Oh Florida, Are You Real Sure About This?
Florida is known for its quantity of retirees. There’s one thing all retirees need and some of them need it more quickly than others.
A bathroom.
Not so, says Florida. In Miami-Dade county, no voters will be allowed to use the restroom on election day even if the election is held in a building owned by the taxpayers.
Why, you ask?
Because it’s damn Florida.
A Feb. 14, 2014 email from Assistant County Attorney Shanika Graves states that “the [Elections] the Department’s policy is not to permit access to restrooms at polling sites on election days. Restrooms are open to voters during early voting because early voting is held at public facilities. However, public and private facilities are used as polling sites on election days. Private facilities are governed by private landlords, not the County. This policy was implemented to avoid situations where accessible restrooms would be available to some, but not all voters.”
I quoted that because I knew you would not believe me.
In my semi-rural county one of our election sites is Carlos’ Upholstery Shop. I’m not making that up. You can drop off your couch cushions and vote at the same time. Carlos is a nice guy but I am certain that he’d rather a voter use his restroom than tinkle on his floor. I’d call him and check on that policy but I’m afraid he’d think I’d finally dived head first into the shallow end.
Gohmertitis is spreading…
1Better to piss-off the voters than piss-off the landlords? Not sure I understand the logic.
2Quick! Somebody in Florida, check out the Americans With Disabilities Act before y’all end up in court! And believe me, court is no place to be!
3So… if a private landlord allow guns at the polling site….then all polling sites will be allowing guns.
4Hmm, their polling staff is going to be plum put out to be there for hours with no restroom option.
And my first thought was about the same, trust me, the location owners do not want ALTERNATIVES people will take if no restroom is available.
Now as I recall, Florida was the place of some of the worst lines and wait times last election, right?
Wow, our compassionate government officials in action.
5Democrats in Florida better get that “vote by mail” thing going big time. At least you can “go” in your own home.
6Leave it to the gohmerts to juxtaposition catharsis and a cathartic. Good luck with their catheter crowd on election day.
7When is there enough obvious voter suppression for the DOJ to get off their duffs and put a halt to these violations?
8If I read that last quoted sentence aright, it says that to avoid a situation where restrooms might not be available to all, they make them unavailable to all. To some minds, that might be fair — minds that don’t have a bladder attached to them somewhere.
Is this another example of the war on women? It’s bad enough for men, but for us it’s even more awkward. Somehow I don’t think this rule will stand, if you’ll excuse the expression.
9Private facilities are not “governed” by private landlords, they are OWNED by private landlords but both they AND the landlords are GOVERNED by city, county, state and federal laws.
The way this came up was someone asked if all the polling places had accessible restrooms. The answer is maybe not; churches in particular are exempt from ADA regulations, but in general, have accessible facilities anyway, because wheelchair people are some churches’ favorite suckers… errr, I mean donors… ummm, I mean congregants.
Anyhoo,
The decision was made that, if we can’t guarantee EVERYONE has access to potties, we can guaranteee NO ONE has access to potties, because, lord knows, we don’t want to be breakin’ no bleedin’ heart federal access for cripples rules.
Instead, we will flush the baby with the bathwater.
So, to sum up, we will nullify any federal laws about guns or dumping crude oil on baby chicks, and even secede if we need to protect the sacred rights of our sacred soil of the sacred South…
But God Save the ADA.
10Hmm, can you “stand your ground” in line with “camper’s plumbing” (only men are equipped).
I mean , it is Florida after all.
Not just Democrats have bladders, Republican’s do too, even if they have Lizard Brains they don’t have lizard bladders.
11Hmmmm. I can just see it now when it comes to private property, private potties etc. There will be a long row of portapotties outside polling places. In Florida. In the sun. The hot Florida sun.
12Florida Dems need to rent Portapotties for the affected sites and put big ol’ signs on them saying “your local republican officials didn’t want to make restrooms available. Your local Democrats try to look after the needs of people.”
13Wear Depends and then deposit them (in person or by mail) in the office of Assistant County Attorney, Shanika Graves.
14I’m with Maryelle…Depends. Only leave them at the polling place. The trash cans aren’t off limits, right? And, I’d encourage every poll worker to wear Depends on their shift as well.
I’d do it, if I lived there. But the only way anyone could ever get me to Florida is to shoot me and drag me there.
15Scratching my head and laughing. I love the idea of renting Democrat paid for port a potties and putting outside. I still can’t understand why anyone at all would object to someone using a restroom. I mean, you can’t lug the voting machine inside the restroom to cheat, can you? Or does Florida use paper ballots?
16Marge,
Remember 2000 and “hanging chads”!!!!
Ellen,
That was my first thought – let the Dems rent port-a-potties for the masses.
17daChipster has got churches and their fleeced flocks figured out. Should be required reading of everyone before they attend their first service. No offense to any churchgoers here,but if people like Falwell,Robertson,Osteen,Swaggart,etc were really decent humans,they’d be saints and they aren’t.
18Wait until these geniuses figure out Republicans & Tea People have to pee too.
Some enterprising young person is gonna make a few bucks next election. Hell, I might drive over with a few dozen camping toilets myself. Free to Dems but I’ll charge Republicans extra for toilet paper.
19Pretending this is all to comply with ADA rules is what’s truly offensive. Register and VOTE, even if it means wearing Depends, or getting someone to hold your place on line while you seek out the nearest Starbucks.
20Give Ms Graves a phone call or E-Mail her at the following:
Shanika A. Graves
21Joined the Office in 2008
Assistant County Attorney
sgraves@miamidade.gov
305-375-5706
My polling place was a Salvation Army chapel. One time, I was waiting for my wife to finish voting when the director came up and asked if I was there for the lunch. Two months late on a haircut and people think you’re a freak.
Macaroni and cheese, though.
22Ah, but think of the prostates of the old white Rethug dudes. Bwah hah hah!
23Ditto Star @5, not to mention compassionate volunteers who passed out free water to would-be voters. That won’t be a kindness from now on.
Also, is it safe to assume that if recent law school graduates are having trouble passing the bar exams in an enlightened state, such as Washington, should they consider moving to Florida, where apparently there are no such sticky rules?
24If it weren’t Florida doing this I would suspect it’s all a new form of voter suppression.
Well, that and the fact that the voters being suppressed would likely tend to be elderly. Has the GOP thought this through?
25sssssssh … don’t tell them LynnN. Aw, not to worry. This is a liberal site and we know what they think of our ideas.
Thanks for the phone number, Fred Farklestone. Now we know where to air drop the [img]http://7mat2p4zx64lewmu.zippykid.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Screen-Shot-2014-04-11-at-9.09.22-AM-198×300.png[/img] Figure about a 100 of those puppies delivered fully loaded from a height of approximately 1000′ should give Ms Graves food for thought. Being “polite” should I call her to announce the incoming?
26My Harris county MUD paid $25,000.00 to hold an election in a private home. The MUD serves less than 2500 hook ups and 1/2 of those are apartments.
Seems like a condition of renting ones property to the the County would be having restroom facilities. Sounds like a lazy county clerk to me.
27Wingnuts claim they are only trying for fairness in elections by shutting down early voting hours and making it harder for disenfranchised groups to vote. Next up is you have to have a chauffered limo to take you to the polls to vote because the koch bros can’t be expected to use public transportation. That is only fair-their way.
28e platypus onion, best thing about the Koch monsters is their age. Try as they might, they can’t take their wealth with them.
Go Blue, go progressive and Green. It may be too late to rehabilitate Paris Hilton, but we can elect liberal representation who understand placing a well deserved ‘death tax’ on hoarders. Sorry, Paris, you have no ‘pass the ball skills,’ so YES, we’re serious about raiding your squandered trust fund. Live with it. The alternative could really become ugly. 1789 to 1799 ugly.
The RWNJ plutocrats are all in favor of fear. It is in the benefit of the planet to accommodate them and give them enough fear to soil their silk linens.
It’s only fair, when they didn’t pay their fair share of taxes before their demise, the IRS gets to collect what they should have paid, plus penalties. Holy Gohmerts, even Karl Rove should approve that plan. If the off shore wealth is collected, we might get off the war criminals gohmerts, if the bill they ran up is covered with their money. Bargain Karl, your odious butt and those of your Cheney/Halliburton hooligans will have safe passage to the Hague. Better than you deserve, but we liberals are more X-tian than you, even those of us who have no ‘tian tendencies.
29well, we know how to address this situation. Just hold up a towel and let people let fly, this will fertilize the area and relieve the people. We did it for our kids we can do it for ourselves. No modesty when it comes to voting. You all come now.
30We could hand out those orange plastic jugs that you use to do 24 hr. urine specimen collections for the lab, along with a small roll of toilet paper, and have someone to hold a sheet around folks, all courtesy of the Democrats, who think of everything. Then we could donate the urine collections to a local composting business to mix with shredded paper to take full advantage of the high nitrogen content. What did I tell you!
31Marge Wood, recycle is always good. So, after you and your friends fill the jugs, I’d be happy to add them to the Shanika A. Graves air drop. While it might sound a bit facetious, I am very serious. The only way these gohmerts will mend their ways is when buried under their own ‘thoughts.’
Imagine their outage!
Buried in a barrage of their own effluence without a shot fired. Yeah, true, they will miss the symbolism, but we’ll feel better.
32Here’s for the ladies: go to the auto parts store and buy a long oil funnel to go with your gallon jug. I used one for collecting that long urine sample and it worked wonderfully well. Now i carry a shorter one in in a plastic bag in my purse when I go to have lab work done. Of course you can leave the jug at the polling place. On the bright side – it may keep some of those old pee-partiers away from the polls.
33I like the picture of the blue Florida think tank.
34Hey, I ain’t gonna waste high nitrogen urine on some bureaucrat. I want it on the compost pile.
35Well, if you’re stuck in line you could do the ‘full Nugent’ in your britches; or remember to bring some of those ‘Bullseye pet pee pads’ and fire away.
36This came about because a group supporting Americans with disabilities act wrote a letter asking if bathrooms at polling places had handicap access. They expected a “yes they do” or “no they don’t” answer. Instead they got the announcement that no one would be able to go to the bathroom while voting – to make it fair. Sounds to me like they saw another opening to suppress more voting. I say Democrats ought to start giving out Depends to each registered voter.
37Quick, line up the RVs! When the black water tank in one fills up, you peel that baby out of the line to the nearest dump station and then return to the back of the RV line again. You can even rent them from Cruise America. Bonus, you can sell coffee and soda from the RV kichen.
38