© 2024 WLRN
MIAMI | SOUTH FLORIDA
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Voters Wait Hours In North Miami, And There Weren’t Enough Ballots For Everyone

Douglas Hanks
/
Miami Herald
A line of voters waiting to cast their ballots at the North Miami library on Sunday, Nov. 4, 2018. Equipment malfunctions had voters reporting waits topping three hours, and the early-voting site briefly ran out of ballots for voters.

Miami-Dade briefly ran out of ballots Sunday for some voters at its North Miami location, as malfunctioning printers upended logistics there during the final day of early voting and had people reporting wait times topping three hours.

As the sun set on the fourteenth day of early voting in the largely black neighborhood, more than 200 voters were in a line that snaked around half a block outside the North Miami library. “I would have stayed in line eight hours if I had to,” Joas Laurent, 37, said as he walked out of the library at 7:20 p.m., about three hours after he said he arrived.

The printers used to generate customized ballots for for a voter’s precinct failed early in the afternoon, and poll workers eventually had to turn to pre-printed ballots to let people vote, said Christina White, the county’s elections supervisor. When those ran out for two of the surrounding precincts, the county had to rush in replacements from nearby polling places. She said it’s the only time she can recall Miami-Dade running out of ballots at a voting site.

Read more at our news partner, the Miami Herald.

More On This Topic