Four out of nine candidates in the Democratic Primary in Florida’s 17th district are Haitian American. Community leaders fear they will split the vote and miss an opportunity to send the first Haitian American to Congress.
It’s an overcast, slightly chilly, dry day in South Florida: perfect voting weather, if the experts are correct.
Lines at precincts in the Fort Lauderdale area were long earlier in the day, when polls opened at 7 a.m. They have been moving, and speeding up as the morning progresses. The average wait has been about one to one and a half hours.
Cateline Hjardemaal, who is pregnant, said in Miramar she spent only about fifteen minutes in line, until poll workers noticed her jutting tummy.
“It was easy,” Hjardemaal, a Haitian-American, said. “I need a change. I hope [government programs] will be back to the way they were before. Today, everything is about cutting. They cut, cut everything.”