The votes are crucial in an election that opinion polls say could for the first time result in a tie with both incumbent President Barack Obama, the first African American to ever win the White House in 2008 and his Republican challenger Governor Mitt Romney making several appearances in order to woo undecided voters.
In Florida, more voters are registered as Democrats than as Republicans, but a recent poll by the Miami Herald and published on Saturday showed that Governor Romney is leading by a 51 to 45 per cent margin.
The poll which has a 3.5percent margin of error showed that Romney’s strong point was the independent voters and a high percentage of crossover Democrats. The polls also showed that most of his support has come from northern Florida which is rural and predominantly conservative.
But Trinidadian-born political consultant in South Florida, Glenn Joseph, says the polls this year cannot be trusted and describes them as an aberration.
“The polling this year has been an aberration because there have been too many outliers that have been involved in the statistical analysis of this political campaign,” he told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC).
This election campaign has seen a record number of pollsters with varying methodologies.
Joseph, who has been living here for more than 40 years and has successfully managed many political campaigns at county level, says “in order to get a close to truth synopsis, you would have to take an average of all the polls but even that is problematic because as you know if you take a sampling of a population that is skewed, the result is skewed.”
A number of Campaign advertisements supporting the Republican Party, have in subtle ways alluded to ‘putting back a white man in the white house’.
He thinks that if President Obama loses the race to the White House, it would not be because of his handling of the economy, or foreign police or health issues, but because of racism.
“I know that this is a country of contradictions and I know that a lot of things are possible that you wouldn’t think are possible in this country,” Joseph told CMC, adding “if all the things that this President has done is negated by that (his poor performance at the first debate) then it tells you something fundamentally is wrong with this country.
“It fundamentally tells you that this country is the most racist country in existence,” he added.
President Obama is due here on Sunday visiting Florida, Ohio, Colorado and New Hampshire, while Romney will return to Florida on Monday.
First Lady, Michelle Obama, has been doing her bit to garner support for her husband. She recently made an impassioned plea in Miami Florida for Democratic supporters to rally friends and family, go to the polls and vote her husband back into the White House for another four years.
“In just five days you’ll have the opportunity to re-elect a decent, honest man; a man filled with integrity…the man that I have known and loved for the past 24 years, my husband, Barack Obama,” she said, during her third stop on a rapid trip through the state of Florida on Thursday. She had earlier appeared at Jacksonville and Daytona Beach.
“This is my third stop today in Florida and I am still fired up and ready to go,” Mrs. Obama told supporters, who cheered wildly at the James L. Knight Centre in Miami Dade County.
The First Lady’s visit followed closely on the heels of Republican Senator Mitt Romney who made a whirlwind visit to meet with supporters in this state on Wednesday. He visited Tampa, Miami Dade and Jacksonville and supporters came from as far as south as Texas to hear his message and convince Floridians that Romney is the man to win the state.
Romney himself is promising jobs and a better economy if they would go to the polls on Tuesday and vote him into office.
“America is counting on Florida; I am counting on Florida to have clear eyes, full hearts; we can’t lose. America is coming back with greater strength; the greatest, brightest future,” Romney said.
But Obama has been urging voters not to be swayed by the “salesman” tricks and statements being employed by Romney.
“In the closing weeks of this campaign, Gov. Romney has been using all his talents as a salesman to dress up these very same policies that failed our country so badly the very same policies we’ve been cleaning up after all the years.
“And he is offering them up as change,” the President mocked, adding “in the end we’re all in this together — that we rise and fall as one nation, one people,” said Obama in Green Bay, Wisconsin, the site of his first campaign event since Hurricane Sandy made landfall last week.
In her address to the grassroots supporters, Mrs. Obama appealed for them to spend the next few days volunteering with the campaign, knocking on doors and encouraging people to vote.
“What we do over the next five days would absolutely make the difference in waking up the day after election day and depending on what the outcome is, saying ‘could I have done more’ or fulfilling that promise of four more years.
“Now until November 6 you have to keep on working and knocking and pushing like never before because I want people, especially our young people to remember, that is how change come about in this country,” said Mrs Obama, the mother of two teenage daughters.
Political observers say the state of Florida could be the deciding state for the next occupant of the White House in Washington and winning the support and votes of the less than two million people yet to cast their ballot is crucial to both parties.
Latino Singer Marc Anthony and Gabrielle Union, a black actress and fiancé of US Basketball player Dwayne Wade, have been campaigning on behalf of President Obama.
During the rally on Thursday, speakers came from a wide cross section of the American grassroots, professional and ethnic groups, including a 67-year old Cuban American woman who introduced the First Lady to the platform.
In Florida, the Cuban American and Latino votes are crucial to the outcome of the Electoral College votes as they are known to lean more to the Republican Party.
Mrs. Obama has sought to galvanise the votes of women, who may actually have a pivotal role in the outcome of the elections.
She urged them to vote for President Obama who “will always have our backs” adding that he knows and respects the fact that women can make their own health decisions, a reference to the Republican Party’s position on the issue of abortion.
But as the two parties spar over the limited votes left to be cast in Florida, there are repeated concerns within the black and other minority communities of attempts to frustrate the voting process particularly among Democrats.
A major issue is the reduction of the number of early voting days from 14 to eight with the exclusion of the Sunday before elections, which has seen the largest turn out of Democrats over the years.
“Why would you change something that has been working ever since there has been early voting? Why all of a sudden in most states where you have Republican governors, Republican state attorneys, Republican legislators…those are the states where you have the early voting blocks being reduced or the voter ID problems that are being encountered?” questioned Debbie Dorsett, a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., an all black sisterhood.
Earlier this week, the leader of the Haitian American Grassroots Coalition (HAGC), Jean Robert LaFortune, along with his counterpart from the Latin community, wrote to Florida’s Governor, Republican Rick Scott, for an extension of the voting time to Sunday to enable more blacks and Latinos to cast ballots.
They cited work commitments, long lines and poor translations of the ballot sheets, among issues that would disenfranchise voters in these minority ethnic groups should the early voting polls close on Saturday as is scheduled.
“What we are seeing is a general waste of time, combined with a breakdown in electronic equipment, is creating a lot of hardships; a lot of problems for voters to participate in the process,” said LaFortune, who has headed HAGC for the past 14 years.
But the pleas of the Latin and Haitian communities have gone unheeded and polls are expected to close as planned at 7.00 pm (local time).
CMC/nb/pr/2012