South Miami election foul-up kept voters home
Mar 3 2008 | BY Jonnelle Marte and Matthew I. PinzurA minor mess-up by the Miami-Dade County elections office is having major consequences in the city of South Miami, where dozens of voters were mistakenly told they could not cast ballots in last month's municipal election.
One week later, Palmer led a 3-2 vote to fire the city manager -- and pay a $102,000 severance package. Guim said he would have voted against the firing.
''If I were a South Miami taxpayer, I would be very upset because the city squandered $102,000 on severance pay,'' said fired manager Yvonne Soler-McKinley. ``They're responsible to the taxpayers, and I'm not.''
Guim filed a lawsuit Feb. 22 asking a judge to toss out the election and call a new one.
''This mess-up by the elections department has to do with voters being disenfranchised,'' Guim said.
The problem traces back to South Miami's maddening borders and the city's desire to simplify Election Day.
For most elections, six polling places serve the area's 9,000 residents -- a mix of people who live in the city and unincorporated Miami-Dade.
SAVING MONEY
When only municipal offices are on the ballot, as they were Feb. 12, city leaders save money by having everyone vote at City Hall. Standard practice at the county's elections department is to notify all voters of the temporary change.
But that confused some of the 2,814 people who live in those precincts but not inside South Miami's meandering, stop-and-start boundaries. Hoping to clarify that the election was only for city residents, elections chief Lester Sola sent a different card to nearly 3,000 unincorporated voters.
''Since you are a registered voter of unincorporated Miami-Dade, you are not eligible to vote in this election,'' the card said.
But at least 22 households containing 53 registered voters received the second card, even though they are inside city limits. Among them: Stephen Conti, who said his family was planning to vote in a local election for the first time in 22 years because a candidate knocked on their door. His is the only house on the block inside South Miami, but they did not go to vote after getting the second postcard. ''This was a surprise since we pay our taxes to South Miami,'' Conti said.
