After decades in downtown Fort Lauderdale, the Broward Supervisor of Elections Office is no longer there. It is now located in the suburbs.
The bulk of the agency’s operations moved this summer to a new headquarters in northwest Fort Lauderdale, just south of Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport. Nearly everything that used to take place at a secondary location in the Lauderhill Mall also moved.
Both locations are permanently closed following the November 5 presidential election.
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The office in downtown Fort Lauderdale, on the ground floor of the County Governmental Center, was for years an important place for candidates and their advisers – the place where they would file their paperwork to form campaign committees and where they would file paperwork on the vote.
Now the door is locked and the window covered. The 8,873 square feet of the Governmental Center will be “repurposed by the county,” elections office spokeswoman Lisa Arneaud said via email.
The lease for the 79,780 square feet of converted retail space once occupied by a Kmart in the Lauderhill Mall expired after the election.
The new 160,000-square-foot headquarters at 4650 NW 21st Ave. in Fort Lauderdale, was completed in July and most of the employees and equipment moved in that month.
The new facility cost $103 million for land, design and construction.
The new location is designed to increase transparency and security for both election workers and poll workers.
The design allows political activists, lawyers, elected officials, journalists and ordinary citizens to watch almost everything that happens during the voting process – including routine administrative tasks that years ago rarely attracted much interest or attention.
The Supervisor of Elections Office has locations in libraries and other community buildings in Coral Springs, Miramar, Pembroke Pines, Pompano Beach and Tamarac.
Arneaud said Supervisor of Elections Joe Scott is “actively exploring opening a few more branches strategically located throughout the county.”
All offices are open on weekdays from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm
Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found at @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Mastodon.
