A pregnant woman in Florida recently showed up to her local elections office while in labor, and refused to go to the hospital until after she’d cast her ballot.
As WKMG reported, the unidentified expectant mother from Orange County was determined to have her vote counted in the upcoming presidential election, even if that meant taking a bit of a detour on the way to the hospital.
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Karen Briceño González, an employee with the Supervisor of Elections Office in Orange County, recalled the interaction she had with the woman’s husband on Tuesday.
As she told WKMG,
“All of a sudden I get a voter in front of me and he hands me two driver’s licenses. He had been waiting in line and I came, and I told him, ‘I need your driver’s license for you to vote.’ He says, ‘No, you don’t understand. I already voted.'”
As it turns out, he was actually requesting a ballot for his wife who was currently sitting in the car in active labor outside the office.
Briceño told the frazzled father-to-be that his wife needed to be physically present for the voting process, to which he replied, “That’s gonna be a problem. She refuses to go to the hospital until she votes.”
That was when Briceño stepped outside the office to go talk to the woman sitting in her car.
Despite the situation, the employee recalled that the expectant mother appeared remarkably “calm”. In fact, it was her husband who was the nervous one, not her.
“We want to facilitate every voter that is eligible to vote, the right to vote no matter their circumstances,” Briceño told WKMG. “I understand the importance of this election to some people. I gave [the pregnant woman] an ‘I voted’ sticker and she was on her way to the hospital.
“She was very happy that she got to vote.”
Briceño said she and other staff members at the office hope to one day reunite with that mother who was so determined to cast her vote that she put off rushing to the hospital.
As Briceño said, “I hope that the baby is safe and she is safe and they are assured that their ballot was put in the ballot box and that their vote will be counted.”
She added, “It was an odd situation but she wanted to vote and that was her right as an American citizen.”
h/t: WKMG
