For immediate release
October 29th, 2020
Contact Media@electiondefense.org
Lawsuit against Miami-Dade County alleges voter suppression by Mayor and Elections Supervisor.
A lawsuit by the National Election Defense Coalition and Journalist Grant Stern accuses Miami-Dade County’s Elections Department of partisan voter suppression when it turned down the Miami Heat’s offer to use the American Airlines Arena as a gigantic voting and elections center. The decision came after its Mayor’s personal intervention in the decision in late August and early September 2020.
Gimenez is also a partisan political candidate in the 2020 general election, running as the pro-Trump Republican nominee for Florida’s 26th Congressional district against incumbent U.S. Representative Debbie Mucarsel-Powell.
Internal communications show that the AA Arena was already on a short list of voting locations, but was removed after a 7AM text from Mayor Gimenez to Election Supervisor Christina White, immediately following a public announcement by the NBA regarding the League’s civic participation in the 2020 election. The Arena mysteriously was removed from the list and replaced by the Frost Museum, a much smaller inferior site with insufficient parking and access.
“This constitutes clear conflict of interest and a case of voting suppression by Mayor Gimenez, who is running a political campaign for Congress, and his appointee, the County Elections Supervisor,” stated former State Senator Ben Ptashnik, President of the NEDC.
Requests for information about the decision, both by Stern and the Miami Herald, were ignored by the Supervisor’s office until the National Elections Defense Coalition and Mr. Stern filed a public records lawsuit on October. After reviewing the texts and emails released following the first lawsuit, NEDC concluded that the County’s communications indicate a highly partisan decision.
Miami-Dade’s County Charter Bill of Rights guarantees “convenient access” to the vote to all citizens. NEDC and Mr. Stern have therefore amended the original complaint to include a request for injunctive relief under Miami-Dade’s Charter which prohibits making voting less convenient.
In fact, the Frost Museum of Science generally directs patrons to use parking at the American Airlines Arena, which it says is “a short, 6-minute walk from the museum.” When Mayor Gimenez made his decision, the museum’s website clearly noted that its parking facility has a minimal size.
Department officials had discussed the potential for inadequate parking availability to depress turnout in the 2020 election.
After Mayor Gimenez sent the text to Elections Supervisor Christina White, the county’s public information officers spread misleading statements about the government’s reason for making the change, refused to give the Miami Heat a written copy of its administrative decision and covered up the entire affair, only releasing records in response to a lawsuit.
See this link to the complaint:
https://twitter.com/DefendElections/status/1321898851511447552
Please contact NEDC for further information.