Miami, county clash on voting

BY DANIEL A. RICKER

danielricker@earthlink.net

If the Miami-Dade County Elections Department cannot provide more voting locations for the Aug. 31 election, Miami city commissioners said they would consider initiating a class-action suit against the state and county.

The commission's unanimous vote came Thursday after Miami-Dade County Elections Supervisor Constance Kaplan had explained that while there are 14 locations countywide, only two are within city limits: one at the Lemon City Library and the other at the Stephen P. Clark Government Center.

Kaplan told the commissioners she was limited by criteria that required early voting locations restricted to city halls, libraries or offices of the Elections Department that have been established for least a year.

Miami Commissioner Tomas Regalado noted that many of the city's voters are elderly, some with disabilities, and that the county is forcing them to travel if they wish to vote early. Kaplan responded that voters can apply to get a ballot by mail, a method he called popular.

However, Regalado expressed concern that their votes were not being tallied by the new computerized voting machines. The county's Elections Department is currently under scrutiny by outside voting reform organizations for voting machine irregularities.

''Voters in my district do feel disenfranchised, and I will personally lead a group to sue your department,'' Regalado said. He expressed concern that a large number of Hispanic voters would be affected by the limited number of polling places.

But commission Chairman Arthur E. Teele Jr. said this fear of voter disenfranchisement was not limited to Hispanics. He added that he was concerned with ``voter accessibility for poor people, African Americans as well as Hispanics and the elderly.''

The Miami-Dade Elections Department should be sensitive to this issue ''given the history this state has had,'' Teele said. ``It has resulted in us being a brunt of all the jokes, and every elected official in the nation says they don't want to be like Florida and especially like Miami-Dade County.''

Limiting the number of voting locations is ''moving in the wrong direction,'' Teele said.

The Miami Commission has asked the city's legal department to issue an opinion before proceeding on a class-action suit.

Teele also alerted his fellow commissioners that in future city elections, the county Elections Department is seeking a two-week delay between municipal elections when a runoff is required. This would require the commissioners to change the city charter.