Get Your Mail-In Ballot Now

Let’s get my forecast out of the way: Trump will lose in Miami-Dade County but win in Florida, because Floridians are just that dumb. I will become an expat and I’m already looking at expat enclaves in Mexico. The area has to have good doctors. That is my only stipulation.

I asked some experts about the voting process. The one thing they all agreed on: VOTE EARLY. Don’t mess around with your mail-in ballot. Vote once you get it and try again in person, as Trump advises.

Penny Townsley, our former elections supervisor (retired in 2016), said there was no doubt in her mind that Miami-Dade County was equipped to handle a massive surge in voting by mail (no longer called absentee ballots). I asked her if she thought the results could be in the night of the election and she said “No.” She recommended that people vote by mail and get their ballot in as soon as possible. There has always been a trust factor with voting by mail, she added, and admitted that the only problem with it was signature verification. But now that you can supply the elections office with contact information, it can contact you for a fix before your ballot is processed.

I asked the current elections supervisor, Christina White, who thought to put in information to contact voters about the signatures? She said it was the Florida Ethics and Elections Committee. I have never known Tallahassee to do anything good so this makes me happy. She said it was working very well and that a voter’s ballot would not be discarded until the day after the election, so there is plenty of time to take care of a signature discrepancy. And not only is the elections office required to send you a letter about the signature, it must also attempt to call, text or email you, according to a July 1, 2019, change. Christina also said to get those ballots in early. Suzy Trutie, deputy supervisor, said that once voting starts, every day the votes in every county that come in are sent to the state elections office so no one’s waiting until Election Day to start the count.

Monica Skoko Rodríguez, president of the League of Women Voters of Miami-Dade County (LWV), was disappointed that the group could not do in-person events. She said LWV had to resort to calling, text campaigns and social media. It’s also dropping off voter guides at libraries and other public buildings. I asked her about voters without computers and she said LWV and its partner groups were reaching out to lower-turnout voters by phone.

She said, “This will be a historic election, we might see up to 78% of voters voting before Election Day.” That information was compiled from data comparing the last primary to prior elections. Monica said the League would want to tell voters: “Sign up to vote by mail as soon as you can and then vote.” She agreed with Penny that there has been no fraud found in mail-in voting. Monica also said the primary went very smoothly, a good omen. I asked her if the League was supporting Trump. She laughed and said, “The League of Women Voters is fiercely nonpartisan.” Its voter guides do make suggestions on amendments, but not on any candidates. To get the voter guide, go to vote411.org.

But here’s my cheat sheet on their amendment recommendations: Amendments 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, oppose. Support ONLY Amendment 2. I agree with them.

By the numbers, on July 31 Miami-Dade County had 399,525 Republican, 623,613 Democrat and 465,587 independent registered voters. That would be a bit over a million and a half if you count minor party affiliation. Independent registration is a waste. I have belonged to both parties; it is the only way you can vote in a primary so why on earth would you give up that opportunity?

For Trump to lose in Florida we would need a landslide of Democratic voters in Miami-Dade and Broward to offset the more numerous heavily Republican but less populous counties like Nassau and Okaloosa.

According to a recent poll conducted by Bendixen & Amandi International, in 2016 Trump lost to Hillary in Miami-Dade by 30 points. In the current poll Trump is only losing by 17 points. Why? In spite of all the insults and humiliation Hispanics have suffered under Trump, half of Hispanics STILL will vote for this moron. They don’t seem to be able to differentiate between the dictator they escaped with our xenophobic dictator-in-training. Fernand Amandi said that the Trump campaign is hammering on Hispanics here with a vengeance; even outright lies are registering with them. He said: “Biden needs every last vote in the county, and the good news is that Biden still has time.”