The June 29 letter from Harold Ewing might have been the turning point for Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher. “We are going to put together a team of protesters and reporters on this if you can’t secure a better location that is not such a controversial place for such disturbing times over Islam and Isis. I am asking you as a Republican and a Christian to find a non-discriminate location,” Ewing wrote. “Looks like this is becoming a bigger problem than I thought,” Bucher, who was on vacation, wrote her chief deputy, Charmaine Kelly. “Can we see if there is anywhere else we can move to?” Kelly replied, “Yes, we will look for a replacement immediately. Lots of angry and extremely vocal voters.” A few days later, Bucher reversed her earlier decision to place Precinct 4170 in the Islamic Center of Boca Raton and moved it from the mosque to Boca Raton’s Spanish River Library.
The action has sparked a local and even nationwide debate over security vs. discrimination.
Bucher, who is up for re-election to the nonpartisan elections supervisor post in the Aug. 30 election, has said that as many as 50 callers advised her to move the site, with some warning they’d try to block voting or even would call in a bomb threat to clear the building.
Bucher told the editorial board of the Palm Beach Post Wednesday that this was not the first time. She said she moved a precinct from a church several years ago “when the priest refused to stop putting anti-abortion messages on his marquee on Election Day.”
Full Article: Barrage of emails, calls as voting site moved from Boca mosque | www.mypalmbeachpost.com.