Florida’s elections have long fought tropical cyclones in their efforts to respect the basic precept of democracy.
The start of the high hurricane season coincides with primary elections in August, and the consequences of late storms can affect November’s voting operations.
But this year’s tropical problems may rival the active 2005 hurricane season, which wiped out the Sunshine State with five landfills, adding Hurricane Wilma on October 24 that left some Palm Beach County citizens undereer until November 11.
Wilma’s wrath happened a year without elections, in a different way, it may have easily turned into a vote in early November. This year’s general election will be held on November 3.
And then there’s the additional challenge of a global pandemic, which has already forced the redesign of number one polling stations where construction managers have banned the electorate for fear of coronavirus infections.
“You have to be prepared for anything, adding the unexpected,” Palm Beach County Chief of Elections Wendy Sartory Link said. “We make a lot of plans and yes.”
While the 1918 Spanish flu rocked the mid-term elections, “it turns out that there is no fashion precedent for a pandemic or other widespread disease affecting U.S. national elections. And that it has happened to date with COVID-19,” says a report from the Congressional Research Service published. in July.
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Sixteen potential polling stations refused to host the number one election in Palm Beach County as of August 1 due to coronavirus problems. In March, 17 locations withdrew their invitations less than a week before presidential number one.
“Voting venues have been a moving goal,” said Craig Latimer, Hillsborough County Elections Supervisor, chairman of the Florida Election Supervisors group. “People are getting creative.”
Link said last week that she was confident that Tuesday’s number one will have enough election officials, at least five at each site, though many experienced older adults said they felt uncomfortable participating in this year’s elections because of the coronavirus. He’s looking for more election staff and alternates for the general election.
At least I probably wouldn’t have to deal with a tropical challenge for the primary. Tropical Storm Josephine formed on Thursday, but follows a path that takes her to the Atlantic and far east of Florida.
If a typhoon has razed a polling station before a vote, the Palm Beach County Convention Center and Coral Sky Amphitheatre are possible mega sites to cluster sites, Link said. South Florida Exhibition Park is an emergency option, but not a hurricane when it serves as a shelter for special needs.
“I think it comes with the job,” Sartory Link said of the additional planning. “You have to wait and see what a typhoon is going to do before you can move other people or places of choice.”
That’s what happened in 2018 when Category Five Hurricane Michael hit Panhandle, Florida, on October 10, less than a month before Ron DeSantis and Andrew Gillum were elected governor on November 6.
Florida Sen. Rick Scott, who was governor at the time but opposed outgoing Senate President Bill Nelson, issued an emergency order to consolidate polling stations or use other polling stations in Michael’s affected counties. The order also facilitates early voting regulations so that others can vote until voting day, when it stops last weekend. Individuals may also request that ballots be mailed to someone other than the one on their voter registration card.
Scott’s administration, however, has been criticized for extending voter registration for another day.
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“There are fears that a vanquished hurricane will destroy energy, yet there are laws that allow for minor delays in particular elections or that election directors will benefit more in voting,” said Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, a professor of election law in Stetson. University. “States want to have a variety of methods in a position to make some resilience in election management.”
Other storm and election incidents include:
Hurricane Andrew of Category Five hit Homestead on August 24, 1992 with a statewide number one pick scheduled for September 1. The election was postponed until September 8 on the order of a circuit failure in Dade County after 102 constituencies simply are not used. The U.S. Military has set up five polling stations in tents.
New Orleans residents were still recovering from Hurricane Katrina in early February 2006, when elections of the city council and mayor were scheduled to take place. It was rescheduled for 22 April 2006. State election officials conducted a data crusade in several states to tell the displaced electorate how they can vote.
Superstorm Sandy, 1,100 miles wide, flooded New Jersey and New York on October 29, 2012, just before the November 6 general election between Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney and outgoing President Barack Obama. More than 250 polling stations in both states were displaced and about 1 million New York voters lived in spaces where polling stations were affected by the storm. Delays in the application for postal ballot boxes were widened, some voters were allowed to vote with provisional votes at any polling station, others may simply request a vote by email or fax.
In March, in the middle of the night, tornadoes ravaged Tennessee ahead of the Super Tuesday vote. Election officials rushed to redirect the electorate whose polling stations had broken to other sites and kept some sites open late.
While number one would possibly be delayed, there is less room to move the presidential election, which would require a congressional law to replace federal statutes, Torres-Spelliscy said.
This year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecasts up to 25 named storms, 10 of which have already formed. Warmer-than-normal sea surface temperatures and the imaginable start of storm-friendly La Niño are expected to fuel activity that may last beyond the peak season last October.
In 2005, seven named storms formed between October 15 and January 6, 2006, adding primary hurricanes Wilma and Beta.
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“When situations are more favorable, you tend to have more activity faster and later,” said Gerry Bell, a senior seasonal forecaster at the Climate Prediction Center. “So it’s moderate to expect us to see an activity in November, but I can’t say how long it will last until November.”
However, Torres-Spelliscy said he became less involved in the obstacles to the vote of the Floridians because there is more than one way to vote. The state voted early and has been winning mail votes for about two decades, a practice that is expected to explode amid fears of coronavirus.
As of Friday morning, more than 1.9 million ballots had been mailed across the state for election number one, adding 185,254 in Palm Beach County.
In addition, 370,459 more people across the state voted early, adding 15,772 in Palm Beach County.
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“The states that make me nervous are the ones that check to approve and vote by mail and start at 0,” Torres-Spelliscy said. “I hope Florida’s election officials have taken precautions to make sure we have an elegant choice.”
The Federal Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act for Coronavirus (CARES) provided $400 million for bills to states to “prevent, prepare, and respond to the coronavirus” in the 2020 federal election cycle.
Florida’s $20.2 million percentage is conditional on the state offering 25% $4 million care.
Each of Florida’s 67 counties receives $50,000 with a greater investment in the number of registered electorates in that county.
Palm Beach, with 976,612 voters, will receive $1.5 million.
“There are some things we may be waiting for, as there will possibly be climate disorders or the option that COVID-19 will be with us for months and months,” said Penny Venetis, a clinical law professor at Rutgers Law School. “These are things we know and there will need to be procedures in a position to ensure that there are no interruptions in elections and the democratic process.”
Journalist Jeffrey Schweers of Tallahassee Democrat contributed to the report.
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