Write-in candidates are shaping Santa Rosa County politics and they're not even on ballot

* Editor's note: This story had been updated to correctly identify write-in candidate Sandra Maddox.

Sandra Maddox chuckled when informed that people had taken notice of the James Calkins for county commission campaign signs staked out in frFont of her Milton area home.

"Somebody keeps putting those signs in my yard," she said. "I keep taking them down and they're putting them back."

The signs had drawn attention because Maddox has qualified as a write-in candidate to oppose Calkins in this year's race for his District 3 seat.

"And if I win, I would serve," she asserted.

Maddox is one of seven write-in candidates and 16 total candidates to have signed on to compete for one of the three Santa Rosa County Commission seats up for grabs this year. All will have until the November general election to raise money and campaign for office.

August primary ballot is set: Nearly 100 have qualified to run for local elected offices

Two write-ins and three registered Republicans will try to unseat Commission Chairman Sam Parker in District 1. Two write-ins and two Republicans are vying with James Calkins for the District 3 seat and three write-ins and one Republican candidate are running against District 5 Commissioner Colten Wright.

The write-in candidate is a very Florida phenomenon. Write-ins pay no qualifying fees and their name doesn't even appear on the ballot, all voters will see is a line upon which they have the opportunity to fill in a name.

No write-in candidate has ever won an election in the state, yet their presence in some political races has wide-ranging impacts.

In an election in which all qualified candidates represent a single party − no Democrats are seeking election in partisan local elections this year in Santa Rosa County − a write-in qualifying to run closes the primary election to independent voters or members of the other party.

Former Secretary of State Katherine Harris gets credit for deciding in 2000 that a write-in candidate's entry into an election would effectively close a primary, and, short of passing a constitutional amendment, the only way to change the law is by convincing state lawmakers to take action.

Amendment Three sought in 2020 to eliminate the write-in loophole and open Florida primaries so that the top two finishers in those contests would battle one another in the general election. The amendment was favored by a 57% majority, but failed to attain the 60% support needed to pass.

Harris's decision has paved the way for all kinds of election year tomfoolery, and the write-in candidate has become a popular way to limit voter turnout.

"Ghost candidates" made the news in 2020 when reporters uncovered information about no-party affiliation candidates filing paperwork to get their names on the ballot, but doing little else, while hundreds of thousands in dark money was being utilized to send out campaign propaganda to defeat opposition candidates.

The most notorious of the cases involved former Republican Florida State Rep. Frank Artiles, who was ultimately charged for paying a friend, Alexis "Alex" Rodriguez, to run as a NPA candidate for a state Senate seat against Democrat Jose Javier Rodríguez.

Artiles' suspected effort to confuse voters with two candidates of the same last name appeared to have been successful. Jose Javier Rodríguez, the Democratic incumbent, wound up losing to Republican Ileana Garcia by 34 votes.

In 2022, write-in candidate Harlan Hall may have influenced the Santa Rosa County Commission race between incumbent Dave Piech and his opponent Ray Eddington when, citing health concerns, he withdrew from the District 4 County Commission race after qualifying had ended and ballots had been printed.

This left Eddington and Piech, both Republicans, as the only remaining candidates. So, by direction of the state, what would have been an August primary battle was instead moved to the November general election. There is some sentiment that the date change may have adversely impacted Piech, whose name would have appeared below Eddington's on the ballot.

For some time this year it appeared as though Wright, in District 5, might be facing a Republican opponent in Michael Priest and write-in Michael Stevens . Had Stevens, a political ally of Calkins who doesn't even live in District 5, backed out, the Priest-Wright contest would have been moved to November.

Priest, the Republican candidate running against Wright, lives in a Gulf Breeze apartment building owned by James and Mariya Calkins.

But two other write-ins, Ronald Martonick, who lists his mailing address as a UPS Store in Milton, and Evan Turner, both signed up at the last minute to seemingly stifle any threat of shenanigans.

Turner said he waited too late to qualify as a non-party affiliated candidate but entered the race eager to "give it my best and get ready for the next election cycle."

Stevens insisted Thursday that any insinuation he got into the race to keep Democrats and independents out, or to throw a monkey wrench into election schedules, is misguided.

"That's what a lot of people have said, and I'm offended by it," he replied when asked. "Colten Wright is a Democrat in disguise. I'm very serious about running, I just didn't have the money or the time to qualify as a Republican."

Like Stevens, Maddox insisted that when she qualified to run as a write-in against Calkins she was not acting to close the primary to Democrats and independents.

"I got in because it's my right," she said. "I didn't get in it necessarily to close it to Democrats, I got in it because it's my right to run."

She was joined as a District 3 write-in candidate by Patrick Eugene Brown. Brown ran as a write-in in the same race in 2020 and has already raised as much money for the campaign as he did that year, which is to say nothing. In fact, none of the write-in candidates who have qualified in Santa Rosa County have reported contributions to their campaigns.

Calkins also has a couple of Republican challengers eager to take him down in the August primary. Jerry Couey, who faced off against Calkins in 2020, and Rhett Rowell have both qualified to run.

Jason Hatfield and Zachary Reinhart are entered as write-in candidates in the District 1 race, where incumbent Sam Parker also is being challenged by Republicans Rollar Ayers, Bobby Burkett and Aaron Williams.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Write-in candidates are shaping Santa Rosa County politics and they're not even on ballot