Confused by early voting, many Miami-Dade voters reported to the wrong polling places

Early voting in Miami-Dade helped set a new record for ballots cast in a midterm election on Tuesday — but many voters also were confused and reported to the wrong polling places, causing frustration and possibly reducing total turnout.

At the Kendale Lakes Library in southern Miami-Dade, more than half of the voters who showed up to cast a ballot were turned away and directed to their assigned precincts.

“I don’t think we are voting,” said Dayton Lavrada as he and a friend, both turned away, left the library.

In North Miami, many Tuesday voters in the heavily black neighborhood were themselves frustrated as they learned that the North Miami library was not their proper voting location.

Irwin Braddy, a Miami-Dade employee assigned to monitor the location, estimated that just 235 people had been able to vote here —less than half of those who attempted to do so. Braddy explained that many voters had voted at the library during the primary, and so assumed they would be able to vote here again.

And it seemed to him volunteer poll workers were not providing adequate explanations of what to do next for those who found themselves in the wrong place.

“It’s been a smorgasbord of problems,” he said.

Many voters turned away at the Kendale Lakes Library did not realize their error until it was nearly time for polls to close. Inside the polling place there are only two machines that read a voter’s address and spit out a receipt with the address of their assigned polling place, slowing things way down.

At 5 p.m. there were about 60 people in line to vote at Kendale Lakes. Those waiting were frantically trying to search for their precinct addresses on their smartphones. From 5-5:30 p.m., about 90 percent of people who left Kendale Lakes were told to go to a different precinct.

Many were directed to Hammocks Middle School, Hoover Middle School and Bowman Ashe K-8 Academy.

“I waited one hour so they could tell me no,” said one voter angrily as he walked out with his receipt. “Depending on the line at the other place I might not vote.”

By 5:30 p.m., only 170 votes had been recorded at Kendale Lakes Library.

Suzy Trutie, a deputy director of Miami-Dade’s Elections Department, said the agency doesn’t track how many people get turned away from polling places.

The growth of early voting has likely compounded the problem of people arriving at the wrong polling place on Election Day. For two weeks before Election Day, Miami-Dade has used 28 sites for early voting. The Kendale Lakes Library was an early voting site.

In early voting, each polling place is open to any voter in the county, no matter where they live. That means people have seen friends, family members and co-workers vote there, and may assume they can do the same thing on Election Day.

But when the early-voting window ended Sunday, the vote-where-you-want rule ended, too.

Still, voters denied at Kendale Lakes Library said they would not spend more time trying to cast a ballot.

Damarys Camejo and her mother Rosa Rodriguez waited an hour in line to vote at Kendale Lakes Library only to be turned away and sent to nearby Gilbert Porter Elementary at 6:30 pm.

Camejo’s father, who is registered at the same address, voted here successfully earlier today, they said.

“We’re not going to vote, not after waiting in line here for an hour,” Camejo said in Spanish.

Alberto Castañeda Pavón, 67, said he has lived in the same house since 2000 and has always voted at the Kendale Lakes Library.

After waiting in a long line, poll workers told him he had to go to another precinct to vote. He learned that at 6:20 p.m., 40 minutes before the polls close.

“I’ve voted many times, always here,” he said in Spanish. “I’m not going to vote.”

He explained that he had walked to the library to vote and would not have time to go home, get his car and make it to the other precinct.

This story was originally published November 6, 2018 at 6:16 PM.