LAWSUIT REVEALS PARTISAN INFLUENCE BEHIND REJECTION OF MIAMI HEAT ARENA FOR VOTING

Press Release: October 24, 2020

Contact media@electionsdefense.org

On Thursday the National Election Defense Coalition (NEDC) sued the Miami-Dade County Office of Elections for records on the Miami Heat decision on behalf of Grant Stern, an investigative journalist, activist, and Miami resident. The emails released Friday, just minutes before our Court hearing, give the detailed history of the communications from Miami-Dade County Mayor Gimenez about a major election issue where he is on the ballot.

The position of Mayor in Dade County is a non-partisan post. However, Mayor Gimenez is also on the ballot in November, as a Republican candidate for Congress.

The correspondence between Gimenez and Christina White, the County’s Elections Supervisor, revealed Friday shows elections administrators had already processed a deal to accept the Heat’s offer and open up its home court arena for early voting and general election voting in the 2020 election. 

At 7 AM on Aug. 29, 2020, Gimenez sent a text to White: “Ned [sic] to talk about this,” Gimenez wrote, referring to a Reuters article discussing the NBA’s plan to channel demands for social justice into a voting drive by turning arenas into polling places. The public records we sued to obtain show the Miami Heat had already succeeded in getting the AA Arena posted on to the draft list of early voting sites distributed to elections offices by White’s office before Gimenez’s early morning communication with White. The final negotiations between the Heat and White’s office ended shortly after the last text between Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections Christina White and her boss, Gimenez.

Miami-Dade’s rejection of the Heat’s offer angered Gimenez’s Democratic opponent in Florida’s 26th Congressional District race, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, who accused the mayor of “voter suppression” today for not using a facility bound to generate excitement for would-be voters and called for the Mayor to recuse himself from this election immediately.

“For reasons unknown to Mr. Stern the County illegally denied Mr. Stern’s public records request by not responding,” says attorney George David, who filed NEDC’s complaint. “We filed suit to force the County to comply with the public records law and give Mr. Stern records he’s entitled to under Florida law. That’s the only reason we know of the Mayor’s involvement today.”

“Miami’s voters deserved the biggest, most accessible, safest polling place possible, but that location apparently got sidetracked by Mayor Gimenez,” says NEDC President Ben Ptashnik. “We are always opposed to candidates controlling or influencing an election where they appear on the ballot. We believe it is urgent for Mayor Gimenez to recuse himself immediately from all further decisions about the operations of the 2020 general election in order to avoid the influence of narrow personal political interests.”