A Florida man was charged with simple battery stemming from a scuffle outside a polling site, the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office said.
The sheriff’s office said a 39-year-old man was videotaping a 68-year-old man with his cell phone outside a Lake Worth poll, but the older man objected and slapped the phone out of the younger man’s hand, causing it to fall to the ground.
The younger man struck the older man and caused him to fall to the ground, the sheriff’s office said.
“Fearing for his safety,” the older man said he had a weapon, authorities said. He didn’t actually make a threat and had a concealed weapons permit for the weapon he was carrying, the sheriff’s office said.
The older man was charged with simple battery and criminal mischief, the sheriff’s office said. He has not been identified. The younger man was not charged.
CNN affiliate WPBF interviewed the younger man, identified as Tobian Norris, who said he was approaching the poll when the older man began soliciting him to vote for Donald Trump.
Norris said he wouldn’t vote for Trump and they argued about Trump and Hillary Clinton. He said he started filming the other man with his cell phone and running it live on Facebook.
Video from Norris’ cellphone, aired by WPBF showed the younger man saying, “Hey, did you finish high school?”
The video showed the older man approaching, uttering bleeped-out words and appearing to reach his hand toward the phone. The sounds of a scuffle follow.
Norris said the man called him a racial slur and he began punching him in the ribs. Norris said he left when the older man pulled a gun.
