- High Springs is reopening its Nov. 3 election qualifying from Aug. 17 to 20 after outdated candidate forms were mistakenly used.
- Candidates who qualified previously must resubmit forms and fees but will be reimbursed to correct compliance issues without extra cost.
The city of High Springs is reopening the qualifying window for its Nov. 3 election after discovering some of the documents candidates submitted during the original qualifying period this month were outdated.
Assistant City Clerk Jami Echeverri told Mainstreet in an email that the city inadvertently gave candidates a former version of the Candidate Oath-Loyalty Oath form instead of the state’s newest edition implemented July 8.
Public records show the Alachua County Supervisor of Elections, Kim Barton, sent High Springs City Clerk Angela Stone the revised forms on July 23 at 9:58 p.m., just a few hours after the original four-day qualifying window closed.
After staff received guidance from the city’s legal staff to redo qualifying, the City Commission voted during a special meeting Thursday to reopen the process for all candidates to ensure proper qualification and compliance with state law.
The new qualifying window will be from 7:30 a.m. on Aug. 17 through 6 p.m. on Aug. 20.
The city announced on Monday the four candidates who qualified for Seats 1 and 2 during the original window. While the new qualifying period will provide an opportunity for more qualifiers to enter, those who already did are still allowed to campaign.
Stone said during the special meeting they will need to resubmit a few forms and their qualifying fee to reflect the date of the new window, but the first fee will be reimbursed, amounting to no extra financial burden on the candidates.
City Attorney Kiersten Ballou said the new forms likely got lost in the shuffle of many hands involved between their passing and getting to High Springs. She said the city was doing what it needed to do to avoid a lawsuit.
Seat 2 candidate and former Commissioner Ross Ambrose said the city had already had the candidates sign new loyalty forms, which he said had historically been enough to mitigate such mistakes, as opposed to opening a new qualifying period.
He also said having two sitting commissioners with seats up for new terms—Mayor Andrew Miller and Vice Mayor Wayne Bloodsworth Jr.—vote on the resolution would create conflicts of interest.
But Commissioner Chad Howell said the candidates feeling like they were being punished with the new window were really just concerned that they’d get more competition in the race.
“A mistake was made not on y’alls part, not on our part, and it needs to be corrected,” he said. “If I was in this position like a commissioner is this year, I would requalify.”
Miller excused himself from voting on the resolution. After pausing the meeting to privately consult the city attorney, Bloodsworth said the requalification didn’t serve him as he had no intentions of campaigning.
“Hey Mr. Ambrose, I am not running again. So you can clear that out of your dang mind,” he said. “I’m retired, I’m ready to be retired, I’m ready for a new chapter in my life with my family. Good luck to you, good luck to all the candidates. We’ve all said it was a mistake, we’re just trying to correct a wrong.”
The resolution passed unanimously, with conditions to update language. Currently, it states that qualifying is for one business week when, instead, it’s four days. The commissioners also voted to remove the language that the period will be at least 60 days prior to the election for five business days from Monday through Friday.