Early voting rally in Miami (a photo essay)

October 21, 2008 @ 3:40AM

Early voting rally in Miami (a photo essay)

By Carlos Miller -...

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As everybody knows, Florida is the one state that seems to always have voting problems. From the 2000 Supreme Court Selection to the 2006 Sarasota County Fiasco, democracy always seems to get lost in a series of undervotes.

So on Monday, a coalition of activist groups participated in the “Nonpartisan March to Vote Rally for First Day of Early Voting”, which was hardly non-partisan considering the groups consisted of the Florida Immigration Coalition, SEIU, the Miami Workers Center and a multitude of Obama supporters.

But considering the democrats have been on the losing side of every voting blunder this century, it is about time they started gathering their forces to storm the polls early.

The theme of the rally was “Today We March, Today We Vote”, but it might as well have been “This Time Your Vote Will Count” judging the number of purple signs people were holding.

However, the cynic in me tells me it is still too soon to see whether or not our votes will count.

The march began at Miami-Dade College’s Wolfson Campus and winded its way to the Government Center, where a group of mariachis sang Cielito Lindo and several speakers sang the praises of democracy.

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This is my favorite photo of the bunch, which required me to run into the crowd of marchers, kneel down before the drummers as they approached me, snap the shutter and sprint back out before getting trampled upon.

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But this is the first photo I took as the marchers entered Government Center. The rest of the photos follow in a loosely chronological order.

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This is Carlos Pereira, who heads the Miami-based Center for Immigrant Orientation.

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The mariachis gave a rousing performance. I’m actually a big fan of mariachi music, stemming from my days in New Mexico, where I lived 30 miles from the Mexican border.

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This guy probably read the “nonpartisan” part in the press release. Or more likely, he was sent there to disrupt the rally by sticking his oversized sign in every picture that was being taken. He tried to hide his face when I was shooting him, and I can completely understand. I would hide my face in shame if I had to carry a sign supporting Sarah Palin. I also have to remind myself not to vote for Jorge Luis Lopez.

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The guy in the green, an Obama supporter, kept taunting the man by yelling “Obama” in his ear. The man tried to shoo him away but the guy in green persisted.

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“Obama, Obama.” Those were the only words he kept repeating.

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The man sent him to hell and started arguing with him about Obama being friends with Fidel Castro. I began yawning so hard at this tiresome comparison that I missed the part where the old man pushed him off, then flicked him off.

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Next thing I knew, uniformed security guards were leading him away, warning him not to go near the rally again.

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So his wife came up to us instead, yelling just as loud but with a higher pitch.

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And, of course, that set off a few heated discussions with the obligatory man in green heckling in the rear.

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And the jester continued his antics with the woman, saying nothing else but “Obama” over and over again and her saying something about Cuba.

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But it wasn’t all fun and games. There were actually several rousing speakers, which raised the crowd noise way over the noise of arriving Metrorails from above.

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Gihan Perera, executive director of the Miami Workers Center.

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Carlos Pereira, passionate as always.

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Lida Rodriguez-Taseff, a feisty attorney who chairs the Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition.

And when the speakers finished speaking, the excitement continued outside surrounding the woman with the McCain-Palin sign.

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Here you see her in the middle of the Obama group

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And here you see her face blocked by an Obama-Biden sign.

At final count, it was more than 150 Obama supporters during the rally and only two McCain supporters.

Don’t be surprised if this ratio switches during election day because West Virginia is already reporting problems with the voting machines.

Comments

Anonymous

3 years ago

It is nice to see such a civil discourse here in America. One guy shows up with a different point of view to an advertised non partisan event and he gets mercilessly heckled buy those who disagree with his position. Sounds very similar to a situation you have been through Carlos. I am surprised that when politics is the issue you of all people endorse such behavior towards people exercising their first amendment rights. Or does the first amendment only apply to you, your case and those who solely agree with you?

Anonymous

3 years ago

OM,

Where did I endorse the heckling? I was reporting the facts.

I really don’t know why they advertised it as “nonpartisan” when all the groups involved are not republican.

The guy with the sign had every right to be there but the guy in the green had every right to express his political views by just saying “Obama”.

He never touched him. He never insulted him. And he never threatened him. And these are things I’ve seen republicans do when the roles have been reversed.

Anonymous

3 years ago

OM,

This was a pretty good-natured rally. It reminded me of a football game where you taunt the opposing fans in a good-natured way.

I’ll say it again, the McCain sign holders were never threatened or ordered to leave the area.

The only reason the security guards pulled that guy away was because he started pushing the other guy.

The security guards had no problem with the lady because she wasn’t being physical.

Anonymous

3 years ago

Your excellent photographs and report clearly show this event was “non-partisan” in name only, and some participants were unwilling to extend the courtesy of respect to those holding an opposing viewpoint.

Anonymous

3 years ago

Carlos,
thanks again for making me feel as if I was there! My favorites are the first on top (lady with poster) and #6 (young girl with flag) … that says it all for me. What a great country, huh? Anyway, as usual great work.

Anonymous

3 years ago

Yeah I agree with Ms. C, these are great pictures, I love all of the people who just had signs telling people to vote or vote early. That’s something this country has been severely lacking in the past couple dozen years, but it looks like there will be record voting turnout this year.
To all American’s I don’t care who you vote for, just get out and vote. It’s your time to decide.
And as for you Carlos, #’s 13 and 21 were my favorites.

Anonymous

3 years ago

Carlos,

From you pictures I would have to say that the person who was taunting the McCain supporter was over the line. It is one thing to express dissent, but that guy was clearly being in your face about the situation.

While you state that Republicans have done that in the past, I have to say that neither party can claim the high road on this one. This site was big on pointing out the actions furing the RNC, but seemed to fall short of remembering the entire newscrew that was arrested outside of a hotel in Denver during the DNC.

I am an independend and in all honesty both parties make me sick. The guy in the green shirt was way to close for comfort. Twist this all you want. The taunter was wrong. Just as wrong as the police who arrested you. But my concern here is that the end justifies the means. I would have expected you to stand up for the man.

Anonymous

3 years ago

OM,

I wrote two posts about the Denver incident, and even though I’m a democrat, I questioned what did the democratic politicians have to hide inside the hotel that they would have a reporter arrested.

I wrote at least four posts about the civil rights violations during the DNC.

I’ve also been in contact with ABC and they told me the reporter’s court date is today, so we’ll see if that is true because the initial date turned out not to be true.

http://carlosmiller.com/2008/08/27/abc-journalist-arrested-on-public-sid...

http://carlosmiller.com/2008/08/27/denver-police-arrest-almost-100-prote...

http://carlosmiller.com/2008/08/29/the-brown-palace-hotel-comments-on-re...

http://carlosmiller.com/2008/08/28/video-showing-arrest-of-abc-producer/

As far as the incident in my photos, I was observing it to see how far it went. Perhaps the guy in the green shirt was too close for comfort in your opinion but he never showed any indication of violence or threats or intimidation.

He was just caught up in the spirit as people on both sides of the political aisle tend to get.

I’ve photographed many rallies and protests and if you start cracking down each time people taunt or heckle each other, then you’ll be cracking down on mostly everybody.

For example, in the video I shot where I ended getting assaulted by a Cuban exile, you can see that there was one point where they all had me surrounded yelling at me.

I really didn’t have an issue with that, so I just kept filming and let them say what they had to say.

It wasn’t until one of them physically struck my camera down that I pushed back.

http://carlosmiller.com/2008/02/14/video-of-cuban-exiles-assaulting-me-a...

So in this case, as long as there was no physical action or threats, it’s really business as usual.

Anonymous

3 years ago

Hi Carlos:
Thank you so much for the wonderful pictures and the information about the rally. We need more people like you!