Souls to Polls, boat parade and car caravan mark last day of early voting in Miami
On the Day of the Dead, the lively sights and sounds of the 2020 election were hard to escape in several corners of Miami-Dade County on the last day of early voting.
Marchers shimmying to brass and noisemakers marched in Liberty City, flanked by mostly supporters for former Vice President Joe Biden and his running mate Sen. Kamala Harris, in one of several Souls to the Polls events that sought to draw out Black voters and people of color. Car horns and salsa music bellowed through Westchester in a large caravan that drew hundreds of President Donald Trump’s most loyal backers to the suburban rally.
While a few dozen boats waving Trump flags paraded south in Biscayne Bay, in clear view of the Miami’s urban waterfront, Florida Memorial University’s Marching Band bounced and swayed as it put on a show for people outside an early voting center in Miami Gardens. As the sun set and polls neared closing, a small group of progressive activists in downtown Miami held up photographs of people who have died in the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a somber recognition of the Mexican holiday framed as a political call to action: Honor the dead by not voting for Trump.
A full docket of events for Sunday, from Souls to the Polls to a scheduled late-night appearance by Trump at the Opa-locka airport, highlighted Florida’s role as a major battleground in the election. A crucial 29 electoral votes are at stake, and those campaigning for Trump and Biden were looking for one last push before Election Day on Tuesday. Churches, unions, grassroots groups and campaigns all labored to get out the vote.
A cornerstone to a Florida triumph: Miami-Dade County, dense with voters and an array of Republican and Democratic coalitions whose votes could prove decisive in a state where the margin of victory could be slim.
Total early voting ballots cast won’t be available until Monday morning, but Miami-Dade already hit a milestone in pre-election day voting. On Oct. 31, Miami-Dade surpassed its early voting total from 2016, with nearly 478,000 ballots cast before Sunday’s votes were counted — about 2,000 more than the whole early voting period four years ago, according to county elections officials.
Democrats stump, Republicans caravan
Several Democratic candidates started their days at a gathering of about 100 people early Sunday at the South Dade Government Center in a rally organized by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). U.S. Representatives Donna Shalala and Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, both running for re-election, were joined by Miami-Dade mayoral candidate Daniella Levine Cava at the campaign stop.
The politicos were joined by former Miami Heat player Shane Battier, who quoted late civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis on the important of voting.
“The late John Lewis said, ‘Democracy is not a state, it’s an act.’ And, to act, you have to get out of your houses. You have to come to the voting polls,” Battier told the crowd. “You have to hand in your mail-in ballot. Don’t let it sit in a pile somewhere. You have to punch the buttons on the polls right here. Because we control this. The people.”
One voter in attendance said Miami-Dade County is a reflection of the rest of the country. Eric Basterrechea, 43, said residents are concerned about issues like healthcare, housing, climate change, crime and corruption. But, because Trump isn’t doing enough to address these problems, according to Basterrechea, nothing is getting done on the local and regional level.
“It’s not a surprise that this place is everyone’s focus, including the Republicans, because this is the place where it’s going to make a big difference. It hasn’t changed, and it’s going to stay the same unless we do something about it,” Basterrechea said. “It’s like every other American city. Every city on a hill. You have crime and corruption and incompetence. And, why? Because the guy up top. It always starts with the top.”
Pamela Green, 52, from Naranja, said there are many reasons why she’s voting for Biden, but the Trump administration’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic is the most recent.
“To me, this election is so important because honesty is on the ballot. Healthcare is on the ballot. I have kids in public school,” she told the Miami Herald. “It’s so important to me personally because we need leadership. Leadership has lacked during this pandemic.”
Hours later, a few dozen boats flying Trump flags launched from the Pelican Harbor Marina on the 79th Street Causeway around 11 a.m. and made their way south in Biscayne Bay toward Miami’s downtown waterfront. Bicyclists and joggers on the Venetian Causeway stopped to take pictures with their phones.
In Westchester, a long stream of cars waving U.S. and Trump flags and honking horns left from Tropical Park and filled Southwest 40th Street. Hundreds of vehicles jammed lanes along the main street for more than an hour.
Some displayed flags from Latin American and Caribbean countries such as Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, a signal of support from people in communities that Republicans have courted since Trump’s election in 2016. The Republicans are counting on votes from Miami’s western suburbs to elevate their candidates.
Roberto Rodriguez, 38, left the Westchester library early-voting site wearing a Smith & Wesson baseball cap. He cited gun rights as a top issue and one of the reasons he voted Trump.
“I support the NRA,” said Rodriguez, a project manager from the Kendall area. “Biden would ban the AR-15.”
Biden supports resuming the nationwide restriction on selling military-style rifles, known as the assault-weapons ban.
As Rodriguez voted, the Trump caravan roared by. With him was Aylin Vidal, a 36-year-old registered nurse. She also voted for Trump.
Her top issue? “In the days we’re having now,” she said, “it’s safety.”
Souls to the Polls
Democratic organizer Tangela Sears spent early Sunday afternoon readying a Biden caravan to Miami Gardens in an effort to boost lagging turnout among Black voters. With church attendance down due to COVID and some places of worship closed, the Democrats are pursuing workarounds to the traditional Souls to the Polls Sunday early-vote push.
“We’ve got so many people that don’t go to church. We’re not reaching them,“ Sears said outside the Agenoria S. Paschal Elementary School in Miami’s Brownsville neighborhood, near the start of the parade. “We want to remind people there is still time to vote. So we can get our numbers up.”
Wearing a “Be Woke, Vote” cap, Sears said enthusiasm for the Democratic ticket could be stronger, but thinks that was an issue in Miami-Dade in 2016, too, when Hillary Clinton won the county by about 300,000 votes, outpacing Barack Obama’s two elections in the county.
“People have been let down for so many years. When you’ve been let down so many times, you don’t always see a good opportunity,” she said. “We haven’t had enthusiasm, in my opinion, since Bill Clinton and Obama.”
In Liberty City, more than 100 people marched on Northwest 22nd Avenue in another event organized by the AFT.
“We’re going to march like King did,” said a man on the bullhorn, referring to Dr. Martin Luther King. “We’re going to march like our forefathers did.”
Members of the Miami Bahamas Junkanoo Revue joined the march with colorful costumes, horns and drums providing a cadence. The Rev. Carl Johnson of the 93rd Street Baptist Church led marchers in chants of, “Let us vote, we shall vote.”
The crowd arrived at the early voting site in the Joseph Caleb Center, where Jonita Roundtree, 58, of Liberty City, brought along her three young grandchildren, ages 3, 5 and 13, because she feels this is a historic election.
“I registered to vote when I was 18 years old, and I’ve never missed an election, and I definitely wasn’t going to miss this one,” Roundtree, a Biden supporter, said. “We can’t afford not to vote. It’s so important to me, and that’s why I brought my grandchildren, so they can experience this.”
Commissioner of Agriculture Nikki Fried, Florida Democrats’ lone statewide elected official, came out to stump for Biden and Harris, because she said Trump’s term “has been the worst four years of American history.
“Everything is on the ballot this year, from our decency, education, our democracy, healthcare, to women’s rights, to social equality, the environment,” Fried said. “Everything is on the ballot.”
In the last hour or two of voting, about a dozen people from grassroots groups and immigrant activists gathered in downtown Miami to commemorate the Day of the Dead by honoring those lost in the pandemic. A shrine with pictures of the dead included pan de muerto and traditional Ecuadorian drink called colada morada, a thick, purple beverage meant to symbolize the blood that’s been spilled over the centuries.
In a rebuke of the Trump’s handling of the coronavirus, the group advocated for votes against the president — though not necessarily votes for Biden.
“We are not with the Biden campaign, but we are calling on voters to not vote for Donald Trump,” said Andrea Mercado, 41, executive director of the New Florida Majority. “The failures of the leadership of the Trump campaign speak for themselves. Just look at the ways that his policies have affected Latino communities in particular — from Latinos locked up at the border to Latino families who have lost a loved one during this pandemic.“
As a mariachi band played “La cucaracha,” activists marched to the Stephen P. Clark Government Center while voters trickled in to cast last-minute ballots. An exchange between voters captured the sometimes tense atmosphere of this election.
“Yes, Trump is a cockroach,” one voter yelled as he danced inside. Another voter, 61-year-old Maria Hernandez, a Republican, fired back: “The only cockroach here is you.”
Around the same time, about 50 people moved briskly in a line outside the North Miami library, a location that has had problems in past elections — the voting room is named after Desiline Victor, the 102-year-old woman who waited three hours there to vote for Barack Obama in 2012. In the 2018 gubernatorial election, North Miami made national news when the Elections Department ran out of some precinct ballots during heavy turnout from the last “Souls to the Polls” Sunday when Andrew Gillum was running to be Florida’s first Black governor.
But as Sunday’s balloting came to a close, people advanced every minute in a line that snaked into a building now operating under social-distancing rules.
“I haven’t been waiting long at all,” said Chiva Charles, with about 15 people behind her at the time.
The 27-year-old college student and receptionist said she didn’t want to chance more complications by waiting until Tuesday.
“I feel like on Election Day it’s going to be worse,” she said.
Make your vote count
As of Sunday morning, the statewide advantage Democrats have had in ballots cast slimmed to about 94,000 votes, a gap that has been closing for days as Republican turnout increased during early voting.
Thirty-three early voting centers across Miami-Dade and 24 in Broward were open until 7 p.m. Sunday. Voters could cast ballots in person or drop off completed mail-in ballots at secure drop boxes at early voting sites. Mail ballots need to be received at the county elections office by 7 p.m. Tuesday.
If you have a mail ballot but decide you would rather vote in person, you can hand over your mail ballot to a poll worker Sunday and fill out a ballot in the voting booth.
Early voting ended Sunday. On Monday and Tuesday until 7 p.m., Miami-Dade voters can drop off mail ballots — make sure they are properly sealed and signed — at four locations:
▪ The Miami-Dade Elections Department, 2700 NW 87th Ave., Doral
▪ North Dade Regional Library, 2455 NW 183rd St., Miami Gardens
▪ Stephen P. Clark Center, 111 NW 1st St., Downtown Miami
▪ South Dade Regional Library, 10750 SW 211th St., Cutler Bay
Broward voters have only two locations to drop off mail ballots on Monday and Tuesday (until 7 p.m.):
▪ Rear entrance of Lauderhill Mall Voting Equipment Center, 1501 N.W. 40th Ave., Lauderhill.
▪ The Brickell Avenue entrance to the Supervisor of Elections office at 115 S. Andrews Avenue, Fort Lauderdale.
The last chance to vote in person is on Tuesday, Election Day, where voters must go to their assigned precincts between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.
Trump scheduled late rally in Opa-locka
Trump was expected to land at Miami-Opa-locka Executive Airport around 11 p.m. Sunday to rally supporters at an event that could violate the county’s midnight curfew, a COVID-19-related measure that is currently tangled in a court battle.
The Republican National Committee advised Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez, a Republican candidate for Congress endorsed by Trump, that the event is expected to end before midnight.
Meanwhile, Democrats blasted Trump for holding a rally that could attract thousands during the pandemic.
This story was originally published November 1, 2020 at 9:49 AM.
