Candidate Reprimanded for Crossing Campaign Line, Leaving Handheld Signs Unattended

By: Sharon Aron Baron

Current School Board Member Abby Freedman was warned several times for illegally crossing the campaign line this weekend while approaching voters at the polls.

In the photo taken at the Northwest Regional Library in Coral Springs, FL Statutes say that candidates are not allowed to solicit voters within 100 feet of the polling location.  Witnesses told us that Freedman, who has a law degree, is not adhering to the law, and said that must think she is above the law.  In one photo, she is shown clearly past the campaign line and while being told by a poll worker to move back.

According to Florida Statutes 102.031

(4)(a)?No person, political committee, or other group or organization may solicit voters inside the polling place or within 100 feet of the entrance to any polling place, a polling room where the polling place is also a polling room, an early voting site, or an office of the supervisor of elections where absentee ballots are requested and printed on demand for the convenience of electors who appear in person to request them. Before the opening of the polling place or early voting site, the clerk or supervisor shall designate the no-solicitation zone and mark the boundaries.

Freedman shown crossing line

In her bid for reelection, Freedman, is having a hard time garnering support with many of her constituents after voting for a 22 percent salary increase for several administrators, splitting up her own community by proposing to bus students in Coral Springs and Parkland across the county, and by taking her own child out of public school and enrolling him into private.

In another instance over the weekend, a witness told us that Freedman was repeatedly warned not to put her signs in the nearby bushes, or leave signs leaning against her empty chair.  All signs must be held and be at least 100 feet from the entrance.  After multiple warnings by security,  they pulled their car in front of the library, took three of her signs and left. 

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