Immigrant Voters in South Florida: A Haitian-American Hoping for Change

FORT LAUDERDALE, FL – Macollvie Jean-Francois, Sun Sentinel reporter.

It’s an overcast, slightly chilly, dry day in South Florida: perfect voting weather, if the experts are correct.

Lines at precincts in the Fort Lauderdale area were long earlier in the day, when polls opened at 7 a.m. They have been moving, and speeding up as the morning progresses. The average wait has been about one to one and a half hours.

Cateline Hjardemaal, who is pregnant, said in Miramar she spent only about fifteen minutes in line, until poll workers noticed her jutting tummy.

“It was easy,” Hjardemaal, a Haitian-American, said. “I need a change. I hope [government programs] will be back to the way they were before. Today, everything is about cutting. They cut, cut everything.”

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