Miami-Dade Election: 80 Percent Voter Turnout Expected, Officials

MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, FL — Officials expect that 80 percent of eligible Miami-Dade County voters will vote in this year’s election, said Robert Rodriguez, assistant deputy supervisor of elections. Normally, the county sees a 68 to 72 percent voter turnout in presidential election years, he added.

The county has mailed out more than 660,000 vote-by-mail ballots, which is a record for Miami-Dade, he said. “We’ve never done those numbers before.”

As of Monday morning, around 42 percent of eligible voters have cast their ballots, Rodriguez said. Turnout is “on pace to hit (their) expectations.” The county has received around 390,000 vote-by-mail ballots and verified nearly 267,000 of them.

Monica Skoko Rodriguez, president of the League Woman Voters of Miami-Dade and executive director of Miami-Dade County Commission of Women, is amazed by this year’s voter turnout.

“We’re just seeing remarkable turnout that we have never seen before, especially with early voting,” she said. “I think that it’s a mix of, obviously, the pandemic – people are being a little more afraid to vote in person and we’re seeing a lot of vote-by-mail returns – but there’s a lot of early voting as well in person. That’s signaling to us that people are excited to vote and want their vote counted early.”

Election Day is a toss-up, she said. “There are kind of two ways it could go. It could mean all of this early voting is because folks are a little more educated about early voting and maybe this year they wanted to seek out different options. This heightened early voting could lead to a more tepid and regular Election Day turnout or, as in what happened with the primaries (in August), both are just going to be high turnout.”

LWV has been working to combat “the false idea that vote by mail is unsafe, unsecure and heightens fraud, because it is just not true,” Skoko Rodriguez added. “And we have seen that people have taken note. We’re seeing people voting by mail. We’re seeing folks early voting.”

The organization is also paying attention for stories of voter intimidation or other issues. The only big issue they’ve seen so far is the case of a uniformed Miami-Dade Police Department officer voting while wearing a profane pro-Trump mask, she said. The officer faces disciplinary actions.

“It is encouraging to know that became such of a big deal because it is a big deal,” she said. “Voter intimidation is a big deal. I’m very happy that is being addressed.”

She encourages any voters who are intimidated at polling locations or who have other concerns to report incidents by calling 866-OUR-VOTE (866-687-8683).

There have been few problems so far, Rodriguez said. “Everything is going great. Lines are moving quickly when there are lines.”

So far, “everything is going great,” he said. “Lines are moving quickly when there are lines.”

As early voting continues, the wait is a bit longer at popular polling locations, such as Westchester Regional Library, North Dade Library, Coral Gables Library, West Kendall Library, South Gable Regional Library and John F. Kennedy Library, Rodriguez said. Voters can check the Supervisor of Elections website for wait times and find an alternative polling place nearby if the wait is too long at their preferred location.

“So, if the line is too long at Westchester, then check the early voting site and you might see you’re not going to have any waits at FIU,” he said. “We highly recommend checking the wait time page.”