Escambia County has two GOP candidates that the Supervisor of Elections office initially reported as qualified to run but later were found to not correctly fill out the required state ethics form, which led to them being bounced off the ballot.
- John R. Johnson wanted to run for the County Commission District 3, but he used the incorrect state ethics form and paid his qualifying fee with a cashier’s check.
- Bruce Childers did not submit a complete Form 6. On Facebook, he blames a Supervisor of Elections employee whom he alleges told him and his wife that the Form 6 he submitted was completed. He says Supervisor of Elections Robert Bender has the power to put him on the ballot.
Childers
Bruce Childers posted this on his Facebook page:
This may take a bit, but I think I owe it to my friends and the citizens of this county to tell what happened.
On Wednesday, June 12, I filed to run for the office of Supervisor of Elections. Qualifying for that office ended Friday, June 14. We were assisted by the senior qualifying officer. When we went to file our forms we filed a receipt, or summary page of our Form 6, the financial disclosure form, which included the “watermark” (an opaque image which is added upon the completion of electronic filing). We were told at the time that is all we needed to file. The qualifying clerk carefully initialed each item filed, including the blank for financial disclosure, indicating she accepted as complete the financial disclosure, and stated at the time, “this (meaning the receipt from the Division of Elections where we filed the financial disclosure, Form 6) was what was needed.”
Pam, who was with me, asked the qualifying officer what she needed to fulfill the Form 6 requirements since this is a new process for candidates.
The qualifying officer responded by drawing a a square in the air with her fingers indicating one page and responding, “All we need is the page with the watermark. That is sufficient.”
We gave her that and completed our filing. We went to the bank to open a campaign account (ironically you can’t do anything until you file, including opening an account, and you need a check drawn on your campaign account to be able to file).
We came back, gave them the check and upon leaving I again asked if there was anything else we needed, to which she responded, “You’re complete… You’re all good.”
We checked later that evening and the Supervisor’s website indicated I was “Qualified.” Their website continued to show me as qualified. This information was disseminated to the local newspaper and the public in general.
Acting on the belief, and in reliance on the representations of the SOE’s senior qualifying officer that I had successfully qualified for election, I spent over $50,000 of my own money for billboards, signs, campaign material and hiring elections consultants.
On Thursday, June 20, I received an email from the qualifying officer, not even from Robert Bender himself, that I was disqualified because I “failed to provide a copy of the full and complete financial disclosure Form 6.”
It should be noted that between June 12 and Friday June 14, the last day of qualifying, no one from the SOE called, texted or emailed me that my paperwork was deficient. F.S. 99.061 (7)(b) states, “The qualifying officer shall make every reasonable to effort to notify the candidate of the missing or incomplete items and to inform the candidate that all required items must be received by the close of qualifying.”
F.S. 99.061 (5)(c) states, ” In determining whether a candidate is qualified, the filing officer shall review the qualifying papers to determine whether all items required to be filed have been properly filed and whether each item is complete on its face, including whether items that must be verified have been properly verified.”
In other words, it was incumbent on the SOE to attempt to notify me that the receipt itself was not enough; the entire Form 6 was required.
Now, at this point, I have to say I am an attorney. I read statutes. The statutes in this case are a bit (to say the least) ambiguous. F.S. 112.3144 (4) states, “A candidate not subject to an annual filing requirement does not file with the commission, but may complete and print a Full and Public Disclosure of Financial Interests to file with the officer before whom he or she qualifies.”
That word ‘may’ sounds permissive not mandatory, to me. I guess I believed, to my detriment, the qualifying officer knew her job, knew the requirements every candidate must meet to be properly qualified. I still am baffled by the fact they did not contact me, notwithstanding they had a statutory to do so. Maybe I shouldn’t be, I don’t know.
I say all this to tell you, all of this did not need to happen. This could easily have been remedied by just accepting my financial disclosure, or at the least by letting me know I needed to file the Form 6 – before the qualifying period had lapsed.
This impugns the integrity of the office of Supervisor of Elections. The citizens of this county should be able to trust that the election process works for them, that the elections are fair and not subject to the caprice of the Supervisor of Elections.
You see, constitutional officers have discretion. The SOE is the sole arbitor of whether a candidate has properly qualified. It is not up to the Commission on Ethics or the Division of Elections – it is up to the SOE.
For those who know the history between Robert Bender and my wife over his 58% pension, you have probably read between the lines. I will leave it at that. In closing I will say that while the damage to me is personal, there is no injustice done to the public in allowing me to remain on the ballot.
In fact, to the contrary, to continue to allow the Supervisor of Elections caprice to stand will effectively disenfranchise the citizens of this county from the opportunity to vote for and elect the best person to represent them as their Supervisor of Elections.
John R. Johnson
Johnson alleges a state employee told him that Form 6 was only for incumbents when he tried to fill out the form online.
He had to use a cashier’s check because PenAir Credit Union no longer issues counter-checks. However, PenAir Credit Union told us that they still offer counter-checks.
#notreadbypamchilders