About a dozen people attended Doug Underhill’s protest to get Bruce Childers on the August primary ballot. At 9 a.m., there were more signs than people standing on Palafox Street, but more began to drift in.
Cris Dosev was among the protesters. During my 15 minutes at the rally, Underhill didn’t give a speech. However, Dosev shared his thoughts with me that Supervisor of Elections Robert Bender’s decision has disenfranchised the electorate.
“Last I checked, the only people going to be disenfranchised in this community or the state of Florida are felons,” Dosev said. “Do we fall into that basket now? Are we all felons? Just give us a choice.”
He expressed concerns that the Childers case will not be decided before the primary ballot is finalized. “The timing is pretty critical here. Supercritical, right? This can easily be gamed out and played out. And isn’t this what they’re trying to do nationally with Donald Trump? Keep him off ballots. I can’t imagine seeing that here in Escambia County, given the first congressional district.”
Dosev joked that this type of politics was covered in my book “City of Grudges.”
“Grudges, this is part and parcel to this community, but, in the big scheme of things, isn’t that what politics is all about, some form of a grudge? The right doesn’t like the left. The left doesn’t like the right.”
He continued, “I mean, it’s not because they’re getting along unless, of course, there’s a possibility of making money, and there’s a way, and there’s one issue that they are both making money on, and that’s immigration. Right? Because that can be solved, saw, but there’s no reason to solve it. You solve it, and then they wouldn’t have money coming in.”
Dosev mentioned a petition drive to get Gov. Ron DeSantis to intervene. “I would hope that it’s brought to his attention that he would.”
He said his experiences with the Supervisor of Elections office were different when he ran for Congress and the Florida House.
“Never ever once did we ever come into any kind of conflict with David Stafford (Bender’s predecessor), staff and office, always incredibly accommodating,” Dosev said, “‘Chris, you got to have this, or you got to make sure you get this in.’ Okay. Never once did I leave that office thinking to myself, did I forget something? Have I fallen? No. ‘Oh, Cris, make sure you get this down to Tallahassee.’ Whatever we needed to do, his office professionally made sure we were accommodated. And that’s a big deal.”
“If they can’t effectively submit an application, what chances do you have of submitting one?” he asked. “What chances do I have of submitting one if you don’t have an office that’s willing to work with you and assist you in doing it? Their obligation is to allow you to vote and have an opportunity to have a selection. That’s their primary obligation. They failed to do that.”
Dosev added, “They failed. They may as well shut up shop and just say, ‘Hey Rick, you’re the governor now.’ And that’s what’s happened. And so there really isn’t two sides to the story of someone’s obligation. They took an oath to protect your right and my right to vote.”
I would point out, to Mr. Dosev, that a number of felons have had their right to vote restored, thanks to Amendment 4, which carried Escambia County, and specially carried my district.
And so I think he might have spoken out of term, we both follow Jesus Christ I believe, and I have been persecuted here for standing up for the Gospel of Christ, in terms of what Jesus actually said and did, and standing generally in defense of fair treatment of people, everything Jesus said you are supposed to do, I have been persecuted locally here for my faith in Jesus.
I believe my faith in Christ is one reason why, that I am such an open Christian and am not ashamed to say I believe in Jesus, accept him as my Lord and Savior, that I have not been able to get an answer on whether or not Pam Childers lacked the minimum valid signatures to qualify in 2020 and there is no question, my faith in Christ and how I stand up for the teachings of Jesus is why my campaign was short slighted by the media in 2022, because my story, fully told, and how I was witnessing for Jesus Christ in my campaign, I would have beaten Lois by 40 points with the story properly aired.
I am of course talking about economic justice, the justice of fairness in government, what Jesus made clear he stood for when he preached on this Earth, I once was told on a bus not to preach about God when I was quoting from the Book of Kings, and this was an ECAT bus, about when King Rehoboam succeeded his father King Solomon, that the people asked him to lighten their yoke, and I was not even allowed to preach word for word from the Bible, this suppression of faith occurred on an ECAT bus in this county.
But Dosev, the people of Florida passed Amendment 4, and Yes won 64.26% in Escambia County. It passed statewide 64.54% and ultimately part of being a Christian is standing for voting rights for felons, and I am not a felon, but to defend the voting rights of felons is what Jesus requires of us as Christians, and Mr. Dosev I know you have spoken about your faith in Christ in the past, I invite you to join me in standing for Christ’s message here in Escambia County and defending the franchise for all of us.
I will turn away no one’s vote, and I want the vote of returning citizens in my district, I believe to prevent recidivism there must be lack of discrimination once your time is served, and a fair chance to earn a decent living, and I promise to open up opportunities for returning citizens to work for ECUA once I am in office.
how fast were the kaleidescopes spinning in Dosev’s eyes today? And didn’t he rent a van to haul a similar group of losers up to Jan 6?
It’s an honest question, because I heard a lot of people say it, but never saw verificaiton.
What we can verify is Dosev and a bunch of other local koolaid drinkers piling onto Signal once the investigations hit. We laughed harder with every name that popped up on Kevin’s phone. There’s another one who will never get closer to any elected office than filling out the forms. At least he did that correctly–too bad Pam and Bruce didn’t think to ask him for help with theirs.