Boleteros. Shine candidates. Artificial intelligence.
With races scheduled for the Aug. 20 primary, South Florida is once again in election season, a five-month political rush that can overwhelm voters with scams, schemes and a barrage of political ads of questionable veracity.
Dirty tricks have long defined politics in South Florida, a political battleground that easily rakes in millions of dollars each election year. To win, politicians seeking both powerful and parochial positions have often been willing to engage in tactics that range from suspect to downright illegal.
Voters will have to be vigilant.
“One of the things we know is that Miami has been the Wild West when it comes to electoral politics, where all kinds of shenanigans, manipulations, tricks, scams and schemes have just been normalized,” said Fernand Amandi, a longtime Democratic pollster. “Whether or not we see this trend continue in 2024, I think time will tell, but it’s better to assume and expect the worst.”
While there are signs that Florida will not see the same exorbitant level of spending for the November presidential election that the state has become accustomed to in recent decades, political operatives on both sides of the aisle have expressed little doubt that the election in Miami-Dade will still be awash with money.
In the race for Miami-Dade sheriff, for example, candidates have already spent more than $350,000, with the August primary still more than two months away. In the race to become mayor, the amount of money dropped is already approaching $400,000. That number, several Democratic and Republican political operatives said, is likely only a fraction of what will ultimately be spent on those races.
In 2020, for example, political ad spending in the Miami area exceeded $142 million, according to Christopher Brimer, a partner at Atlanta-based agency Canal Partners Media. And while much of that money was spent on the White House race between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, congressional and local candidates still pumped millions of dollars into English- and Spanish-language advertising campaigns, including some that were misleading or even proved blatantly false. .
Florida is not expected to see the same level of ad spending in the 2024 presidential election as it did four years ago. Trump’s campaign has yet to broadcast in the state, while Biden’s campaign has spent only sparingly in Florida amid concerns from some Democrats that the Sunshine State has moved too far to the right in recent years.
Still, Miami’s political operatives on both sides are clinging to a wave of spending on local races.
“Consultants used to make money on the national races,” said Kevin Cabrera, a county commissioner who was state director of Trump’s campaign in Florida in 2020. “But now there is the prospect of more going on at a local level. There will still be money in circulation.”
This year’s elections are particularly unique. For the first time in decades, voters in Miami-Dade will have the opportunity to cast their ballots for several county offices, including sheriff, clerk of court and supervisor of elections.
“It’s a lot of elected people who are Type A personalities, with consultants and other interested parties all rolled into one county,” said Republican state Rep. Alex Rizo, who also leads the Miami-Dade GOP. “And everyone is trying to fight for those votes.”
Ongoing scandals
South Florida has a long and sordid history of electoral shenanigans, ranging from relatively low-stakes schemes to high-profile scandals that rocked the political foundations of the state’s largest metropolitan area.
One recurring scheme involves recruiting straw candidates into a race to hurt an opponent — a strategy deployed twice by both parties in the battle for a congressional seat in south Miami-Dade in the 2010s. Prosecutors say the same scheme was deployed in 2020 by Frank Artiles, a GOP operative and disgraced former senator accused of paying an auto parts dealer to enter a 2020 Senate race as an independent candidate.
Artiles, who has pleaded not guilty, will stand trial in September. If convicted, he could face up to five years in prison.
There are other outstanding issues. The Miami-Dade District Attorney’s Office has been embroiled in an investigation for more than two years into claims by elderly Miami-Dade residents that their party affiliation changed from Democratic to Republican after being approached by campaigners.
It is unclear how far investigators are in their investigation into the alleged scheme. The prosecutor’s office did not respond to the Herald’s requests for comment on the investigation, although an agency spokesperson said earlier this year that the investigation was still open and ongoing.
That’s just a small part of the scandals and schemes that have plagued Miami over the years. Ballot harvesting has also been a recurring problem — so serious that a judge threw out the 1997 mayoral election in Miami.
Resolving problems
State lawmakers have tried to address some of the problems. For example, candidates now have to be members of a political party for a year before they can run for that party, making it harder for agents to recruit “ghost candidates.” Political ads that use artificial intelligence to generate photos, videos, or other content must be properly labeled.
Still, several Miami politicians and operatives said AI could be the next frontier for political shenanigans in South Florida. The technology has advanced rapidly in recent years, prompting state lawmakers to adopt rules requiring disclaimers for AI-generated political content.
Annette Taddeo, a Democratic former senator running for clerk of court in Miami-Dade, is no stranger to the harsh realities of Miami politics. She recalled Republican attacks in 2017, when she successfully ran in a special election for a Senate seat, framing her as a communist and supporter of the FARC guerrillas in her native Colombia.
“It’s win at all costs. “I believe there’s something to be said about accepting a loss and understanding that you just haven’t been successful, and listening to the voters and figuring out what to do,” Taddeo said. “Unfortunately, there are people who are willing to do anything to win, including illegal things.”
With several precincts on the ballot this year, AI could be the next big disruption to Miami-Dade elections, she said.
“It’s only going to get worse,” Taddeo said. “Put on your seat belt, because it’s not going to be pretty.”
Rizo, a state lawmaker and chairman of the Miami-Dade GOP, sponsored a bill earlier this year that would require certain disclaimers for political content resulting from generative AI. He said that while his bill — which was signed into law in April — was a positive first step in regulating the use of such technology, Miami residents will still have to be wary during election season.
“Until you actually see it in action. Everything is just up in the air,” he said. “I imagine we’ll still see some things.”
