The Night Before We Vote, We Rally: Fort Lauderdale's Nonpartisan Election-Eve Gathering Runs 6 to 8 Tonight
More than 70 South Florida organizations are behind 'Vote for Freedom' at Las Olas Oceanside Park - two hours of speeches, advocates and a funk band, built to do one thing: send people to the polls on Tuesday.
Florida's campaign ends the way it increasingly does - outdoors, the night before. The We the People Coalition hosts 'Vote for Freedom,' a nonpartisan election-eve rally, tonight from 6 to 8 p.m. Eastern at Las Olas Oceanside Park, 3000 East Las Olas Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale, under the theme the coalition gives it: 'The night before we vote, we rally.' The event is free and open to the public.
The program mixes the civic and the festive, by design. Community leaders, elected officials, labor leaders and advocates are scheduled to speak, with live entertainment from the Deep-Fried Funk Band, and the coalition - brought together, it says, by more than 70 South Florida organizations - frames the night around voting rights, freedom and civic engagement, and around what elected leadership means for everyday questions: affordable healthcare, education, economic opportunity, civil rights, LGBTQ+ equality and social justice. The coalition is explicit that the event is nonpartisan and that it does not endorse candidates.
For the Panhandle reader, the Fort Lauderdale rally is the far end of a statewide Election Day eve that looks the same in every time zone: closing messages from the candidates and the governor, final guides from the supervisors of elections, and gatherings like this one aimed at the voters who have not yet voted - who, in Florida, are still the majority of the electorate until Tuesday's 7 p.m. close. The rally ends at 8. The polls open at 7 in the morning.
