Early voting weekend: Low turnout, high bladder control

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The first weekend of early voting may have seemed incredibly slow to those under the hot sun who had to hold it in, but the trickling of voters Saturday and Sunday added up to nearly 6,500 votes cast in Miami Dade — not bad if you consider it’s already in two days more than 10 percent of the 56,000 absentee ballots returned in the last two weeks.

The largest performing early voting site was the North Dade Regional Library, which saw 651 people in both days. The West Dade Regional Library came in a close second with 648. The Coral Gables and West Kendall libraries followed with toals of 504 and 452. Hialeah’s JFK didn’t even come into the top five with 313 in total.

Let’s see how that plays out throughout the rest of the week. Early voting ends Saturday.

It’s been fairly quiet from drama so far, too. There were some allegations that campaign workers for one candidate were helping elderly vote (read: voting for them) in Miami Beach and that a community council candidate was spewing hate on gays in West Kendall. There were complaints Saturday that Hialeah police and firefighters were removing some signs and not others (then, eventually, they removed them all) from the JFK Library, which usually promises much drama but failed to deliver this time.

The most exciting part of the weekend, for some poll workers, was finding a place to pee Sunday.

Polling places in public buildings that were otherwise closed to the public, except for voters and election workers did not provide access to their bathrooms for campaign workers who, needless to say, would need the facilities from time to time after staying hydrated in the hot sun. That generated a few complaints. But the Miami-Dade Elections Department was following state law, said department spokeswoman Christina White.

“This is a question that comes up every single election,” White said. “If you have to go through the place where people are voting, you can’t go.”

But people have to go. “We’re struggling,” said State Rep. Ana Rivas-Logan, whose people at West Kendall Regional Library, like most of the campaign workers there, used the Sedano’s supermarket on the corner. At JFK, they used a house that became a beachhead for School Board Member Renier Diaz de la Portilla, who planted the DLP flag firmly in Hialeah with a DJ and domino tables under a tent.

“But we can’t have 45 people using this restroom like a public restroom,” said Diaz de la Portilla, referring to his volunteers and other campaign workers who were allowed access for emergency relief. That’s sportsmanship from a guy who had his signs removed Saturday by firefighters called upon by the city’s administration. After that, the city had everybody’s signs removed — you know, equal opportunity oppression — and only hand-held signs were allowed. That might seem strange but, other than at the home tents, Ladra remembers signs being hand held last year, too.

She also distinctly remembers the bathroom being open. Heck, I even filed a story from the JFK Library ladies room one afternoon to grab their wifi. It was a Sunday or a holiday that the library was closed. But people used the bathroom freely. Among those stuck without one at JFK Sunday was the 29-year-old daughter of Commission Chairman Joe Martinez, who spent the day stumping for her dad there.

“I spoke to Chip Iglesias and he said he couldn’t do anything about it,” Martinez told me, referring to one of Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez‘s deputy mayors. He also told Ladra he spoke to the director of early voting at the county’s elections department and that there was back and forth as to who was responsible.

Martinez said the bathrooms were open when he was in charge during the mayoral recall election. “They are the ones who control the situation. It’s a public library. The public should have access to it,” he said.

Well, Ladra knows it wasn’t an intentional dig at any one candidate, since Gimenez family members and volunteers — including his sister-in-law and mother-in-law at West Dade Regional — were among those forced to use alternative means.

Things ought to go back to normal on Monday, seeing as how both turnout and access to the bathrooms should be better.

Except for in Hialeah, where library hours have been cut so make sure you go before you go.