South Florida 2024 Voters' Guide and Election Day Cheat Sheet

Election season has arrived, and all eyes are on the race for the White House and Donald Trump's ongoing attempts to juggle his campaign duties with a defense against four indictments.

But before the November election draws near or Trump's criminal dockets approach resolution, a series of municipal elections are on tap in South Florida beginning on Tuesday, March 19 — with enough drama and intrigue to rival the presidential brouhaha.

In Broward County, a handful of commission seats are up for grabs across several municipalities, the largest of which is Pembroke Pines. After 20 years of serving as the city's mayor, Frank Ortis has retired, leaving room for a sea change in the city of nearly 170,000 residents.

To the south, in Miami-Dade County, former Surfside mayor Charles Burkett is vying to reclaim the mayorship from rival Shlomo Danzinger in the sleepy beachside hamlet, where municipal meetings have been routinely devolving into foul-mouthed shouting matches and accusations of backroom deals.

What's on Florida voters' minds this year besides a nagging suspicion that civilized debate died long ago?

As one might expect in one of the nation's least affordable states, the struggle to make ends meet in the face of inflation and out-of-control housing costs seems to be the foremost concern.

According to a poll by the Associated Industries of Florida (AIF), out of 988 potential voters, 23 percent were most concerned about the rising cost of living, while 10 percent indicated that the high cost of housing was the most pressing issue for them. Other voters were most concerned with illegal immigration (14 percent) and abortion rights (10 percent).

As for the presidential primaries, they've been rendered essentially moot as Biden and Trump have no viable in-party opponents and already secured the required delegates to be considered presumptive nominees.

There's a lot to digest here, so we've put together a rundown of South Florida elections, followed by a look ahead to the big show in November. If you're in need of a bird's-eye view of local politics as election results flow in, you've come to the right place. We'll be updating this page as election season progresses to keep you up to speed.

Election Day Essentials

First things first: If you're headed to the polls, make sure you hit the correct voting precinct. You can access voter information tools for Broward County or Miami-Dade County at BrowardVotes and MiamiDade.gov.

Polls are scheduled to be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday, March 19.

When headed to voting sites, make sure to have a valid ID with you. Acceptable forms include a driver's license, United States passport, debit or credit card, military identification, student identification, neighborhood association identification, public assistance ID, or a gun license, among others.

Broward County Contests

In Broward County, the March 19 election will decide two commission seats and the mayorship in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, two commission seats in Hillsboro Beach, and two commission seats along with the mayor's seat in Pembroke Pines.

Hillsboro Beach
Located northeast of Pompano Beach on a slender barrier island lined with luxury beachfront homes and condos, Hillsboro Beach has a population of less than 2,000.

Locals will choose among three candidates for the two commission seats: incumbent Jane Reiser, local activist Richard Crusco, and Dawn Miller, an attorney and newcomer to the local political scene.

While former mayor Deb Tarrant has reportedly supported Reiser and Miller, Crusco has gained traction in the community through his activism against planned commercial development.

Pembroke Pines
By far the largest Broward municipality with a March election in play is Pembroke Pines.

Elected in 2004, Pembroke Pines Mayor Frank Ortis is retiring from a two-decade tenure to hit the links and tend to his restaurant, the Mayor's Cafe. He had overseen the city as it grew from a population of less than 50,000 to nearly 200,000 by 2024. The municipality is currently one of the most populous cities in Broward County.

A three-person race to replace the outgoing mayor focuses on growth-related issues, including traffic and curbing runaway development.

Mayoral candidate Elizabeth Burns is an event coordinator, longtime city resident, and political newcomer.

"People are tired of the same old, same old," she told the Sun Sentinel. Her campaign focused on tackling housing affordability and overpopulation in Pembroke Pines. "We have to be mindful of our residents, our young people, who will go somewhere else to find a home," she said.

One of Burns' opponents, Commissioner Angelo Castillo, said in his campaign's promotional materials that the community needs to "resist the urge to tax our way out of every problem" while finding ways to invest in infrastructure. Castillo received the endorsement of the Broward County Police Benevolent Association.

Also in the mayoral race is current Vice Mayor Iris Siple, who has lived in Pembroke Pines for 30 years and previously worked in the court clerk's office. She advocated for modernizing older parts of the city while taking a pragmatic approach to allowing new development.

Siple is a vocal opponent of a proposed trash incinerator project, which would burn large volumes of garbage in the city. "We do not need to add more burn," she said. "That's so old and archaic."

Lauderdale-by-the-Sea
In the small beach town of about 6,000 residents between Pompano and Fort Lauderdale — voters will select a new mayor from candidates Edmund Malkoon (current vice mayor), Ann Marchetti, and Buz Oldaker (current commissioner).

They will also be voting for District 1 and District 2 commissioners. Howard Goldberg and John A. Graziano will vie for the District 1 seat, while Kenneth Brenner and Richard DeNapoli will compete for the District 2 seat.

Like the other municipalities' with March 19 elections pending, Lauderdale-by-the-Sea has a council-manager setup, in which mayors do not have the same sweeping power and administrative authority as they would in a strong-mayor form of city government.

Miami-Dade: Surfside Drama

The sole general municipal election going down in Miami-Dade on March 19 is in Surfside, a beachside town of less than 6,000 residents that has developed a reputation for vitriolic politics, which seem to grow more and more mind-boggling by the month.

Mayoral candidate Charles Burkett, a real estate investor, previously served as mayor between 2006 and 2010 and was re-elected in 2020 to a term that coincided with the catastrophic collapse of the Champlain Towers South condominium. His opponent, incumbent mayor Shlomo Danzinger, defeated him in the 2022 election in a tense race.

Burkett minced no words about Danzinger ahead of the March 19 rematch, telling New Times that the mayor is "in the pocket" of developers. "I'm the complete opposite. I want to preserve the quality of life and the low density we have," Burkett claimed. He has criticized Danzinger over a past Dubai meeting with DAMAC International, the company planning to redevelop the former Champlain Towers site.

Danzinger, for his part, has portrayed Burkett as a candidate intent on egging on residents to secure votes. Pointing out that Burkett made a living as a developer himself, Danzinger told Local10's Glenna Milberg in a recent on-air debate that it was "humorous" that Burkett was accusing him of being in cahoots with development companies.

Those interactions have been tame in comparison to what goes down at municipal meetings in Surfside. Make no mistake: there has been far too much drama to summarize in one sitting.

Broad strokes?

Resident activists, including former Surfside commissioner Eliana Salzhauer, claim Danzinger and his town commission allies, including Vice Mayor Jeffrey Rose, operate as a developer-friendly voting bloc whose decisions on the dais are at odds with many Surfside residents' wishes.

Danzinger, in turn, has characterized Salzhauer and other detractors as disruptive rabble-rousers who throw city meetings into disarray over unfounded allegations.

The bad blood is on full display week in and week out, but if voters need an example, they can turn to New Times' past coverage of a town discussion over the public posting of Israeli hostage flyers. A legitimate debate turned into an at-times inaudible scream-fest on the dais, with Danzinger accusing a town commissioner of anti-Semitism for trying to have the hostage posters removed.

Things got even nastier in Surfside municipal affairs in recent days when Salzhauer's son, Joshua Epstein, was arrested on a felony battery charge for allegedly pushing Rose after a verbal confrontation at a commission-candidate forum. Epstein denied the claims, and protesters have been congregating around town to chide Rose for pursuing charges against the 18-year-old.

Amid the battle for mayor, 11 candidates are duking it out for four seats on the town commission.

Presidential Primaries/Looking Ahead

While a presidential candidate doesn't officially become the respective party's nominee until winning the vote on the floor of the nominating convention, Trump and Biden have reached their goal of delegates, making them shoo-ins for their nominations. As a result, the presidential primary season in the Sunshine State has been rendered a largely procedural exercise in Florida.

Nikki Haley's exit from the presidential race early this month left Donald Trump unopposed by a mainstream Republican candidate, though no one had come close to approaching his poll numbers in the first place — not even Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who at one point had been viewed by pundits as the most competitive contender to unseat Trump from his dominance in the Republican presidential field.

In addition to the Biden-Trump rematch, U.S. Sen. Rick Scott's Florida seat is in contention come November, along with U.S. House seats in Florida's 28 congressional districts. On the local level, seven of 13 Miami-Dade Commission seats are in play, as is the county's strong-mayor post. Additionally, Miami-Dade is re-establishing the role of sheriff for the first time since the 1960s.

Looking ahead to the November election, it might be worth keeping these dates in mind:

• Deadline to register to vote: October 7
• Deadline to request that ballot be mailed: October 24
• Early voting period: October 26–November 2
• Election Day 2024: November 5

In the meantime, more local municipal elections are scheduled in the coming weeks and months, from Bay Harbor Islands' April 2 contest and Biscayne Park's special election on April 9 to additional matters in various cities on August 20.