County Elections Supervisor asks Miami to spread voting dates apart

The Miami-Dade County Elections Department is asking the City of Miami to consider rescheduling its elections to provide more time to organize between general and run-off voting this November.

On May 23, Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections Christina White appeared before the Miami City Commission to request four weeks between the city’s general and run-off elections. Currently, there are only two weeks between the elections, which Ms. White says complicates things for her department, candidates and voters.

“It’s not just the City of Miami. This is every city that has a run-off election that is two or three weeks from their general election. Why yours is a little bit more complicated is because it is coupled with Miami Beach and Hialeah,” Ms. White said. “For us to be able to turn around the general and runoff in two weeks for these large cities is really burdensome for all parties.”

She detailed the possible consequences to the department, candidates and voters if the city were to conduct elections under the constrained two-week period.

“There are many steps that are involved in preparing for an election. Each one of them are in sequence and they have to be done with 100% accuracy.

There is zero tolerance for error in what we do,” Ms. White said. She explained that the two-week time currently designated was set up when voting primarily took place on election day.

“Now, modern-day voting takes into account a significant amount of people voting by mail and also early voting, so for us, certification of your first election until the first vote by mail ballots go out … that window is very, very small,” she said.

Recent changes in election laws have made it more complicated for elections departments to get vote-by-mail ballots delivered and returned in a timely fashion.

In preparation, the elections department has to code, proof and test three different voting systems. Only then can they send ballots out for printing and begin processing and mailing them to voters. Separately, the equipment needs to be reset, reprogrammed and retested between elections, delivered to the municipalities, and early voting needs to be conducted.

“The list goes on and on. It’s a lot to take on in two weeks, so these are some of the logistical burdens I’m hoping to alleviate on the department side,” Ms. White said.

“On the voter side, I’m worried about the vote-by-mail voters in particular because the short period that exists is not affording them enough time to return their ballot.”

The city’s 2023 runoff, which was only in Districts One and Two, had eight days of total delivery time to mail the ballot to the voters and get it back to the department by election day at 7 p.m., which is the statutory requirement for return.

In addition to the change in election laws, the postal service has changed delivery standards, Ms. White said. “They have notified us is that local mail takes three days on the way out and three days on the way in in Miami-Dade County. If you are somewhere else in Florida or in another state it can be up to 10 days,” she said.

“In the last election, 565 voters, or 11% of your vote-by-mail ballots, were rejected because they came in late. I can imagine that is a number that none of us are comfortable with. That can change the election, so providing a little more additional time I think is favorable to the voters as well,” Ms. White added.

“On the candidates’ side, we’re being asked for data, we’re being asked for information to go out and campaign and get people to turn out to vote in the runoff. It’s becoming very difficult for us to provide that information in that short period of time,” she said. “I have to certify the election and do all my internal procedures before I can provide that data.”

Ms. White suggested keeping the city’s original election on the first Tuesday in November and pushing out the runoff to allow four weeks minimum between them. The way the city’s elections are currently planned would see the runoff election held the Tuesday after Thanksgiving.

“People are going to be travelling, vote-by-mail ballots are going to be coming in late, early voting would be over the Thanksgiving holiday… That’s not great, and I don’t think that’s the model that we should do,” she said.

She suggested pushing the runoff to December, which would give the city, county, voters and candidates five weeks between elections. Ms. White proposed the timeline to Miami Beach and Hialeah for their consideration as well in an effort to keep everyone on a consolidated calendar.

“I agree that we need more time between the elections. You have to raise money, you have to get all the data, and two weeks is not enough. Five weeks … I agree with it,” said Commissioner Manolo Reyes.

The commission has not yet indicated what it will do about election scheduling this fall.