THE MOST WIDELY CIRCULATED CARIBBEAN AMERICAN NEWSPAPER IN FLORIDA
CNWEEKLYNEWS.COM
THURSDAY OCTOBER 15, 2020
Biden Courts Caribbean Americans and Seniors During Broward Visit
By Garth A. Rose
HEEDING THE CALL
South Floridians, judging from statistics sourced from the Florida Divisions of Elections (FDE), are heeding calls to vote early and are eagerly taking advantage of the mail-in option to cast their ballots in the 2020 presidential/general election. With election less than three weeks to go until November 3, 2020, two million of Florida's 14 million registered voters had cast votes by returning mail-in ballots as of Wednesday morning, October 14. Those votes included 967,036 Democrats, 564,361 Republicans, and 363,746 without party affiliation. Of the ballots returned throughout the state, 490,786 were returned In South Florida, where 169, 347 were returned in Broward County, 142,136 in Miami-Dade County, with Palm Beach County leading with 179,303 returned ballots. Not surprisingly, in a region renowned for its Democratic Party leaning, the majority of ballots returned have been from registered Democrats.
South Floridians Voting Early and Aggressively The data indicates in Palm Beach County, 105,000 Democrats, 35,725 Republicans and 35,753 NPA voters returned ballots as of Wednesday morning. In Broward, while 106,690 Democrats returned ballots, only 27,372 Republicans and 33,835 NPA's did so. The gap was narrower in MiamiDade County where 72,608 Democrats returned ballots compared to 34,711 Republicans and 33,478 NPAs.
Although the data provided by the FDE does not categorize voters by ethnicity, CNW's research through calls to known CaribbeanAmerican registered voters indicated 73 percent of these voters requested and received mail-in ballots, and as of Tuesday, 61 percent of these voters have either returned the completed ballots by mail or dropped them off directly at the Supervisor of Elections (SOE) offices in the respective counties. On visiting the Miami-Dade SOE office in Doral, Miami-Dade on Tuesday, CNW witnessed a caravan of vehicles with eager voters driving in to drop off their ballots at manned drop boxes outside the offices. An SUV with its speakers blaring Bob Marley's “Get, Up, Stand Up. for Your Rights,” was laden with Caribbean Americans. Caribbean American Robin Starr, the SUV's driver, a resident of Homestead, some 33 miles from Doral, said she's a furloughed flight attendant but “I have been using the time to get out the vote, making phone calls urging people to vote early, and encouraging those who received mail-in ballots to drop them directly at the Supervisor of Elections offices, and have volunteered to take voters to this office, making several trips over recent days, so they can drop off their ballots. These elections are too important to our future to sit idle. We must make America sane again.”
It was high energy in Broward County on Tuesday as Caribbean-Americans, specifically, JamaicanAmericans turned out to support Democratic nominee Joe Biden during his campaign stop in South Florida. Biden's first visit was to the Pembroke Pines Senior Center where, in his address, he criticized President Donald Trump for holding “super-spreader parties,” large crowded campaign rallies with attendees at risk of contracting COVID-19, while seniors couldn't even see their grandchildren. Biden told the gathering that Trump has never been focused on seniors or their health. continues on C4 – Biden visit
“Trump doesn't really care about lowering the healthcare costs, because he's beholden to the health insurance companies and the drug companies – Joe Biden
continues on C4 – Heeding The Call
WHAT’S INSIDE T&T SAYS FINAL FAREWELL TO TOP COMEDIAN A3
IACHR WANTS CARIBBEAN TO ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY A4
STRICTLY LEGAL
SPORTS
FIRST TIME FLORIDA VOTERS BEWARE: DON’T LET YOUR VOTE BE DISQUALIFIED C1
WEST INDIES COULD BE EASED FROM COVID-19 BUBBLE IN NEW ZEALAND D3