I’ve reached the point where Florida officials have to admit they’re deliberately suppressing the vote (cheating) or admit they are completely incompetent and resign immediately.
Via HuffPo (and all over twitter):
People are getting out to vote — but many of them are having to wait in line for three or four hours to do so. One contributor to DailyKos claimed it took 9 hours to vote. In Miami-Dade on Saturday, people who had gotten in line by 7:00 p.m. were allowed to vote; the last person wasn’t checked in until 1 a.m., meaning it took some individuals six hours to cast a ballot.
Miami-Dade attempted to deal with the problem on Sunday by allowing voters to cast absentee ballots in person between 1:00 and 5:00 p.m. However, after just two hours, the Miami-Dade elections department shut down the location after too many people showed up. People outside the locked doors were reportedly screaming, “We want to vote!”
And if getting turned away from the polls weren’t enough of an indignity, some of those 180 people ended up getting their cars towed from the parking lot across the street, according to a Miami Herald reporter.
And then…
About 30 minutes later, a Miami Herald reporter tweeted that the Miami-Dade location was reopening its doors.
So why is this happening?
A major reason there are so many problems at the polls is that last year, Florida’s GOP-controlled legislature shortened the number of early voting days from 14 to eight, meaning all early voters are trying to cast their ballots in a shorter window. Previously, Floridians were allowed to vote on the Sunday before Election Day — a day that typically had high traffic.
Scott has refused to extend early voting hours, essentially arguing that there is no problem, despite calls from Democrats, independent groups and even a Republican elections supervisor. He is arguing that he can extend early voting hours only when there is a true emergency — like a natural disaster — that warrants it.
Perhaps it’s time to move control of elections to the Federal level, because this is obviously something certain states can’t handle. Let’s make Florida Department of Elections a ward of the court – after all, how many times has Florida screwed this up? There shouldn’t be this many different rules (and political games by Republicans) to vote.