Souls to the Polls Voted Through the Rain in Miami Gardens — and Comes Back Tuesday as Prayers to the Polls

The rain that sat over Miami-Dade all Sunday did not empty the Souls to the Polls lines. Organizers kept voters moving toward early voting through heavy rain on Sunday, November 1, with lines forming outside the North Dade Regional Library in Miami Gardens as congregations cast ballots and campaign workers handed out election material — the scene the Miami Herald reported from the final day of early voting.

Souls to the Polls grew out of Black and Caribbean churches and has brought congregations, families and community leaders to the polls together for decades; Faith in Florida has hosted the events since 2012, its executive director, the Rev. Rhonda Thomas, said. This cycle carried an added watchfulness: organizers told volunteers to watch for voter intimidation or immigration-enforcement presence at polling places. On Friday, the South Florida Muslim Federation had sent emails and texts encouraging its members to vote together after Jumu'ah, the Friday afternoon prayer — the same congregation-to-polling-place mechanics, in a second faith tradition, in the same county weekend.

The tradition's next appointment is Election Day itself. Faith in Florida has planned two Prayers to the Polls events on Tuesday, November 3, at polling places in North Miami and Opa-Locka — smaller than Sunday's caravan, and built for the voters who are left: the assigned-precinct voters, voting 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., in a county where 485,722 early ballots are already in. Sunday proved the weather would not be the reason anyone stayed home. Tuesday is the test of whether the precincts hold the same line.