Voters, Stuck In Long Lines Get Parking Tickets

[matcom]

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DELRAY BEACH -- After waiting nearly three hours to vote on Tuesday at the supervisor of elections branch office in Delray Beach, Richard Smart found an unwanted surprise tucked under his car's windshield wiper: a $25 ticket.

Along with dozens of other early voters, Smart couldn't find a parking space. He wedged into a makeshift spot along the curb in the Congress Avenue complex's congested parking lot.











There weren't any "no parking" signs, but Delray Beach police gave him a ticket.

Smart's wife, Ada Napoli, used her cell phone camera to take pictures as evidence. They plan to fight the ticket.

"This is wrong," Smart said. "I even made it a point not to park by the hydrant."

In a new twist of early-voting frustrations, Delray Beach issued about 40 tickets to voters who parked along the curb, police said. City officials decided to issue the tickets after fielding complaints from Palm Tran and county officials, who said they couldn't get vehicles through the maze of cars, police Capt. Robert Musco said.

"It's a dangerous situation," Musco said. "Because you wait three hours, does that give you the right to block the entrance and exit for emergency vehicles? We have a job to do."

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-pparking27oct27,0,2939171.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines