Seminole elections supervisor: State law loophole deprives thousands of voters
Kevin Gross is a longtime political candidate who has run for Seminole County Commission three times and most recently for Clerk of Courts.
But his name has never appeared on a ballot. He has never mailed out campaign flyers or even set up a campaign website. Still, Gross’ low-profile campaigns as a write-in candidate have had a big influence on Seminole’s elections process by shutting out a majority of the county’s voters.
Now, Seminole County Supervisor of Elections Michael Ertel is urging legislators to take another crack at closing a loophole in the state’s election law that allows a write-in candidate — such as Gross and others across Central Florida — to close off primaries to all voters.
“This little loophole has kind of
bastardized the [elections] process,” Ertel said. “This is about the voters having faith and trust in the process. And it’s our job to make sure that everyone understands the process is working fairly for everyone.”
According to state law, all registered voters are eligible to vote in a primary election when only one party fields candidates. But there’s an exception: If a write-in candidate, who has no party affiliation, enters the race, then the primary is open only to registered voters of the party that has candidates. The winner of the primary then faces the write-in candidate in the general election.
Because the write-in candidate’s name doesn’t appear on the ballot, it virtually assures that the person who won the primary will win the seat. A writein has never won an election in Florida, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
Ertel is not alone in his disdain for what many consider an election trick, which allows candidates whose names are on the ballot to target their appeal to voters of a single party rather than all voters.
Last month, Palm Beach State Attorney Dave Aronberg submitted a proposal to the Constitutional Revision Commission to end the practice through a statewide referendum. When he was a state senator, Aronberg, a Democrat, proposed legislation to to close “this evil loophole” but couldn’t garner enough support.
The loophole has “disenfranchised more voters than any butterfly ballot, hanging chad or ex-felon lists ever did,” Aronberg said. “It benefits only the political parties and the party bosses at the expense of the will of the voters.”
In Seminole’s 2016 election, Clerk of the Court Grant Maloy defeated two fellow Republicans in the August primary and then faced only write-in candidates Gross and Michael Don Johnson, whose names didn’t appear on the ballot in the November general election. The write-in candidates prevented about 175,000 nonRepublicans from voting.
Gross could not be reached for comment.
Write-in candidates have popped up all over Central Florida.
Last year, Bill Vose filed to run as a write-in candidate in the Orange-Osceola state attorney’s race, thereby closing the primary to 529,000 non-Democrat voters. State Attorney Aramis Ayala, a Democrat, won the primary and the general election. Vose received 1,356 out of 503,817 votes cast.
Vose, a registered Republican who was the No. 2 man in former State Attorney Lawson Lamar’s office, said last week he ran as a write-in candidate primarily because he didn’t want to pay the qualifying fee of $9,000 for that race. Vose also donated $1,000 to Ayala’s campaign.
Ertle urged lawmakers to end the practice at a Seminole legislative delegation meeting last week.
State Sen. David Simmons, R-Altamonte Springs, agreed the loophole throws a wrench into the elections process and said he he will “certainly consider” looking at the issue in the upcoming legislative session.
“We do need to look at it, and see if we can create a solution to this,” Simmons said.
Ertel proposes that a write-in candidate should run in the primary based on their party registration. So if a write-in candidate is a Republican, then he would run in the Republican primary rather than in the general election. In a scenario in which only the GOP fielded candidates all voters regardless of party affiliation would be able to vote in the primary.
Even so, candidates could turn the tables by switching to a party that is likely not to field a candidate, Ertel acknowledged. However, under state law a write-in candidate would have to change party affiliation 365 days before an election, requiring a level of pre-planning to potentially close a primary.
“This won’t totally eliminate gamesmanship,” Ertel said. “You can never get politics out of politics. But you can put more fairness in the process.”
State Reps. Bob Cortes, R-Altamonte Springs, Scott Plakon, R-Longwood and Jason Brodeur, R-Sanford, did not respond to requests for comment about closing the loophole.
Aubrey Jewett, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida, doesn’t see much hope that lawmakers will close the loophole.
“Most Republicans and Democrats like to keep their party primaries closed,” Jewett said. “That’s because they like to control the nomination process.”
Orange County Supervisor of Elections Bill Cowles, who cried out “hallelujah” when he heard about Ertel’s efforts, also isn’t optimistic.
“What all the supervisors of elections in Florida know is, that you’re not going to be able to remove it,” Cowles said. “It’s well-embedded.”
Ertel proposes that a write-in candidate should run in the primary based on their party registration.