Miami-Dade County, Fla., election officials claimed that all of the votes for the area had been counted. But according to an anonymous tip, that appears to be untrue.
The Opa-locka mail distribution center was closed and hasn’t been reopened due to the arrest of #MAGABomber, Cesar Sayoc Jr., whose pipe bomb packages were processed at the facility. This same center, allegedly, is housing an undisclosed number uncounted mail-in ballots. Two anonymous sources claim the estimated total of uncounted ballots could be in the hundreds or thousands, according to a report by The Miami New Times.
Bins of alleged uncounted ballots.The Miami New Times
Suzy Trutie, a spokesperson for the Elections Department, has admitted that her office was fully aware of the abandoned ballots but wouldn’t confirm anything else. She referred to Florida state law, which states any ballots not delivered to the Miami-Dade Elections Department by 7 p.m. on Election Day could not be counted toward the 2018 total.
“We do our best to educate voters that, if you’re voting vote-by-mail, then your ballot had to be at the Elections Department by Tuesday, November 6,” she said. “Not everybody mailed back in time.”
A report was issued that noted that a local CBS affiliate reporter had reached out to the USPS for a comment about the ballots and was informed the department has “no information to suggest any ballots were not properly handled and provided to local election officials” per its “established process.”
The reporter took to Twitter to discuss the details:
After the USPS issued its statement, Trutie returned to say, “The Elections Department ran daily post-office pick-ups this election season, and picked up ballots three different times on Election Day.”
Other sources are saying something totally different. In a video uploaded to Twitter, a postal worker flat out denied that anything had been done with the ballots. The woman said ballots were sitting on the floor hours after the delivery deadline had passed.
Kirk Nielsen, a former New Times writer who lives in Coral Gables, said he mailed his ballot at a University of Miami post office on October 29 but learned after Election Day that it hadn’t been received.
“Of course I wonder if my ballot is sitting in the Opa-locka mail facility, along with many others,” he says. “I hope there’s an investigation.”
With a recount being at stake and a large number of voted being left uncounted, it’s crucial for the Florida Elections and USPS make this situation right. It could very well change the results of the election.
Reader Question: Do you think the uncounted ballots should be allowed special provisions giving the circumstances they weren’t delivered in the first place
