Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium is not only the home of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, it's one of 26 Early Voting sites in Hillsborough County, and it’s also where Donald Trump will hold his Thursday rally.
Despite the fact that one of the area's largest Early Voting sites will be nearly impossible to access, three roads surrounding the stadium will be temporarily closed due to the presidential visit, according to the City of Tampa.
Though the doors opened for Trump's rally at 10:30 a.m., the following roads will be closed from 1 p.m. till 3 p.m., and regular traffic flow isn’t expected to normalize until 5 p.m.:
- Dale Mabry Highway between W. Hillsborough Avenue and W Tampa Bay Boulevard
- N. Himes Avenue between W. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard and W. Tampa Bay Boulevard
- W. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard between N. Dale Mabry Highway and N. Himes Avenue
Closing roads for a presidential visit is normal, closing roads around a polling site during a record-setting voting year for a candidate in a vital area of a key battleground state, is not.
Gerri Kramer—Director of Communications for the Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections Office—released a statement yesterday stating that basically there’s nothing they can do since the event is outside the legal "no solicitation zone," which prohibits candidates from campaigning within 150 feet of a polling location. Since the supervisor can’t prohibit campaign activities outside this zone, apparently the law doesn't prohibit candidates from shutting down streets to polling locations.
This Trump rally @RJStadium is leading to streets surrounding an early voting site to be shut down for hours. I get that @HillsboroughSOE has put out its statement, but how is @FlaDems not considering some kind of legal action. Just looking for insight from lawyers, seems shady.
— Ray Roa (@rayroa) October 29, 2020
It's worth remembering that Florida is incredibly important for both candidates, and holds 29 of the 270 votes needed to win the presidency. In 2016, Trump won Florida by just 1.2%, which is 114,455 votes. Every vote counts.
On top of this, Raymond James is the closest polling location for a largely low-income part of Tampa, where the median household salary is often under $20K, according to CityData. This forces residents to travel to Town 'N' Country or South Tampa to get to their nearest Early Voting site.
But, despite the massive interruption, Early Voting will continue today inside Raymond James Stadium from 7 a.m.-7 p.m. However, it’s safe to assume you’re better off trying one of the other 25 locations today.
Multiple community organizations condemned Trump's decision to hold a rally at Raymond James, criticizing the campaign for bringing a potential COVID-19 super-spreader event to Tampa, and for disrupting a voting site.
“What about all of the folks that took off work – that couldn’t afford to – and came all the way on a bus (they weren’t sure would make it) to do their civic duty and go vote. What about public health? What about their rights? The man that calls himself president couldn’t care less about struggles he will never understand.” said Zulema Ramos from Tampa Bay Housing Justice Committee in collaboration with Florida Student Power Network. “And I’m only in my 20’s, I can’t imagine how the older generations might feel. This is like putting confederate monuments in front of courthouses: blatant intimidation. This is not what freedom and democracy look like.”
Robin Lockett, Tampa Regional Director, Organize Florida Education Fund, echoed this sentiment, stating that today's tally is a form of voter intimidation. “This is an obvious and gross display of voter intimidation and actively works to make an early voting location less safe, both, in terms of COVID safety measures and voter’s ability to vote freely.”
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This article appears in Nov 5-11, 2020.