Miami-Dade, Broward say CDC limits on gatherings will not affect Tuesday’s primary
Florida election officials said Monday afternoon that the state’s presidential primary on Tuesday will continue despite tightening recommendations from the federal government to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus by avoiding large crowds.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended Sunday that events attracting more than 50 people be canceled or postponed. And President Donald Trump announced Monday afternoon that, following a meeting of a coronavirus task force, the White House was recommending that groups be limited to 10 people or fewer.
But Mark Ard, a spokesman for the Florida Division of Elections, told the Miami Herald Monday immediately after Trump’s announcement that the state is “still moving forward as planned” with the primary. Florida Secretary of State Laurel Lee said “precinct-based voting is unlike the gatherings our health professionals have advised Floridians to avoid.”
“At the end of the day, we’re dealing with this in a thoughtful way but we’re not going to panic,” Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a press conference in Tallahassee. “I think you can do it in a way that protects people.”
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said Monday that the state’s primary — scheduled for Tuesday along with Florida, Illinois and Arizona — should be postponed until June after the new CDC guidelines were announced due to fears of the novel coronavirus.
“We cannot tell people to stay inside, but also tell them to go out and vote,” DeWine tweeted.
Trump, in a Monday afternoon press conference, said states should decide whether to proceed with their elections, though he said “I think postponing is unnecessary.”
Miami Democratic Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell urged Florida to delay the primary.
“Ron DeSantis, please follow the lead of Ohio Governor Mike DeWine and work to push back tomorrow’s election to a further date,” Mucarsel-Powell tweeted. “I’m concerned about disenfranchising voices across this state. Hearing reports of lack of mail ballots in South Dade, we must push back.”
But while decisions remained fluid Monday, officials in Miami-Dade and Broward counties have said they believe crowds at the polls will be limited because more Democrats voted by mail this year than in 2016 and the Republican primary is noncompetitive. They are bracing for a shortage of poll workers and say they are prepared to shift polling places on Election Day if necessary.
“For this election, we have projected a 20% voter turnout, and this was prior to the health issues,” said Miami-Dade deputy supervisor of elections Suzy Trutie. “When we have an incumbent in office the turnout for the presidential primary tends to be lower.”
Former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders are vying for the Democratic nomination, while President Donald Trump faces nominal competition for the Republican nomination. Biden is the heavy favorite in Florida’s Democratic primary after other moderate candidates dropped out and Sanders angered South Florida Democrats when he praised Fidel Castro’s literacy programs in Cuba.
The CDC updated its recommendations for polling places last week, encouraging poll workers to incorporate social distancing strategies.
“Keeping individuals at least six feet apart is ideal, based on what is known about COVID-19,” the CDC said. “If this is not feasible, efforts should be made to keep individuals as far apart as is practical.”
But Trutie and Broward Elections spokesperson Steve Vancore said they do not have plans to enforce social distancing at the polls tomorrow, such as requiring people to stand at least six feet away from each other or instructing voters to wait in their cars instead of waiting in line.
“If it looks like there is going to be a big line, we’re going to act accordingly,” Vancore said. “We’re going to do anything we can to put public safety first. I just don’t see a how a bunch of lines are going to be popping up especially because of coronavirus.”
Vancore and Trutie said voters will be provided with sanitizer and soap before and after voting, and poll workers will sanitize voting booths and touch screens as often as possible.
“We want everyone to come out and vote, we have taken all the measures recommended by the CDC,” Trutie said. “We encourage voters to come and vote.”
Keeping workers on the job is another issue. Both Trutie and Vancore said they’ve seen a spike in poll workers informing their supervisors that they aren’t planning to work on Tuesday. Trutie said Miami-Dade County has a plan in place to back-fill absences with other county employees or seasonal workers. Vancore said Broward normally has a surplus of poll workers, though it’s possible that could change tomorrow.
“We’ve never had anything like [the coronavirus] before. Normally, we overstaff poll workers. We have 4,500 paid poll workers and then we have oodles of volunteers,” Vancore said. “If nothing changes today, we’re going to be fine. If 20% don’t show up tomorrow, we’re probably going to have to move precincts in real time.”
Miami-Dade moved eight polling locations after Gov. Ron DeSantis recommended that polling places at senior centers be used only by residents. Broward County has moved 16 polling locations for the same reason. Vancore said 11 of those polling changes occurred with enough time to inform voters by mail that their polling place has changed.
“The vast majority of the precincts are fully operational,” Vancore said.
Common Cause Florida, a nonpartisan organization that trains poll monitors to spot issues with voting, said its volunteers will now work from their cars to observe polling places when they open. They will also ensure that proper signage is in place when a polling place is shuttered or moved.
The Florida Democratic Party and advocacy organizations are asking DeSantis to provide a statewide list of polling place closures and changes. As of Monday, the party identified 91 precincts in 58 of Florida’s 67 counties that have been closed or relocated after DeSantis’ recommendation. The party, which said there are 126,731 voters in affected precincts who haven’t yet voted, has begun texting and calling those voters so they know where to cast ballots tomorrow.
“We want to be good partners and help get the word out, but we need the state Department of Elections and the governor to uphold their responsibility to our democracy and release information of polling site re-locations so that the Florida Democratic Party, our 100-plus staff and thousands of volunteers can help communicate these changes to voters,“ Florida Democratic Party executive director Juan Peñalosa said in a statement.
Other groups are going even further, demanding that the vote-by-mail deadline be extended until March 27.
“Florida’s Presidential Primary Election is tomorrow and unless immediate action is taken by the state, millions of voters could be disenfranchised,” said Rachel Gilmer, co-director of Dream Defenders, a social justice group formed after the shooting death of Miami-Dade teenager Trayvon Martin.
The Dream Defenders are backing Sanders over Biden in tomorrow’s primary. They argued that young voters who registered at their college campus are effectively disenfranchised after being sent home because of the novel coronavirus threat.
“Thousands of young people who anticipated voting on or near their college campuses were abruptly sent home last week and Florida’s leadership has disregarded them entirely,” Gilmer said. “These students have now missed the deadline to request an absentee ballot and it is only fair that we provide them an opportunity to vote by mail.”
And the Biden campaign is encouraging volunteers to urge Democrats to the polls, though volunteers will now be making calls and sending text messages instead of having face-to-face interactions.
The Biden campaign held conference calls Monday with supporters in Arizona, Illinois, Ohio and Florida, the four states with primaries set for Tuesday. Biden’s wife, Jill, joined Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried — the only Democrat elected statewide in Florida — and Jackie Lee, the Biden campaign’s senior adviser in the state, on the call.
“We are working here in Florida to get out the vote. We’re chasing their last minute vote-by-mail ballots, making sure they get in by the deadline, 7 p.m.,” Lee said.
Lee stressed that election supervisors are working to keep voters safe.
“Officials here in Florida are taking a lot of precautions to ensure everyone can exercise their right to vote while still following social distancing guidelines, spacing voting lines out and drastically increasing sanitation at polling stations,” she said. “We want to make sure everyone is safe more than anything, but we do have a lot of work to do over the next 24 hours here.”
More than 1 million Democrats voted early or by mail as of Sunday evening when early voting ended, fueling election officials’ hopes that widespread social distancing measures will not be necessary at the polls tomorrow.
“I’m not feeling that there’s going to be large crowds tomorrow,” Vancore said.
This story was originally published March 16, 2020 at 4:30 PM.