The deadline to request an absentee ballot for the Nov. 5 election is on Wednesday and with a week to go before Election Day, the county has already received more than a quarter of the ABs it has mailed out.
Miami-Dade voters get to decide whether or not to fund $830 million worth of modernization improvements to Jackson Memorial Hospital in a plan that has everything except creativity (more on that later) and those who live in the cities of Miami, Miami Beach, Hialeah and Homestead will elect their leaders.
Of the 193,650 absentee ballots sent out, just over 56,500 have already been returned. Of those, not even half — less than 18,500 — are from the four biggest cities in the county.
Miami beats Hialeah by nearly 2,000 ABs submitted so far. But both more than triple the number of ABs that were collected in Miami Beach, which has 2,169, which is more than twice as many returned in Homestead, which has only cast 801 mail-in ballots.
Maybe the AB fraud allegation earlier this month about two campaign workers stealing the votes from a family of four put the chill on “get out the vote” efforts.
Early voting, by comparison, seems to be going slow. For every one early voter there is at least seven people casting absentee ballots.
Less than 8,000 people had voted as of Monday night.
Early voting numbers were not available broken down by city. But if you try to get a picture by location — which is not a perfect strategy since voters can early vote at any polling place — then Miami Beach looks like it is still leading with 1,473 early votes cast between City Hall and the North Shore Library.
Miami could be next because although only 490 ballots have been cast at Miami City Hall, the city probably gets the lion’s share of the 959 voters who checked in at the Stephen P. Clark Center downtown, which is the number one polling place for early birds.
But Hialeah is likely close behind with 881 votes cast at the John F. Kennedy Library as of Monday night, while Homestead will probably garner less than 450 votes from the 457 cast at Florida City City Hall (remember, others are just voting on the countywide JMH bond issue).
Some political observers say the numbers so far indicate a really low turnout in Homestead — despite a heated mayoral race to replace one who was suspended for public corruption and then again by voters in the primary — and higher than expected interest in Miami, which lacks any real interest now that Commissioner Francis Suarez has dropped out of what promised to be an epic vote-generating mayoral challenge to Tomas Regalado.
We also agreed that we expected higher numbers in Miami Beach, considering the money spent in that mayoral race by millionaire candidate Philip Levine — maybe more than in the other three cities combined (more on that later) — and how ugly its become between the clear factions of people who love Mayor Matti Bower (who is running for commission), and Commissioners Michael Gongora (running for mayor) and Jorge Exposito and those who, um, would rather see the three run out of the city.
Attorney Michael Grieco, who is running against Exposito, lamented the low turnout Saturday on his facebook page: “5 voters in 2 hours while thousands attend the Amway convention across the street…every day of poor voter turnout makes your vote that much more valuable,” Grieco wrote.
There are only seven more days, dear voters.
Do you know where your ballot is?
Votes trickle, pour in; Deadline for AB requests Wednesday added by Ladra on
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