At a recent press conference with other elected leaders, Miami-Dade County Supervisor of Elections Alina Garcia urged people to vote in favor of Florida's Amendment 3 property tax proposal on the ballot this November.
Garcia and the other officials, including Miami-Dade Tax Collector Dariel Fernandez and Property Appraiser Tomas Regalado, made an important distinction at the start of the press conference: They said they were speaking in their "personal capacities" — not in their roles as stewards of local government operations.
READ MORE: 'Tighten belts': Miami-Dade officials back Amendment 3 - even as their own budgets grow
Garcia is the county's first elected Supervisor of Elections, after Florida's constitution required the creation of new elected offices in late 2025 that include her position and that of the county sheriff. Prior to that, the SOE was appointed by Miami-Dade's mayor, and was a nonpartisan position.
She is also the first SOE to openly advocate for something on the ballot that her elections office is responsible for overseeing the vote tally.
" I am the supervisor of elections, but I am here personally," Garcia told WLRN in an interview. " There is absolutely no conflict."
Garcia said she does not take a personal role in counting ballots, and the ballot counting process is open to the public for the sake of transparency.
" I don't personally count all the votes. They're counted by machine. We're gonna do it like we've always done, with accessibility to everyone with checks and balances," she said.
Florida ethics rules allow for public officials to speak in favor of certain political items and objectives in their personal capacity, as long as they aren't using their office's resources to do so.
"This is because the Ethics laws are careful not to infringe on an individual’s freedom of speech rights," said Caroline Klancke, executive director of the nonprofit Florida Ethics Institute. "It does not prohibit a public official from opining on publicly available information in their private capacity using their own private resources (including their own social media pages)."
Neither Garcia's personal nor official social media pages mention Amendment 3 — a controversial proposal that would increase Florida's homestead property tax exemption and limit how local governments can use tax dollars.
Many bipartisan elected leaders statewide including Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava and Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd have spoken in opposition to Amendment 3, saying it will cause major budget holes for municipal governments and could lead to cuts in services for parks, libraries and trash collection.
Nevertheless, Garcia and the majority of Miami-Dade's new constitutional officers have come out in support of the amendment, saying local governments need to tighten their belts to provide homeowners with tax relief.
" We need to learn how to live within our means," Garcia said.
Early voting begins in Miami-Dade on Oct. 19. The deadline for voter registration is Oct. 5.
