Collier County Republican Supervisor of Elections candidate Dave Schaffel speaking in Pinellas County on April 24, 2024. (Photo by Mitch Perry/Florida Phoenix)
A day after a group of Republican incumbent supervisors of elections held off primary challengers — many of whom disputed the 2020 presidential election and were running on “election integrity” platforms — several of them spoke out about what they and their offices have endured the past few years.
“You talk about integrity? Integrity isn’t mudslinging and attacks, it’s doing the job that you’re supposed to be doing,” said Charlotte County Supervisor of Elections Leah Valenti, who easily defeated challenger David E. Kalin Jr. by 50 points, 75%-25%.
“I held my hand up, took the oath of office to uphold Florida election law to uphold the Constitution, and my staff and I were committed to that, every single day. Not getting in the weeds of allegations and accusations and conspiracy theories, quite frankly.”
“It has been pretty ugly, pretty divisive,” added Collier County Republican Supervisor of Elections Melissa Blazier. “A lot of misconceptions and misinformation about elections have been promoted and spread by both of my opponents over the past few months, but I think overwhelmingly the voters in Collier County have kind of squashed it, which is a good thing.”
Blazier defeated Dave Schaffel and Tim Guerrette on Tuesday, getting 49% of the vote to Schaffel’s 35% and Guerrette’s 17%.
Schaffel and Kalin were part of a group of seven supervisor of election candidates (or their surrogates) who trashed their GOP incumbent opponents at a press conference in Pinellas County back in April . Schaffel said at that event that he began investigating how elections are run in Florida following the 2020 election — when Donald Trump began attacking the presidential outcome — and said what he had discovered was “both alarming and distressing.”
During the campaign, Schaffel advocated for the hand counting of ballots and said county voter rolls were “inundated” with non-citizens.
“That’s just completely untrue and voters saw through it,” Blazier said.
Schaffel raised more than double the amount of campaign cash against Blazier (much of it self-funded) to push what she said was the message that elections in Florida aren’t secure and that major changes need to happen.
Republican incumbents in Pinellas, Lee, and Lake counties also defeated opponents running on election-integrity platforms, most by wide margins.
‘Blinded by their obsession’
Some said that they now hope that the attacks on how they conduct their offices might cease.
“I pray that it will stop, but I dare not predict that it will,” said Lake County Supervisor of Elections Alan Hays, who defeated Tom Vail by a 67%-33% margin.
“It appears to me that these people are blinded by their obsession, and they blatantly refuse to accept the facts. We have spent hours upon hours explaining to them what we do, how we do it, what the truth is, and they refuse to embrace the truth. So, I have no way to tell whether they’re going to continue to cling to their nonsensical ideas or if they’re going to finally accept the truth and swallow their pride and admit that they’re wrong.”
Vail, first vice chair of the Lake County Republican Party, had bashed Hays as inattentive to the concerns of voters, telling the Phoenix earlier this year that his office had denied “multiple records requests” about voter rolls, undeliverable election mail, and election processes.
“This is a team effort,” Hays said of his resounding victory.
“Unfortunately, the unkind things that have been said about this office and how it has been run has been personalized by my team. I’ve got a very dedicated group of men and women that are sold out to excellence and election administration day after day after day. And this victory is a resounding affirmation of the job that our team has been doing, and I deeply appreciate the voters expressing themselves that way.”
In the case of Kalin, he told the Phoenix in an interview earlier this year that Secretary of State Cord Byrd had “falsified or eliminated records, made false statements, and covered up a potential data breach” in Charlotte County. The Division of Elections told the Phoenix that the FDLE had reviewed those allegations and “found no crime had been committed.”
‘Constant harassment’
Valenti said that other allegations made by Kalin and other critics to her office were “disheartening,” and that her staffers had been contending with “constant harassment.”
“I mean, public record requests and reading about themselves in the newspaper because it was ‘election interference’ — how can they get to work and be prideful when someone is constantly making them feel that they’re doing something wrong, and all they’re doing is upholding the law?” she said.
“But Kaelin would contort the law into his opinion about how he thought it should be run, but that’s not what we do. As a constitutional officer, that’s not my role. My role is to uphold the law, not his opinions.”
Despite the losses, several Republicans on an “election integrity” platform are slated to run in places like Hillsborough, Palm Beach, and St. Lucie counties against Democrats in the General Election. And they may be back in 2028.
“It’s been hard on my staff. It’s been hard on all of us. Hard on our election workers,” Blazier said.
“We have these people who are volunteers. They’re your neighbors. They’re your family. They’re your friends that are out serving in our community in this fantastic capacity, and they’re being attacked by people. Just verbally abused by these people with no proof at all,” she continued.
“Would I hope that it would stop? Absolutely,” Blazier said, adding, “Do I think it’s going to? No.”
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