Miami’s local elections draw ‘abysmally low’ turnout. Here’s why that matters

In less than two weeks, voters in a half-dozen Miami-Dade communities are set to decide on important issues like who should serve as mayor of Miami and whether the county should incorporate a 35th city.

History suggests less than a quarter of eligible voters — perhaps as few as one in nine — will participate. According to one study, Miami proper is in the bottom eight of the country’s most populous cities for voter turnout.

In Miami-Dade’s off-year, nonpartisan, low-turnout municipal elections, mayors and commissioners who make major decisions like setting taxes, passing laws and hiring police are voted in by a fraction of the voting base — and they often owe their positions to voters who on average are older and more conservative than the communities they are elected to serve.

Take Miami, where Mayor Francis Suarez is seeking reelection. While the mayor often mentions that he was elected in 2017 with 86% of the vote, in truth, only 11.3% of Miami’s 193,346 registered voters voted for him. And while registered Democrats outnumbered Republicans almost two to one that year, a Miami Herald analysis of turnout data found the six polling places with turnout over 20% were located in Little Havana, West Flagler, Flagami, Coral Way and Coconut Grove at locations where registered voters were overwhelmingly Republican and over the age of 66.

“Those are the traditional neighborhoods,” said FIU political science professor Dario Moreno. “They are dominated by older Hispanics, mostly Cuban Americans ... they are really the keys to winning a Miami election.”

Who votes and why?

It’s no secret that Cuban Americans remain a dominant force in Miami’s elections. But voting habits in Miami help explain why comedores and senior centers remain a popular stomping ground for candidates, and why some candidates still turn to themes of communism and oppression in their campaign messaging alongside potholes, taxes and crime.

More than a half-century after Fidel Castro rose to power, pushing waves of exiles into Miami, historically Cuban neighborhoods like Little Havana and Flagami still garner outsized attention from Miami candidates because they are home to “high propensity voters” who turn out for just about every election, Moreno said. Those areas are also where large swaths of voters are on a permanent absentee ballot list, he added, which makes it easier for them to cast their vote.

Moreno also said older voters see themselves as having more of a stake in the local government systems, and are passionate about voting in candidates who advocate for services for the elderly and low taxes, a crucial piece for those on fixed incomes. Former Miami Mayor Tomás Regalado had a history of building rapport with this voting bloc, a group Moreno said Suarez has “inherited.”

“They like the mayor,” he said. “And the best indication of if someone’s going to vote is if they’ve voted in the past.”

Kathryn DePalo-Gould, a government and politics professor in Florida International University, said in off-year elections, voters need a stake or an incentive to turn out. When an election isn’t partisan, voters look for other cues.

DePalo-Gould’s first foray into Miami politics was studying the 2001 mayoral runoff election, where she followed Puerto Rico-born candidate and former Mayor Maurice Ferré and Cuban-American lawyer Manny Diaz from precinct to precinct as they tried to convince voters to support their respective campaigns. Her top takeaway was how Miami’s neighborhoods of different groups “really vie for that power.”

“People will look at the last name on the ballot and divine what their race or ethnicity is, what group this person represents and what kind of power will this person give our group to have a say,” DePalo-Gould said. “Identity politics matter, especially in local elections, where there are not stark contrasts. ... It’s a power struggle.”

Who doesn’t vote

The lowest turnout locations for the 2017 Miami mayoral race were all in Allapattah, Little Haiti and Little River, where registered voters were mostly Black — and in one location, Hispanic — Democrats who varied more in age.

Experts say the low turnout in off-year elections harms democracy by limiting the types of people represented in local governments and creating an outsized focus on the needs of the few versus the needs of the many.

“The turnout is just abysmally low in these off-year elections,” DePalo-Gould said. “People don’t realize the impact of not voting until they realize that it affects them.”

In even years, when Florida votes for either governor or president, voters turn out in traditionally higher numbers to vote for the top-of-ticket candidates. Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava was voted into office last November in an election in which 68% of the county’s 1.5 million voters cast a ballot either for her or her opponent.

But in off-year elections, minimized attention to races and unfamiliar deadlines to request mail ballots or register to vote are at play.

In some cities, leaders have moved elections to coincide with even-numbered election years in an effort to boost turnout. But 38% of cities in Florida don’t. A decade ago, Miami lawmakers considered asking voters to hold city elections during the August primary contests in even years but chose not to put the question on the ballot. Then-Commissioner Suarez joined three other commissioners in voting against a referendum, criticizing the 18% turnout during the county’s 2010 summer election and suggesting city races would be buried beneath state and federal contests.

“It’s a difficult process to work through,” said Zoltan Hajnal, a professor at the University of California San Diego who studies how disadvantaged populations are represented in American politics. “It’s a lot to do for what some think is a less important election.”

Experts say there are positives and negatives to off-year elections. The voters who do turn out are often more informed, and the partisan dynamic that comes into play during a general election is left out of nonpartisan races. But a smaller pool of voters also means a smaller number of people elected officials feel compelled to serve.

Homestead, which held an Oct. 5 primary election to decide its next mayor, broke a mere 8% turnout In 2019, Hialeah and Homestead just broke 12% and 10% turnout, respectively. Miami reached 14.5% and Miami Beach approached 21%.

Why so low?

Charles Zelden, a commentator and government professor at Nova Southeastern University, said that low turnout also helps incumbents stay in office, since the loyal voters are those who turn out to vote.

“Incumbents means you don’t get a lot of change in policy,” Zelden said. “Elections are won not by the electorate, but by those who show up.”

There is also less room for election reform, he said, because the people with the power to make the changes are benefiting from the current system.

A report published by a body created by the Florida Legislature in 2020 recommended that the Legislature standardize municipal election dates, though it did not provide a specific recommendation.

But Fernand Amandi, a Democratic pollster, blames low turnout on voters, not election dates, and says the decades-long dynamic has “anesthetized and calloused” elected officials from the voters’ concerns.

“The biggest danger is they know they don’t have the legitimacy of what is a true popular mandate,” he said.

Not just Miami

While low turnout and older voter bases are a signature of Miami’s local elections, they aren’t exclusive to South Florida.

A 2016 study conducted at Portland State University and the Knight Foundation analyzed 23 million voting records, finding that turnout for mayoral elections in 10 of America’s 30 largest cities was less than 15%. Residents 65 and older were 15 times more likely to cast a ballot than younger voting-age residents, the study found.

But Miami had the highest median age voters at 68 years old. Miami also had the eighth-lowest turnout rate of the most populous 30 cities included in the study.

Hajnal has studied the turnout in cities like Miami and Jacksonville during off-cycle elections, and said in the last 10 years, the turnout averages at 11.3% for off-cycle elections in Miami, and 79.2% for presidential elections.

For midterm elections, the number comes out to 51.2%, according to an analysis of turnout and voter composition provided by Hajnal.

The composition of the vote changes markedly from off- to on-cycle contests, too. Voters under 40 increased from 10.1% in off-cycle races to 26.6% in presidential elections.

“Younger voters are basically not being heard in the off-cycle elections,” Hajnal said, adding that low participation rates tend to lead to disenfranchisement. “It leads to disappointment, disgruntlement and conflict in political arenas.”