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Pasco Democrats challenge write-in candidate
If Taylor's write-in candidacy is allowed to stand, Pasco County will have a closed primary for one of its county commission races.
PASCO COUNTY (Bay News 9) -- A hotly-contested Bay area race has gotten hotter.
Pasco County Democrats have filed a lawsuit challenging the write-in candidacy of John Taylor for the Pasco County Commission's District One seat.
When Taylor qualified as a write-in candidate for the county commission election, the Republican primary between incumbent Ted Schrader and challenger John Nicolette became closed, which now means that only Republicans can vote in August.
Democrats said they are upset over this decision - not because of the law, but because they say Taylor doesn't even live in the district.
Pasco party chair Alison Burke-Murano said she hopes a judge will rule that Taylor's name should stay off the ballot. Such a move would turn the race back into a universal primary.
"It's chosen at the primary level on August 26," she said. "Every single voter in Pasco County should be able to vote in the race because that ultimately will be the person sitting in that seat."
The problem is, in 2000, the Division of Elections ruled that a write-in candidate automatically closes a primary.
Pasco GOP chairman Bill Bunting said the same thing has happened before in Pinellas County.
"We just had a special House race down in St. Petersburg and Democrats were there," he said. "Democrats closed the primary down there and no Republicans went in to challenge them."
Bunting said this situation is no different, and that he also thinks all primaries should be closed.
"I'd like to see closed primaries where Republicans should vote in Republican primaries and Democrats vote in Democratic primaries," he said.
Aside from whether Republicans get to vote in the District One commissioner race, the conflict is causing other problems.
Absentee ballots have to be shipped out by July 22. If the lawsuit isn't heard in time, the Supervisor of Elections will have to send amended ballots, which would cost the county thousands of dollars.
In an attempt to avoid this, Pasco Judge Lowell Bray held an expedition hearing on Thursday to see if the case could be sped up. He decided that he will hear the Democrats' challenge on July 17, if the parties involved don't iron out the issue of Taylor's residency before then.
That will be the date the Supervisor of Elections should find out what he has to print on absentee ballots, before his office has to mail them out.
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