abnruby

I live in Broward, so howdy, neighbor! I have a question;

Why were there polling places inside of gated communities, and when it became clear that those communities weren't going to allow people without government ID to enter, why in God's name weren't they moved?

ETA (The provided explanation for this was outrageous, Snipes indicated that those communities had "declined" to allow people without ID in to vote and that they had to worry about the safety of the residents. Which is fine, but the right to vote trumps their right to HOA requirements, also there shouldn't be polling places there to begin with, we have more than enough public buildings)

ETA2 You wanna answer? I think it's a fair question.

Thanks for answering, the quote below is probably why people are so angry about the whole thing;

Patricia Santiago, an assistant to Supervisor of Elections Snipes, said the office "wasn't aware of those complaints" made about access to the polling location during the primaries. She said the office is "trying to talk to the facility to see if they will accept" not demanding IDs to enter the premises on election day. Yet she said so far the community has "declined" to let people pass through without showing IDs "because of the safety of the residents."

The complaints were made, they existed, now Broward county is saying "?? We didn't see that lol". They were gated communities and it's a polling place. At no point, complaints or not, should this have happened. I get that it's above your pay grade, but Christ I cannot imagine working with people who thought that this was okay.

Here's a link , there are a few local stories about it but I think it got buried in the rest of the fuckery.

The biggest issue with it, in my estimation, is that we have multiple types of acceptable voter ID (credit or debit card/CCW permit card/neighborhood association ID/student ID) that aren't a state issued ID or driver's license, and those people were potentially denied their right to cast a ballot, while being in total compliance with the law. (Not that you aren't entitled to a provisional, but the fact that totally compliant voters were disenfranchised is especially outrageous to me.) Further, the fact that security guards (not law enforcement, not poll workers) were making the "acceptable identification" call is extremely problematic.

Apparently there had been plenty of complaints about this prior to the midterm and there were documented access issues, and these polling places still weren't moved. I just do not understand the reasoning there. No matter your party affiliation, this should raise alarm.

You can present one of several types of ID, (CCW permit (incidentally what I had on me when I voted), debit card, school ID etc) and be entirely compliant with our state law regarding voter ID. The statute is all that matters here, and it's not up for interpretation by any third party (like an HOA/community association). A third party cannot demand that you comply with the statute in a particular way, or at all, to access your polling location.

There's an additional issue here as well, private security guards are not bound to be impartial, so hypothetically, if they see a MAGA hat (or a Gillum button, or whatever) they might deny access to the person wearing those items on the basis that they don't have the "right" type of ID. (And the security booth is more than 100ft from the polling place, so those items are allowed.) That's voter suppression, and it's illegal.

We aren't arguing the statute here, we're arguing that a rent a cop in a small security hut should not be telling residents that they can't exercise their right to vote.

Yes, that's exactly right. You also have the right to a provisional ballot without ID of any kind, though your vote might not be counted, so those people were also turned away.