Two Write-Ins Live Outside District
BY BUDDY NEVINS
Two Broward write-ins live outside their districts in violation of state law.
The two write-ins not living in their proper districts are Tyron Francois in County Commission District 2 and Ronald Bray in state House District 96.
Florida Statute 99.0615 requires that, “At the time of qualification, all write-in candidates must reside within the district represented by the office sought.”
Francois filed papers with the Elections Office indicating he lives in a portion of Pompano Beach that is in Commission District 9 rather than Commission District 2. Bray’s state Election Office filing indicates he lives in Pompano Beach, a city not in House District 96.
Francois and Bray jumped into the their races last week, closing the August primaries to Democrats only.
If both write-ins are thrown off the ballot, the primaries will reopen to independents and Republicans.
It will most likely take a lawsuit to get Francois and Bray tossed. The Supervisor of Elections Office has only ministerial functions and cannot remove a candidate without a court order.
A lawsuit could end up costing Francois and Bray thousands of dollars to defend. Thus, the write-ins may end up dropping out.
Or nothing might be done. It may be that no Democrat wants to be the one to sue and open themselves to charges they allowed Republicans and independents to vote in a Democratic primary.
Inserting write-in candidates into races to close primaries is essentially a legal “dirty trick”widely used by political consultants to aid their client’s campaign. In Broward, the trick is usually used to close a Democratic primary. This helps a candidate who has less appeal among independents and Republicans, who are disenfranchised in a closed primary.
Bray is apparently Jacobs’ former campaign aide, according to the DailyBroward.com, which has been out in front on this story.
DailyBroward.com says Bray is on the left with Jacobs, who is on the right. (photo: DailyBroward.com)
Jacobs is the more liberal of the two in the House race. Perman has given money to Republicans, although they are mostly fellow chiropractors. He would definitely benefit by keeping Rs and Is out.
But will he have the guts to sue when he is already being labeled as too Republican-friendly by Jacobs. Stay tuned.
Francois’ filing last week closed the District 2 North Broward commission race that contains five Democrats, thus whoever takes the primary wins.
The candidates are: Lisa Kohner Aronson, Coconut Creek mayor; Mark Bogen, condominium attorney; Carmen Jones, activist; Charlotte Rodstrom, former Fort Lauderdale city commissioner and Terry Williams-Edden, a former state Senate candidate.
The state House District 96 in North Broward contains two Democrats besides write-in Bray: County Commissioner Kristin Jacobs and former state Rep. Steve Perman.
The DailyBroward.com first broke the story earlier today about Francois’ residency problems.
June 23rd, 2014 at 3:01 pm
Interesting that the two races that are affected by this are the seat Jacobs is seeking and the seat she is vacating. Somebody didn’t so their homework…
June 23rd, 2014 at 3:09 pm
Not a very smart consultant!
June 23rd, 2014 at 4:14 pm
Buddy Wrote:
“Inserting write-in candidates into races to close primaries is essentially a legal “dirty trick”widely used by political consultants to aid their client’s campaign.”
Wonder which “political consultant” messed up this dirty deed for their client?
Also wonder why the Supervisor of Election Office did not catch this.
June 23rd, 2014 at 9:37 pm
Wonder why the Supervisor of Elections allowed dead people and felons to vote in Dania Beach?
The fox is watching the hen house and elections are manipulated by sly campaign managers.
Will history be repeated in November? Hope not.
June 23rd, 2014 at 11:20 pm
This is outrageous! All the Dems in these two races should call for these Dem apparatchiks to remove themselves voluntarily so that no money should be spent on law suits and court orders. The candidates should then ferret out the culprit strategist and jettison him or her from their campaign, immediately and publicly.
The idea that a dirty trick like this should be allowed to disenfranchise tens of thousands of voters from exercising their constitutional right to vote is beyond the pale.
June 24th, 2014 at 3:08 am
Dirty trick? I believe it’s called strategy, something Steve Perman wouldn’t recognize if he ran it over with his car. another County..that is actually known as illegal…
June 24th, 2014 at 3:23 pm
Closing the doors on Republicans and Independents?
Isn’t that called Dis-enfranchising?
mmmmmmmmmmm………….
Rico Petrocelli
Former Councilman
City of Plantation
ps. Buddy, let me know what needs to be done to get everyone to vote, especially if the 2 write-ins are “Illegal” If they lived in the district it would be ok, strategy,but Illegal is illegal.
Brenda Snipes, do the right thing…
June 26th, 2014 at 2:01 pm
Read Buddy’s OpEd and Bill Scherer maybe filing suit the other day. Now its down. What happened? Censorship?
FROM BUDDY: It’s not down. It was updated.
June 26th, 2014 at 9:53 pm
FWIW, this practice of using write-ins to close a campaign goes back to the initial elections after the state constitution was amended in 1998 to allow “universal primaries” if all the qualified, named candidates were from a single political party.
You can thank Katherine Harris who, when she was SoS, issued a written opinion that the presence of a write-in (who, BTW does not have to pay one cent in qualifying fees) effectively closes the primary. Both parties do it.
To my knowledge, this opinion has never been litigated in a court, so it is entirely possible state courts could deal with this strategy of write-ins in the future. I might be wrong about this having never been litigated… Perhaps an election law attorney could correct me on this.
BTW, this strategy was invented in (of course) Miami Dade County in the 2000 election cycle.
Kevin.