The qualifying period was from June 10 at noon until June 14 at noon. Candidates had the opportunity to bring in their qualification paperwork two weeks before that. Half of the 44 qualified candidates took advantage of that option, according to Bender.
He said his office was in contact with John R. Johnson at least 10 times on June 13 and June 14. candidates.
Bender said, “He came in at 11:49 (on Friday, June 14). At 11:57, we’re still filling out paperwork and things like that. And so we get the work at noon and then we perform a secondary search of review of all the paperwork that’s been turned in.”
I asked him how hard is the noon deadline, and the election supervisor said he would accept all paperwork that had been completed if they were in line to qualify. “You wouldn’t be able to sit there and continue to fill out paperwork or anything like that. But if you were in the door at noon, we would have taken whatever papers you had.”
The problems with Johnson’s paperwork popped up in his secondary review.
“I performed the secondary review and realized that the state ethics form was not the correct form. He had returned to Form 1 instead of Form Six, which is more invasive. You have to list amounts,” Bender said. “This is not a form that is given out by the office. The candidate goes online to the commission on the ethics website and completes the form.”
He continued, “The form is auto-populated based on the position that you are seeking. And so the wrong position was selected. I stopped my review at that point to address the issue and talked to the Commission on Ethics and talked to the candidate. And so, the Commission on Ethics is looking into the phone call to see if they provided any bad guidance. But again, had the correct position being sought been selected, the correct form would’ve automatically populated.”
But there was also another problem.
“Later in the afternoon, the employee who helped him thought that there was also an issue with the check. So we went and pulled the check, and it was clearly a cashier’s check, which again, the statute says it has to be a check drawn on the account with the treasurer or the deputy treasurer’s signature on it. Again, it was a cashier’s check. We know that the bank signs that. And so for that reason as well, the candidate would not be able to qualify”
As I have reported, John R. Johnson has run several times for local offices and has completed the qualifying documents previously. However, this was his first time to run as a Republican.
I asked Bender when Johnson filed to run for the Escambia County Commission District 3 post. He said, “March of 23.”
Feature Photo by Ian Powell on Unsplash
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