Miami Gardens voters face another election on December 6

Miami Gardens voters face another election on December 6 

Election Day November 8 is now history, but residents of Miami Gardens, home to a large Caribbean-Americans, has another election day to look forward to. On December 6 voters of that city will vote in a mayoral election.

This election has been described as a “special” mayoral election. On August 30 during which primary elections were held for various federal, state, county and municipal elections, Miami Garden also held its mayoral election.

This election was won convincingly by incumbent Mayor Oliver Gilbert with 69 percent of the vote over challengers Ulysses Harvard a former city council, and Clara Johnson. However, shortly after that election James Wright, former Op-locka chief of police, who originally sought to be a candidate for mayor of Miami Gardens filed a law suit claiming he was unfairly left off the ballot.

Wright’s claimed that when a local bank returned the check returned the check with which he paid the city office for his election campaign fee it was a mistake on the bank’s part, and not because he had insufficient funds to cover the check. In the ensuing case, Florida’s Supreme Court ruled in favor of Wright saying the city should have been allowed to issue a new check and his name should have been included on the August 30 ballot. The court then ordered the August 30 election invalid, and ordered a new election.

Harvard and Johnson will again be challenging Gilbert along with Wright in the upcoming election.

Political pundits in the city expect the race to be more competitive with Wright in the ballot, but nonetheless expects Mayor Gilbert to be reelected. Whomever wins the December 6 election will be required to secure at least 50 percent of the votes, to avoid a run-off election between the two candidates with the highest percentage of votes.