Strategies for Voting Success

Important Dates, Deadlines, and Troubleshooting Tips

As of today, October 24, 2020, over 5 million Florida voters have already cast ballots in the 2020 General Election, with over 315,000 of those votes from Miami-Dade residents. Polling places across the state saw record turnout, with Miamians standing out in the pouring rain before dawn in long (but relatively fast moving) lines to cast their ballots on the first day of Early Voting. This year, Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections Christina White estimates that voter turnout could be as high as 80 percent, a blockbuster year for voting in Miami.

Although the first day surge of Early Voting participants subsided throughout the week, Miami-Dade’s 33 early voting sites remained busy throughout the week, with people voting at the polls or using one of the convenient drive-through drop boxes to deposit mail-in ballots. As for me—my husband and I chose to vote early, in person. It was easy, safe, and quick. Here’s our obligatory “I Voted” sticker selfie. Who else feels excited when they get that coveted celebratory sticker after voting?

Now that we’re well into the Early Voting period, I wanted to send a quick note to my readers to remind you of a few critical dates and explain the signature matching and cure process. If you are still making a voting plan and need some guidance, remember to check out my Guide to the November 2020 Ballot.

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Important Dates and Deadlines

Mail-in Ballots

The last day to request a mail-in ballot is TODAY, October 24th! If you want to vote-by-mail, you must make your request by 5 p.m. this afternoon. You can make your request online. If you do not do that today, you will have to vote in person.

If you made a mistake on your mail-in ballot and you still want to vote by mail rather than in person, you can request a replacement ballot by contacting the Elections Department and mailing or personally delivering a signed Replacement Ballot Oath to the Elections office, located at 2700 NW 87th Avenue, Miami, FL 33172. Time is getting short, though, so take care of that soon if you want to use this option.

Early Voting

Early Voting sites opened on Monday, October 19 and will continue through Sunday, November 1st. (There is no early voting on the Monday before Election Day.) There are 33 early voting sites distributed across the county, and voters registered in Miami-Dade may vote at any early voting site or use one of the convenient drop boxes to deliver your mail-in ballot instead of dropping it in the mail. Remember to bring your photo ID with you.

Here is the list of the hours and locations of all 33 Early Voting sites:

If you’re wondering what the wait times look like, especially during busy times like weekends, Miami-Dade Elections has an Early Voting wait time tracker you can use to plan your vote. Most sites are reporting little to no wait.

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Troubleshooting a Signature Mismatch Issue

About Signature Matching

Florida law requires County Elections supervisors (and their staff) to review all mail-in ballots for signature match. The signature on the outside envelope of your mail-in ballot must match the signature contained in the voter registration database maintained by the County Supervisor of Elections. For most people, that signature is the one that is on file with the voter registration form you submitted most recently, although the County may have multiple signatures on file for you. The signature on your ballot must match at least one of those on file.

For many of us, it may have been years since we submitted a voter registration form and our signatures can change over time. It is possible to see what signature the Elections Department has on file for you, but it requires going in person to their main office in Doral (2700 NW 87th Avenue, Miami, FL 33172) or the branch office at Stephen P. Clark Government Center (111 NW 1st Street, Miami, FL 33128).

Curing a Signature Mismatch

So what happens if you cast a mail-in ballot and your signature does not match the one on file? This is the most common reason a mail-in ballot gets rejected, but there is a remedy for this situation.

When the Elections Department receives your mail in ballot, staff reviews the signature on the envelope and compares it to the signature(s) on file. If there is a mismatch, that ballot is flagged for review by the Miami-Dade Canvassing Board. A Canvassing Board is a 3-person board created by state law in every County that decides whether ballots with signature mismatches and other issues are to be accepted or rejected. That Board consists of the Supervisor of Elections, a County Judge, and the Chair of the County Commission or his/her designee.

If your ballot has been rejected for a signature mismatch, the Elections Department will contact you by phone, text, or e-mail to let you know. Do not try to go vote in person instead; you will not be permitted to do so. Instead you will be given an opportunity to cure the signature mismatch on your mail-in ballot by submitting a Cure Affidavit and proof of identity to the Elections Department.

Here is what that affidavit looks like:

You must submit this form along with one of the acceptable forms of ID listed, including a drivers license, a passport, a credit/debit card, a military ID, a student ID, a federal employee ID, a concealed weapons license, or another form of ID that shows your name, address, or current residence by email, fax, or mail by 5 p.m. on November 5th in order to cure your signature and have your vote counted. If the Elections Department contacts you, you should complete one of these forms and submit proof of ID as soon as possible!

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If you have any other voting related questions, please feel free to reply to this e-mail, e-mail me directly at leah@civicculture.co, or leave a comment on the web version of this newsletter. If I can’t answer your question, I will do my best to help put you in touch with someone who can.

And of course, if you need some help understanding what is on your ballot, check out my guide to the ballot, which has a detailed breakdown of all the major sections on your ballot, as well as links to other voter guides you can consult when doing your research. You can also keep up with me on social media at @civicculturellc on Twitter and Instagram. Thanks for reading!

How to Read Your Local Government's Budget

City and County Budgets Explained

This explainer is a collaboration with my friends at CivicPro, a platform that makes it easier to track and engage with local policy decisions. CivicPro lets users track issues like the environment, housing, and education across multiple local governments. Anyone can sign up for free at open.getcivicpro.com. For this municipal budget season in South Florida, we teamed up to bring you this guide to understanding the common terms in local budgets.

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How do I find information on my city or county budget?

Local government budgets are dense. Not only that, but with almost 90,000 local governments in the United States, there is a lot of variety in the way they handle those budgets.

The quickest way to find your local budget is probably with a Google search that includes the name of your city or county, the word “budget,” and the upcoming year:

Once you’ve found the budget page for your local government, try finding documents that summarize the proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year. 

Two specific documents worth focusing on are:

1. The Budget in Brief (or something with a similar name)

2. The Mayor’s Message (or something with a similar name)

Click here to view the FY 2021 Budgets in Brief for the City of Miami and Miami-Dade County.

Want to learn more about what it takes to approve a local budget? Check out these explainers: 

• Why Local Government Budgets Matter

• How to Understand Your City Budget

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I found my local budget info. How do I decode it?

• Table of Organization: Most municipal budgets include an organizational chart or table that breaks down the structure of the local government. An org chart is a great place to start decoding a municipal budget and understanding the role of individual departments in providing government services.
  

• Budget Summary: Many municipal budgets, especially in large cities with complex, multi-volume budget documents, will come with a shorter summary of the budget’s key points. This document is a good place to get a bird’s eye view of the entire budget.
  

• Budget Types: It’s important to remember that governments and private companies operate differently. Those differences affect how things work all the way down to accounting practices and how public money can be used. Every year, local governments split their budgets into two main parts called a “Capital Budget” and an “Operating Budget.”

  • Capital Budget: Major improvements to facilities and infrastructure are funded by this budget. Those projects could include roads, sewer systems, new building construction, water supply networks, or even electric power plants. In Chattanooga, Tennessee, the Capital Budget also includes a line item for high-speed, publicly-owned internet service. Local governments base these investments on a multi-year Capital Improvements Program or Plan (CIP) and support their projects through multiple funding sources, including different types of bonds (debt), grants, cash, and other smaller sources of funding. 

  • Operating Budget: The day-to-day costs of running a city or county, including salaries, are covered by this budget. It is funded primarily through local property and sales taxes but license fees, franchise fees for a company’s use of local rights-of-way, charges for services, fines and other smaller sources of revenue (like interest on investments) contribute to this pool of public money.
    

• Fund Types: Local governments’ Operating Budgets are often further separated into specific groups, like the following fund types:

  • General Fund: A government’s primary operating fund. It includes revenues from a variety of sources, including fees, fines, and state and local taxes like property taxes. Personnel costs, including wages and employee benefits, are typically the largest expenditure. 

  • Special Revenue Fund: Revenues in this fund are restricted to a specific purpose.

  • Internal Service Fund: The purpose of these funds is to centralize all costs in a single fund to obtain economies of scale, develop rates to charge all departments, and bear the cost of any unanticipated expenditures throughout a year. For example, a fleet fund purchases and maintains a local government’s fleet of vehicles. Likewise, many government departments provide services to other departments within the same government. Internal Service Funds also cover those goods or services bought and sold within a single government - typically on a cost-reimbursement basis.

  • Debt Service Fund: Money in this fund is used to repay any debt (like debt from bonds) incurred by the government, including interest. 
    

• Revenue Sources: Local governments rely on a variety of revenue sources to fund the services they provide to residents. Taxes usually provide the largest share of government funding but most municipalities also rely on many other types of revenues to fund operations and infrastructure projects. Not all revenues are alike: some funds, such as state and federal grants, are “restricted” funds, meaning that they can only be spent for limited purposes.

  • Property Taxes: Property taxes, sometimes called ad valorem taxes, are taxes paid by owners of real estate. In the City of Miami, property taxes make up a 52.2% share of the annual budget while in Miami-Dade County that share is slightly lower at 35% of the budget. The amount of taxes a property owner pays depends on that property’s value and the tax rates charged by the local government and other taxing authorities. Property tax rates can be broken into two general categories:

    • Millage rate: A millage rate is the tax rate paid by property owners that generates money for a government’s general fund. A millage rate refers to the dollar amount assessed on every $1,000 of property value. A rate of 4.67 mils (Miami-Dade County’s 2019 rate) means that $4.67 of tax is imposed for every $1,000 of a property’s value. Under that scenario, a property with a value of $200,000 would be subject to $934 in property taxes.

    • Debt millage rate:  A debt millage rate is the tax rate paid by property owners that generates money to pay off a government’s debt (usually from issuing bonds). Just like the general millage rate, the debt millage is a dollar amount assessed on every $1,000 of property value. A debt millage rate of 0.48 mils (Miami-Dade County’s 2019 rate) means that 48 cents is imposed for every $1,000 of a property’s value. A property worth $200,000 would be subject to $96 in property taxes devoted to debt service.

    Other Taxes: Aside from property taxes, local governments may collect other types of taxes, such as: 

    • Sales taxes, 

    • Gas taxes, or 

    • Business taxes.

  • Proprietary Fees: In addition to property taxes, many local governments rely on revenues from proprietary fees charged to customers. These fees are designed to cover or partially cover the costs of certain services they provide. 

    Some examples of Proprietary Fees include:

    • Permitting Fees: Local governments usually charge fees to obtain building, special events, and other types of permits. Permitting fees compensate the local government for the personnel, inspection, and other administrative costs of reviewing permit applications.

    • Leases: Local governments are often major landowners in their communities. Parks, government offices, airports, sea ports, community centers, and other services all require land. When local governments lease publicly-owned land to private organizations or businesses, any rent those entities pay go back into the public coffers to fund other services.

    • User Fees: User fees are a large category of fees that governments charge for use of public facilities or infrastructure. Examples of user fees include transit fares, trash pickup fees, docking charges at airports/ sea ports, water and sewer fees, utility fees, and fees for health care services at public hospitals.

    In addition, governments that operate large enterprises, like airports or sea ports, may generate revenues from activities that fall under the Proprietary Fee category. In some budget documents, these are also referred to as “Enterprise Funds.”

• Fines: Most local governments enforce their ordinances and policies through monetary fines. Common fines include library fines, parking tickets, and citations for building fire/safety violations.

• Federal and State Grants: Grants from federal and state governments to local governments provide funding earmarked for a specific purpose, such as purchasing equipment for law enforcement, building or repairing roads, and cleaning up pollution.

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Got any questions about local government budgets that this explainer didn’t answer? Leave a comment on the web version of this newsletter, reply directly to this email, or send me a message at leah@civicculture.co.

A Glossary of Key Police Accountability Vocabulary

A few terms you should know when discussing police accountability

This is a painful time for America. The murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers has sparked outrage and mass protests nationwide. Suddenly, many people are, perhaps for the first time, talking candidly and passionately about systemic racism and police accountability.

It is really easy to become overwhelmed by the sheer scope and complexity of these issues. But we cannot shy away from complexity in this moment. I believe that the first critical step to understanding the path to necessary reform is to become better informed—to understand the key laws, systems, and institutions that make it so difficult to hold police officers accountable for misconduct. A baseline vocabulary helps those who want to advocate for better policies and systems to formulate specific, actionable demands from our elected and appointed leaders.

To that end, I have created this glossary of key police accountability vocabulary. This list is by no means intended to be exhaustive. But, I hope it will provide you with the terminology you need to dig deeper and to feel more confident in your advocacy efforts.

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Image credit: CC-BY-SA-3.0/Matt H. Wade at Wikipedia

Key Terms in the Police Accountability Conversation

(in alphabetical order)

Civilian Oversight
Civilian oversight is a police accountability model that allows non-police civilians to participate in the oversight of local police departments. The primary mechanism of civilian oversight is the civilian review board, which serves as an independent alternative to the police’s internal affairs process (see below). The scope and power of civilian oversight boards varies widely by jurisdiction. Some boards have broad power to conduct independent investigations of citizen complaints of police misconduct while others play more of a review role of internal investigations conducted by police departments. The City of Miami has a civilian oversight board called the Civilian Investigative Panel, which was established by voters in 2002. Advocates have been renewing their calls for the establishment of a similar civilian review board for Miami-Dade County, which were most recently vetoed by County Mayor Carlos Gimenez. In response to more recent calls to establish civilian oversight, Commissioner Barbara Jordan introduced a new civilian oversight proposal to be considered by the Board of County Commissioners at the next meeting of the full board.

Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA)
A CBA is a written legal contract between an employer and a union representing employees. Many public sector workers are represented by a union, which is responsible for negotiating benefits, such as wages, hours, health and other benefits, and terms of employment. Many of these CBAs contain provisions that protect officers from accountability for misconduct, such as erasure of or restrictions on disclosure of disciplinary records. A 2017 Reuters investigation examined 82 CBAs in large cities and found similar provisions in agreements across the board.

Federal Funding for Local Police
Most police departments are funded by taxes and fees collected by local governments. However, in more recent years, the federal government has taken on a much greater role in local policing by providing millions of dollars in financial assistance to police departments. The most well known of these programs is the COPs grant program, created as part of a huge wave of the 1994 crime bill, which provides funding to hire police officers. After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Congress significantly expanded the role of the federal government in local policing and authorized the Department of Homeland Security to administer millions of dollars in federal funding for terrorism preparedness. Similarly, 1033 program, which has existed since 1990, authorizes the military to transfer excess equipment to local police forces for counter-drug and counter-terrorism. Each of these programs, and numerous other federal programs, have significantly bolstered local police budgets and inventory of military grade equipment.

Internal Affairs (IA)
An Internal Affairs division of a police department is responsible for receiving and investigating complaints of officer misconduct and other violations of departmental policy. IA divisions serve as a “self-regulating” function within police departments and typically report to the highest ranking officer within the department, although some IA divisions also report to civilian oversight boards. IA investigations are performed by sworn officers, who are responsible for gathering evidence, interviewing witnesses, and producing a report of findings. Many police accountability advocates criticize IA procedures as lacking independence and transparency, and point to its deficiencies as a reason for instituting civilian oversight.

LEOBOR Laws
LEOBOR, which stands for Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights, are state laws that provide police officers, and in some cases, corrections officers, with a vast array of legal protections and impose a variety of procedural requirements in order to investigate and discipline officers. Florida is one of over a dozen states that has adopted a LEOBOR law. Located in Florida Statutes Section 112.532, this law provides law enforcement officers and corrections officers with additional procedural protections when they are under investigation for misconduct. For example, under Florida’s LEOBOR, an officer may not be disciplined, suspended, or fired for misconduct if the investigation into that misconduct is not completed within 180 days the police department receives the complaint. This provision allows police misconduct to go unpunished just by running the clock on an investigation.

No-Knock Warrant
Police are required to obtain a warrant from a court in order to conduct a search on someone’s property. Generally, police officers are required to knock and announce themselves before executing a search warrant. The no-knock warrant is an exception to this rule, and it allows police officers to execute a search warrant without knocking and announcing themselves in situations where knocking could lead to destruction of evidence or create danger for the officers. Critics cite numerous civilian deaths and injuries as a direct consequence of no knock warrants, including the March 13th death of 26-year old Breonna Taylor in Louisville.

Police Union
Police unions first emerged in the early 20th century and evolved from fraternal and benevolent associations. Founded in 1915, the Fraternal Order of Police is now the largest police union in the United States with over 330,000 members and 2,200 lodges. There are multiple police unions in Miami-Dade County representing different law enforcement agencies, including the South Florida Police Benevolent Association, the Miami Fraternal Order of Police, the Miami Beach Fraternal Order of Police, and the Hialeah Fraternal Order of Police. Each of these unions is responsible for negotiating CBA terms with mayors, city managers, or other administrators on behalf of union members, including pay schedules, benefits, drug testing, and disciplinary procedures. Police unions are also often very active in lobbying efforts and electoral politics, donating money and offering members as campaign volunteers in races for state and local officials, who are responsible for approving CBAs and police budgets.

Qualified Immunity
Under a federal law known colloquially as “Section 1983,” individuals can sue state and local governments for violations of constitutional rights (e.g. excessive force). Qualified immunity is a form of legal immunity, which protects government officials like police officers from these lawsuits. This legal doctrine was created by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1960s during the height of the American civil rights movement. Under the doctrine of qualified immunity, a court may only allow a person to sue a police officer for violation of that person’s constitutional rights when the officer violated a “clearly established” statutory or constitutional right. In order to sue, a person must show that an officer’s conduct violated a constitutional right clearly established in previous case law. If there is no precedent that matches the situation, the lawsuit will be dismissed. This highly deferential legal standard creates a high bar to asserting a violation of constitutional rights in courts. As of the date of this writing, Congress is currently considering several bills that would eliminate the doctrine of qualified immunity for police officers.

Reform vs. Defund vs. Disband vs. Abolish
Calls for changes to policing in the United States fall along a spectrum from modest to transformative. Reform refers to modest, long-term changes to police departments, such as community policing, body cameras, training, and limiting officers’ use of force. Congress is currently considering a variety of changes to law that would reform police practices without fundamental institutional changes. Similarly, the #8CantWait campaign that has been shared widely across social media can be classified as a reformist agenda. Defunding the police refers to the gradual reallocation of public resources away from policing and into other services, such as housing, transportation, health, and other public resources. Cities like Los Angeles and New York City have committed to defunding efforts by moving some funding for police to other services. Disbanding or dismantling the police is the elimination and replacement of an existing police department. The most prominent example is when Camden, New Jersey disbanded its police department in 2012—although it did so out of financial exigency and ultimately reconstituted its police department, albeit in a different way. A majority of members on the Minneapolis City Council has agreed to dismantle the City’s police department, but what comes next is unclear. Abolition refers to a complete transformation of society’s framework for responding to crime. The goal of police abolitionists is to eliminate the need for policing by instead addressing underlying social issues, such as lack of access to health care, housing, and jobs. Abolitionists often advocate for alternative models to addressing crime, such as restorative justice.

Terry Stop
Also known as stop-and-frisk, a Terry stop refers to a type of “brief, non-intrusive” stop, which allows a police officer to stop and pat down someone if the officer has a “reasonable suspicion” that a crime is being committed. The term originates from a U.S. Supreme Court case called Terry v. Ohio, which held that stop-and-frisk does not violate the Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable searches if a “reasonably prudent officer” believes that the person is armed and dangerous. New York City’s stop-and-frisk policy earned national notoriety for the way in which it disproportionately targeted Black and Brown residents.

Use of Force Policy
A use of force policy refers to a police department’s internal rules for when an officer is allowed to use lethal or non-lethal force. Policies vary widely from department to department. For example, some departments (including Miami Police Department) prohibit the use of chokeholds or strangleholds while others do not. Some departments require that officers try to use de-escalation strategies or before resorting to force. The Use of Force Project examines several major police department use of force policies.

If you want to dig a little deeper…
Now that you have some vocabulary, here are a few videos, podcasts, and articles that can help you put them into context.

• From the New York Times Daily podcast, “The Systems that Protect Police” provides a good overview of the various systems that shield police officers from accountability

• The podcast Today, Explained by Vox did a deeper dive into the role of police unions in “The problem with police unions.”

• If you want to dive into state LEOBOR laws, check out the 2015 article “Blue Shield” by Eli Hager of The Marshall Project. Note: since this article was published, more states have adopted LEOBOR laws.

• For the true nerds who want to dive into the data, check out this law review article by Professor Stephen Rushin, who analyzed a dataset of 656 police union contracts to examine the disciplinary appeals process afforded to officers accused of misconduct and how those processes impede accountability.

Thanks for reading. As always, I welcome your feedback and your questions. You can reply to me directly by replying to this e-mail or leaving a comment on the web version of the newsletter.

—Leah

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