UPDATED: Surprise, surprise. The cancellation of the American Airlines Arena as an early voting location was most likely done at the behest Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez, a suddenly-Republican congressional candidate who would gain from suppressing the blue vote there.
According to a story by the Miami Herald published late Friday, the Miami Heat had pretty much negotiated use of the arena with the county elections department. It was even on a draft list of the early voting sites. The NBA had offered the space in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis Police to ensure the BLM vote near downtown had a convenient place to vote.
But that wasn’t convenient for Gimenez.
After the deal was cut, according to the documents in the Herald story, Gimenez sent Elections Supervisor Christina White a text message with a link to a Reuters story, headlined “NBA to resume games after player protest, turn stadiums into voting sites.” The next text was “Need to talk about this.”
That was just after 7 a.m. on Aug. 29. A Saturday.
Days later, and without communicating this to the Heat people, the county changed the site from the AAA to the Frost Science Museum, even though elections staffers had earlier deemed too small to accommodate the same number of voting machines as the Adrienne Arsht Performing Arts Center, the regular area early voting site, which was not available this year.
Deputy Mayor Jennifer Moon made excuses for the boss, of course.
“Polling places are supposed to be apolitical,” Moon was quoted as saying in the Herald. “That was part of the discussion. Would it be an apolitical site?… I think we couldn’t conclude it would be completely apolitical. We don’t have control over the entire building.”
Read related: Early voting starts Monday with more days and hours — but wear a mask
Um, what? Are you kidding me? Has she driven by the Westchester or JFK libraries during early voting? Those ain’t apolitical sites, either.
More likely, Gimenez abused his power yet again to suppress votes that wouldn’t help him in his congressional race or his buddy, Commissioner Esteban “Stevie” Bovo in the race for Miami-Dade mayor. Grimenez is so used to getting away with it, he doesn’t even think it’s wrong anymore. He feels entitled.
And untouchable. He has become emboldened with every single abuse he gets away with. Remember how the elections office stayed open til 11 p.m. on the last day of qualifying in 2016 so he could come back with a good check after having submitted a bad one? And how many times he has used his office and county employees to campaign for him? How many times will Corrupt Carlos get a pass on these shenanigans?
Read related: Carlos Gimenez should resign to run for Congress, not abuse office to campaign
Friday night, Congresswoman Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, who Gimenez is trying to unseat, released a statement:
“Carlos Gimenez’s abuse of his power will clearly continue until the voters fire him, once and for all. Gimenez used his power as Mayor to reject the Miami Heat’s offer to use their arena to promote early voting,” DMP said.
“This is a clear attempt to suppress voter participation and bolster his own run for Congress. It’s a blatant abuse of power that reminds too many Miamians of the worst behavior of Donald Trump. To ensure a fair process, he must immediately recuse himself from all election decision-making.”
It’s too late for that. Gimenez really ought to resign from the race that he has obviously helped to manipulate. But Mucarsel-Powell was right: he won’t stop until the voters stop him.
Let’s hope that’s what they do on Nov. 3. Or he is going to be even more emboldened.
Corrupt Carlos Gimenez suppressed early voting by nixing arena polling site added by Ladra on
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