Abysmal turnout in South Florida municipal elections

In one of the lowest, if not the lowest, turnout of voters, City of Miramar Mayor Wayne Messam was overwhelmingly reelected for a third term in municipal elections held in Broward County on Tuesday, March 14

Messam, of Jamaican descent, defeated his lone challenger Rudy Theophin by winning 90 61 percent of the votes cast However, only 3,548 voters turned out to vote, representing just over 5 percent of the voters in the City of Miramar

The abysmal low turnout prompted Audley Beckett, a veteran resident of Miramar since 1982, to comment, “This low turnout of voters is disgraceful The people of Miramar waste no time in criticizing city politicians when things go wrong in the city, but yet they can't even take the time to cast votes to make sure they are well represented in the city It's a shame man Mayor Messam has done, so much for Miramar, especially in attracting large and small businesses to the city, you would imagine more people would turn out to vote for him, although he still won ”

In general, just 7 percent of the voters of Broward County voted in the municipal elections also held in Deerfield Beach, Coconut Creek, Hillsboro Beach, North Lauderdale and Pembroke Park According to a representative of the Broward Supervisor of Elections office, the low voter turnout was not a surprise, as new state regulations affected one of the latest popular mode of voting – voting by mail The new regulations which now require voters to reapply for a mail-in ballot every two years, apparently took voters off guard, resulting in some voters who would have voted not having ballots to do so Prior to the new regulations, ballots were mailed out automatically to voters who previously received ballots by mail

In other municipal races, Jamaican American Darrel Lewis-Ricketts won the seat in the City of North Lauderdale District D Commission seat

In the City of Pembroke Park, Ashira Mohammed, a woman of Trinidadian descent, won the District 5 Commission seat Also in this city, Musfika Kashem, a 32-year-old young woman who hails from Bangladesh, made history in winning the District 4 seat

City of Miramar Commissioner, Alexandra Davis, a Jamaican American, who recently was commended for her initiative in the historical hiring of a social worker in the Miramar Police department, was reelected unopposed to the District 4 seat on that city's Commission