New Voters Coalition settles elections complaint

A new Palm Beach County political group using a familiar name has settled a Florida Elections Commission complaint over its candidate endorsements.

The Voters Coalition of Palm Beach County PAC violated state elections law by sending out political mailers in August before registering with the state, according to the settlement.

The group, run by former state legislator Mary Brandenburg, paid $250 to settle the complaint.

The Florida Elections Commission approved the settlement onMay17.

Brandenburg, nowa political consultant, and other representatives for the Voters Coalition of Palm Beach County PAC could not be reached for comment, despite multiple attempts by phone and email.

Except for the “PAC” part, the name of Brandenburg’s group matches the name of the Voters Coalition of Palm Beach County, which disbanded in 2013.

The original Voters Coalition for decades held public forums and candidate debates. The group also issued endorsements coveted by local politicians.

Last year, Brandenburg’s political action committee revived the name to issue endorsements for candidates it backed — without the community involvement that went into the old Voter Coalition’s endorsements.

“There were no candidate interviews. There was no community input. Itwas all a sham,” said Richard Giorgio, a political consultant in West Palm Beach.

Giorgio, who represented candidates who didn’t get endorsements from Brandenburg’s group, filed the complaint with the state Elections Commission.

Giorgio and other critics ar--

gued that the new group was confusing voters by coopting the political sway of the oldVoters Coalition.

“The political action committee was an extremely deceptive attempt to mislead voters,” Giorgio said.

Brandenburg, a former Democratic legislator from West Palm Beach who left office in 2010, has said that she didn’t intend to confuse voters by using the term “Voters Coalition.”

She argued that there have been Voters Coalitions in communities across the United States, not just the prior Palm Beach County version.

Brandenburg has said that the new group’s endorsements were based on her own judgment and research and that in future elections she planned to include more people to help decide which candidates to endorse.

The settlement that the new version of the Voters Coalition agreed to doesn’t address questions about the use of the name.

Elections Commission Executive Director Amy Toman declined to comment on the dispute beyond what was disclosed in the settlement.