BY EVAN S. BENN, JENNIFER MOONEY PIEDRA, PATRICK DANNER AND DAVID GELLES
Maimi Herlad
As Election Day neared its halfway point, South Florida’s polling places were humming with voters who reported steadily moving lines and few glitches.
Voters waited between one and three hours in most spots, but the lines are shorter Tuesday than they were during the two-week early-voting period.
Coral Gables resident Marilyn Myman said she had tried to vote early but always found the lines too long. Not so on Election Day — she was in and out of her polling place in 25 minutes.
”It was a breeze,” Myman said.
About one of every four registered voters in Miami-Dade, Broward and statewide cast their ballots early, and many others voted absentee. That is helping to keep Election Day waits at a minimum despite an expected 80 percent turnout.
Another help: Voters are spread between 1,100 different polling places in Miami-Dade and Broward, making lines faster than at the 37 locations that hosted early voting.
”It’s short here compared to what it’s been,” Ken Goldberg, 83, said as he waited to vote at Century Village in Pembroke Pines.
All South Florida polling sites opened on time at 7 a.m., election workers said, and many had people waiting in lawn chairs and on blankets before dawn. Lines will be cut off at 7 p.m., but anyone in line by then will be allowed to vote.
All but two Florida polling places opened on schedule, Secretary of State Kurt Browning said. One was a West Palm Beach site where a poll worker delayed voters while he finished paperwork. The other, in Leon County, had a problem with the door locks that kept workers and voters pacing outside until someone opened the doors.
”This is unacceptable,” Browning said.
Pollwatchers from the AARP are canvassing the state and said they were satisfied with Florida’s voting process.
”We haven’t seen anything on the ground that looks to be a problem,” said Lori Parham, director of the group’s Florida office. “For the most part across the state, things seem to going smoothly.”
Election workers urged voters to be familiar with the ballot before getting to the polls — Broward voters will have to wade through four-page, double-sided ballots, the longest in the state.
A few early glitches: a power outage in east Miami included a polling place at Morningside Park, and broken optical-scanning machines were reported at the First Congregational Church in Fort Lauderdale and Holiday Springs Village Auditorium in Margate. The power outage did not affect voting because generators kicked in, and election workers said other scanners would be used to replace the ones that are down.
Dr. Joanne Richards carved out two hours from her day so she could vote at Rick Case Honda in Davie. She was toward the end of the swift-moving line at 7:30 a.m.
”I’m usually not this excited about anything,” Richards said. “At the end of the day, we’ll either have our first female vice president or first black president. I’m excited to see how the country reacts.”
Solange Bourgeg waited for more than two hours at the Uleta Park Community Center with her 12-year-old grandson, Ian McNeal, who drew in his sketchbook to pass the time.
”My mom said this is making history,” said Ian, a seventh-grader at American Heritage Middle. “It’s exciting — but also a little boring.”
Bourgeg, however, was staying put.
”Even if the wait was five hours, I wouldn’t leave,” she said. “I want to vote today, and I want to vote for Barack Obama.”
At the Coral Gables Youth Center, Al Rodriguez sported a McCain-Palin button on his T-shirt as he stood first in line. He called this election “the most important.”
”I’m looking out for the future of my kids and for the best for this country,” said Rodriguez, 69.
This election will be the state’s first big test of new optical-scan voting machines, which election officials promise will better serve voters than ATM-like touch-screens or butterfly ballots. It was Florida’s paper ballots and hanging chads in 2000 that left the country waiting 37 days for its next president-elect.
Tanya Lewicki was not comfortable after her experience with the optical scanners at St. Richard Catholic Church in Palmetto Bay. She said the machine gave off warning bells when it scanned her ballot, and a poll worker pressed some buttons to make it better.
”It gave me the heebie jeebies,” Lewicki said. “It was weird. I didn’t like her pushing the buttons in the machine.”
The state’s 27 electoral votes — more than any other swing state — are again considered critical to the outcome of the too-close-to-call presidential race. Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain have spent significant time the past two weeks pushing for last-minute votes with their running mates in the Sunshine State.
Despite the candidates’ best efforts, some voters were still undecided on Tuesday. Like Gabriel Rodriguez, 20, who said he was ”iffy” on his presidential decision as he waited for a chance to vote at the Southwest Regional Library in Pembroke Pines. He was leaning toward Obama, he said, but wouldn’t be sure until he filled out his ballot.
South Florida voters also will decide Tuesday who will represent them in Congress, on the state’s Supreme Court and in municipal government. Broward voters will choose a sheriff, and there are several state constitutional and local charter amendments on the ballot.
All of those races and amendments make for a beefy ballot, so being prepared is the best way to avoid a longer poll experience than necessary.
”Voters need to take the responsibility of looking at their sample ballot, checking and seeing how they are going to vote and looking at the amendments,” said Evelyn Hale, a Broward elections spokeswoman. “Come prepared.”
Thanks to early voting, many won’t have to come at all.
About 2.6 million people in Florida voted early, and another 1.7 million Floridians voted absentee, a total of about 40 percent of the state’s registered voters.
About 580,000 people cast early ballots in Miami-Dade and Broward, about 25 percent of all voters. Absentee votes raised the pre-Election Day turnout totals to close to 40 percent, election workers said.
The past two presidential elections have brought 73 percent and 74 percent turnout in Miami-Dade and similar turnouts in Broward.
If this election brings 80 percent turnout as expected, about one million people could be lining up to vote at one of the 1,100 polling places in Miami-Dade and Broward.
”And one of those people will be me,” Broward Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes said. “Haven’t had a chance to vote yet.”
It’s not necessary to bring a voter ID card, but a driver’s license or some form of photo identification with a signature helps the process go smoother.
Election supervisors said they hope to have absentee ballots tallied and posted on their websites by 7:15 p.m.; early-voting totals should be posted by 7:30 p.m.; total votes will roll in starting at 8:30 p.m.
Voters were breezing through Key West’s Old City Hall on Tuesday, where more than 200 people had already cast ballots by 9:30 a.m.
”We usually don’t get that many all day,” poll worker Ed Guillory said.
Jennifer Conde and friend Elizabeth Prichard were all smiles as they left the voting site.
”We walked right in. Voted,” Conde said. “And now we’re going to breakfast.”
Miami Herald writers Laura Figueroa, Breanne Gilpatrick, Patricia Mazzei, Kathleen McGrory, Marc Caputo, Cammy Clark, Fred Tasker, Charles Rabin, Adam H. Beasley, Nirvi Shah, Julia Strasser, Jenna L. Farmer, Virgina Gil and Cassie Glenn contributed to this report.