MIAMI — When Claudia Alonso landed in Miami from New York on Friday morning, she headed straight for the Miami-Dade County Department of Elections office in Doral.
Alonso's trip was a mission to cast her ballot in the 2020 election after waiting weeks for an absentee ballot that never showed up.
She's just one example of people who've changed their voting plans and gone to great lengths to make sure their vote counted after losing confidence that the postal service would successfully deliver their ballots before the deadline at 7 p.m. on Election Day.
More than 479,000 residents in Miami-Dade County and 4.6 million in the state voted by mail as of Sunday, shattering previous turnout. On Friday evening, inspectors found 48 undelivered ballots sitting in the Princeton post office near Homestead. The discovery has led the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General to prepare for a sweep of other mail facilities in Miami-Dade over the next few days for other ballots that haven't reached their destination.
In mid-September Alonso printed out, signed and mailed her affidavit requesting an absentee ballot to her address in New York City. She said when the ballot never came, she called the department of elections in Miami, was told her affidavit hadn't been received and instructed her to instead email a copy of her driver's license.
After following the guidance, Alonso said her absentee ballot was mailed Oct. 21, but as of Monday she still hadn't received a ballot. Every day she checked the mail, and every day it was ballot-less. She decided that if it didn't arrive by Oct. 27, she would book a flight to Miami.
It took $400 and a three-hour flight to get Alonso to Miami to vote in person.
"This is literally jumping through hoops," Alonso said. "It's very frustrating. I could use the $400 in 101 other ways than going down and paying to go vote."
But Alonso said it was worth all the hoops to make sure her vote counts. A registered Republican and daughter of Cuban immigrants, Alonso was planning to vote for Joe Biden. She said it was important to her to make sure she cast her ballot, especially because her family fought to leave Cuba and give her this opportunity.
"If I have that right and I have this ability to vote, that people from the island and the country that my parents are from don't have, then I'm doing them a disservice," Alonso said.
Patricia Valeria Velasco, 23, was in a very similar situation. She flew to Miami from New York last Tuesday to cast her ballot in person after requesting four absentee ballots and not receiving any.
Velasco decided to have her absentee ballot mailed to her permanent address in Miami and have her parents forward it to her in New York. She waited weeks but the ballots never arrived, she worried there was something wrong with the address, so she booked a flight.
She said the department of elections system showed her ballot had arrived. But, when she got home her mother handed her a stack of mail that had come for over the week. It was filled with political fliers and advertisements but no ballot. Velasco, who's a registered Democrat, said she was worried someone might have taken her ballots.
"I thought someone was taking the absentee ballot, but I kept thinking, 'There's no way that somebody would do that,'" Velasco said. "Then some of my friends who are independent voters, they received their ballots, and people had not even requested their ballot, they had received it. But for someone like me who requested it multiple times, I thought, 'this is getting stranger.'"
Velasco said that as a young Hispanic woman she wanted to make her vote count, and while the situation was frustrating, the trip was worth it to have a say in the election.
"This election is more than just a Democratic, Republican race. There's so much more on the table, that as a Hispanic, young female working in a professional world, I want to make sure that I have just as equal rights as anybody else at the table," Velasco said. "I wanted to make sure in a swing state like this, that every vote counts, and I want to make sure that my vote is counted."
In Palm Beach County, Steve Friefeld, 60, didn't have to travel quite as far to cast his ballot, but had to take a few extra steps to ensure it was counted.
Friefeld said he and his wife vote by mail every year because it's more convenient. This year was no different, they filled out their mail-in ballots and dropped them off at the Riviera Beach Post Office on Oct. 4.
A few days later they received a notice in the mail from the Republican Party of Florida, stating that their ballots hadn't been mailed in. When Friefeld called the Supervisor of Elections office, he said they were very helpful, but didn't know what had happened to their ballots. So on Tuesday evening, Friefeld and his wife went and voted in person.
"It was frustrating," Friefeld said. "My wife works and I work; it was just difficult."
His biggest concern was that others might not know to check the status of their ballots. He said he would have never known to check if they hadn't received the notice in the mail.
Alonso waited in about a 10-minute line outside of the Department of Elections office. She walked out the other side of the building on Friday morning proudly wearing an "I voted sticker" over her heart.
She said as she was casting her ballot after flying all the way from New York she had one thought: vote President Donald Trump out.
"At least I can sit down on Tuesday in New York and watch the results come in and know that at least my vote was counted," Alonso said.
