SOE Kim Barton offers response to letter about rejection of SOE Candidate Judith Jensen’s petitions

Letter to the editor

Editor’s note: Barton’s letter is a response to a May 26 Letter to the Editor.

Judith Jensen filed to run for Alachua County Supervisor of Elections (SOE) on July 27, 2023. At that time, she informed the SOE staff that assisted her that she intended to qualify by petition method. At that meeting, she was told, just like all candidates seeking to qualify by petition method, that she should not hold the collected petitions but instead should submit her first batch of 100 petitions with her campaign check in the amount of $180.90. That is the total cost she would need to pay to verify the total petitions needed (1,809 at .10 per petition).

We ask candidates to do this so that they can find out if there is a pattern in their submitted petitions, such as a required field that is repeatedly being missed, which is causing the candidate’s petitions to be rejected. With this information, the candidate can remind those assisting them in gathering petitions to focus on those areas on the petition form. Ms. Jensen waited until April 9, 2024, to submit her first batch of 1,177 petitions, 9 months after signing up to run. When she submitted her first batch of petitions, she also submitted a signed Undue Burden Oath. Ms. Jensen next submitted petitions on April 30, 2024, with a batch of 341 petitions, and then an additional 19 petitions were submitted later that day. On May 10, 2024, she submitted 227 petitions, and on the deadline date of May 13, 2024, she submitted 215 petitions and then returned before the noon deadline to submit an additional 23 petitions.

In all, Ms. Jensen submitted a total of 1,997 petitions to be verified. Of the 1,997 petitions, 1,741 petitions were verified as valid, and 256 petitions were rejected. It is important to note that out of the 256 rejected petitions, 78 petitions were duplicate petitions. These are submitted petitions from voters that had previously already signed a candidate petition for Ms. Jensen. There are many other reasons for rejections outlined in Florida Rule 1S-2.045 “Candidate Petition Process” such as required fields being left blank. When reviewing petitions, the required voter information must be correct as submitted in their voter registration record. Listed below are the reasons for rejecting each of the 256 petitions.

Ms. Jensen needed a total of 1,809 valid petitions to qualify by the petition method. She submitted a total of 1,997 petitions to be verified. Even if every signature submitted had matched the voter signature on file, Ms. Jensen would still be short of the required number of valid petitions needed because of the aforementioned reasons for rejections.

Florida Statute 97.012(17) requires mandatory formal signature matching training for all Florida County Supervisors of Elections, all Florida County Canvassing Board members, and any person whose duties require verification of signatures. Alachua County Canvassing Board members and elections staff conducting signature matching, as well as myself, have gone through the annual signature matching training. As Supervisor of Elections, I have not directly verified any petitions submitted by any candidate running for office. The Supervisor of Elections staff conduct their duties with the highest ethical standards and with integrity, and I would expect nothing less from them.

Ms. Jensen made a public records request to review the rejected signature petitions. My staff arranged a time of her choosing to review the petition signatures against the signature(s) on file. She was able to view all available signatures on file in the voter record. When staff reviewed the petition signatures, they did not only look at the recent signature on file, but they also looked at previous signatures for comparison, as outlined in Florida Statute 98.077. Ms. Jensen’s petitions were checked for quality assurance by two staff members, which is the procedure for all submitted petitions.

All candidates have the ability to submit petitions early and often to ensure that Supervisor of Elections staff can alert them to any deficiencies before it is too late.

This is the advice that we give to all candidates.

Kim A. Barton
Supervisor of Elections
Alachua County

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