100,000 outstanding in Miami-Dade — is 7 p.m. Tuesday. But mail-by-ballot voters have until 5 pm Thursday to “cure,” or fix, any mistakes. If they don’t correct their ballot by then, their vote won’t count.
The big unknown is how many outstanding mail-in ballots will be turned in after 7 pm Tuesday. If they arrive late, the ballots are automatically disqualified.
The Miami-Dade canvassing board, which consists of Supervisor of Elections Supervisor Christina White, County Judge Victoria Ferrer and County Judge Milena Abreu, is responsible for certifying the vote tally. The board, which met Monday, plans to meet Tuesday, Thursday and Friday to review potentially hundreds of invalid mail-in ballots.
Florida’s 67 election departments have until 12 noon on Saturday to submit an unofficial vote total to the Department of State. The official tally under state law is due at 12 noon on Nov. 15. Both counts must be approved by local canvassing boards.
This story was originally published November 2, 2020 at 6:33 PM.
