Early voting’s big start in slow, boring midterm primary

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After the fiasco seen at polling sites in 2012, a new and improved early voting system will begin this morning with more days — Miami-Dade is one of three counties in the state offering the maximum two weeks — varied hours and four new locations.

After long lines and ridiculous waits at Florida voting precincts became the joke of the nation in 2012, state lawmakers made changes to the law that allow local elections department supervisors to make changes in the schedule to accommodate their community.

But there is no indication that turnout in this primary will come even close to the numbers two years ago. Some candidates, in fact, worry that the low rate of return on absentee ballots means that this will be an election with very little participation.

That may be one reason why labor union leaders and other community activists will a get-out-the-early-vote rally Monday morning that starts at 11 a.m. — four hours after early voting starts — at the International Longshoreman’s Association Local 1416 at 816 NW Second Avenue and ends in a march to the Stephen P. Clark Center to cast votes there.

“Please join fellow community and labor leaders at a rally to hear why YOUR vote counts and why it’s important to Get-Out-The-Vote in the Primary Election being held on Tuesday, August 26,” starts an email from a county employee and member of the South Florida AFL-CIO, with the flyer attached.

The event also seems like a get-out-the-black-vote drive or a get-out-the-blue-vote drive being sponsored by an all African-American and Democrat cast of legislators: Congresswoman Federica Wilson, State Sen. Oscar Braynon, III, State Reps. Cynthia Stafford and Barbara Watson and Miami-Dade Commissioner Audrey Edmonson.

At the same exact time, as if to take attention away from that, Republican Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera will cast his vote at the West Dade Regional Library, according to a press release sent out over the weekend.

He wants to encourage all voters to take advantage of the early voting convenience, the release says.

But this is not expected to be as big as 2012, not only because there is no presidential race, but also because there is no mayoral race and hardly any real commission race.

Only District 8 where incumbent Commissioner Lynda Bell faces challenger Daniella Levine Cava, do observers expect close to normal turnout. Everywhere else, it looks like it will be absymally low.

Countywide there are judicial races and the contest for Miami-Dade Property Appraiser, from which we have five candidates to choose from, or four if we can exclude State Rep. Eddy Gonzalez and I hope we can.

For just Republican voters, there is the hotly contested five-way contest for the GOP nomination in congressional District 26, which is already one of the more closely watched races in the nation because many observers consider Rep. Joe Garcia an easily beatable Dem incumbent.

But the big ticket item expected to drive the Miami-Dade vote out is the Democratic primary for the governor’s nominee between former Gov. Charlie Crist, who is expected to come out the victor, and former Sen. Nan Rich, who is the better Democratic Party candidate of the two.

As we were saying, there’s a decidedly slow turnout perhaps fueled by a total lack of interest in what seems like the inevitable.

Hopefully, the elections officials won’t judge the early voting performance based solely on the turnout this year and make changes again in 2016, when it should get better.

  2014 Elections, early voting, labor issues