Jacob Ogles
A new Vice News investigation is spotlighting declines of in-person voting in Manatee County under Supervisor of Elections Mike Bennett.
The report notes that since his election in 2012, Bennett reduced the number of polling places in the county by 30 percent in, primarily by consolidating precincts in black and Latino areas.
The news outlet cited a University of Florida study from 2016 that showed Hispanic voters in particular proved more likely not to vote if reassigned to a new precinct. The study shows black and Latino turnout dropped 3 to 5 percent because of changes in polling places.
“In theory, voters who have difficulty traveling to a polling place can cast a vote through the mail. In practice, many voters prefer to cast a ballot in person, even if it’s less convenient,” the Vice report reads.
Bennett, though, pushed back at the Vice report, saying that overall, minority turnout has gone up in the county. And while in-person voting indeed declined in Manatee and throughout Florida, vote-by-mail and early voting rose.
“We just had the largest primary turnout in the history of Manatee County going back 25 years,” Bennett told Florida Politics.
Bennett acknowledges the decision to eliminate 30 of the 99 polling locations previously used in the county drew rebuke when he made the proposal in 2014. At the time, the Manatee County Commission voted 6-1 against the change, with Democratic County Commissioner Michael Gallen the lone ‘no’ vote.
The Vice report quotes Rodney Jones, president of the Manatee County NAACP chapter, saying his own polling place went from being a five-minute walk to a 30-minute walk from his home.
“We still have transportation impediments,” Jones told Vice.
Bennett, though, says since reducing polling locations that the county has not been plagued by long lines. That’s because he’s expanded voting in other ways, going from one to five early voting locations. Considering the cost of staffing those four new locations for eight days, Bennett said that’s the equivalent of adding 32 new polling locations.
Bennett, a former state senator, previously made controversial remarks about voting rights, including a 2011 speech in which he said: “I want the people of the state of Florida to want to vote as bad as that person in Africa who’s willing to walk 200 miles.”
Those remarks certainly drew scrutiny at the time, and Vice made note of that as well.
On that, Bennett said even he had to review the tape to verify he’d said those exact words. Bennett said his message got muddled.
“The words never come out the way you intend them to come out,” he said.
