Record-breaking ‘Souls to Polls’ turnouts Sunday in South Florida

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Record-breaking ‘Souls to Polls’ turnouts Sunday in South Florida

By Christine Stapleton
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
WEST PALM BEACH — 
 
A get-out-the-vote drive that encouraged minority voters to cast their ballots Sunday saw record-breaking turnout Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties —three of the largest and heavily Democratic counties in the state.


Statewide vote totals for the two-weeks of early voting — won’t be known until number-crunchers for both parties finish analyzing data to determine whether “Souls to the Polls” brought in enough ballots to close the GOP’s 125,000 vote advantage.
In Palm Beach County, Sunday’s turnout was 11,069, compared to Oct. 31 — the second-highest turnout — when 9,060 ballots were cast. Overall, the numbers show a 48.7 percent increase over 2010, when Gov. Rick Scott was voted into office by 61,000 votes.
In Broward County, 19,802 voters went to the polls Sunday, beating the 12,355 ballots cast Saturday. Turnout in Miami-Dade County on Sunday was 16,486 — about 14 percent of all early votes cast since the start of early voting Oct. 20.
Supervisors of Elections from nine other counties that had early voting Sunday must report those numbers by noon today.
Let’s go show them we can vote on this day,” said Debbie Frazier, president at the Alliance for Social Justice, which sponsored a barbecue at Howard Park in West Palm Beach on Sunday. “Let’s celebrate that we have this day and use it.”
In 2011, lawmakers shrank the number of early voting days from 14 to eight, limited early voting to eight hours a day and did away with voting on the Sunday before election day —when black churches, whose members are heavily Democrats, organized “Souls to the Polls” drives.
Former governor and current gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist said the GOP-backed early voting changes approved Scott were aimed at reducing Democratic turnout in the 2012 presidential election.
Long lines with waits up to eight hours at polling places in 2012 made Scott the target of criticism and Florida the butt of election jokes. Last year, lawmakers reversed the election law and gave supervisors of elections the power to decide how many days and how many hours early polling sites would be open.
This year, Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher decided to allow early voting for 12 hours a day during the two weeks before the election, including “Souls to the Polls” Sunday. Eleven other counties offered early voting on Sunday, including Broward and Miami-Dade, which are among the largest in the state and known to have a substantial number of minority voters who are registered Democrats.
About 3 million Floridians already have voted by mail or at early voting sites. In Palm Beach County, 93,499 voters cast early ballots. Black voter turnout is more than double what it was in 2010, and women voters make up 55 percent of the ballots already cast.
In other “Souls to the Polls” events on Sunday, Crist spoke during a visit to the Greater Mount Olive Baptist Church in Delray Beach. In Miami, the Rev. Al Sharpton made appearances at several churches where he also encouraged voters to go to the polls Tuesday.
In a Tweet posted just after 5 p.m. Sunday — an hour after polls closed for early voting — Crist reported that voters were still waiting in lines to vote.


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