- Advertisement -

In Brevard County, the concern has shifted from if the votes are legal to are the candidates on the ballot even legal.

- Advertisement -

UDPATE: Upon further review of Twiddy’s document, not only is the date deficient, but it is also missing the email address, residence address, city, state, and zipcode. All of these items are required to be filled in or it is to be rejected.

Another Brevard County candidate with legally deficient qualifying documents has surfaced on the Brevard County ballot. Republican, Wayne Twiddy, ironically a leader of the Elections Integrity Committee for the Brevard Republican Executive Committee, submitted his paperwork to run for the position of Republican State Committeeman. It is the same office that State Representative Randy Fine is running for, whose paperwork was also found to be illegal. Despite the documents being improperly notarized, Twiddy was qualified and placed on the ballot.

The incident began when Twiddy submitted his qualifying documents on June 11, 2024, three days before the qualifying deadline. Kathleen Miller, the Candidate Coordinator for Tim Bobanic at the Supervisor of Elections office, notarized Twiddy’s documents but failed to include the year in the date section of the notarization. This omission rendered the notarization legally invalid under Florida law, which requires the date of the notarial act to be clearly stated.

Miller’s job is to receive and review all qualifying documents, identify any deficiencies, and is required by law to notify the candidate of those deficiencies so they can be addressed before the end of qualification. In this case, not only did she not catch the error, she actually committed the error.

Unlike Randy Fine’s case where his notary, which happens to be his District Aide failed to put the date, deeming it invalid and deficient, Twiddy waited until he was at the Supervisor’s Office to have his notarized. It is ultimately the candidate’s responsibility to ensure their paperwork is correct before submitting it. Both Fine’s and Twiddy are clearly deficient, yet neither’s were rejected as required by Florida law.

We emailed the Supervisor of Elections, Tim Bobanic officially informing him of the deficiency in Fine’s qualification documents. Bobanic has the authority and duty as charged by Florida Elections Laws, to disqualify any candidate whose documents are found to be deficient. This very things just happened in Citrus County where a candidate on the same form in question here, forgot to simply check a box of if they owed any fees to the state. The mistake was not caught until 18 days after the qualifying period had ended. As a result, the Citrus County Supervisor of Elections “Mo” Baird removed him from the ballot.

“It was an oversight on our part, but an error by the candidate,” Baird said. “I’m the holder of the forms. I’m not responsible for making sure those forms are filled out correctly.”

In a response to our email to Tim Bobanic, he replied he will not be removing Fine from the ballot unless it is ordered by a judge. He gave no explanation for his failure to follow the laws he’s been appointed by the Governor to enforce. So he has passed on his duties to be enforced by a citizen having to file a lawsuit to do so. Today, that’s exactly what we will be doing.

This incident adds to a growing list of irregularities in Brevard County’s electoral process, and election integrity, prompting calls for an investigation into the Supervisor of Elections office. We have requested copies of qualifying documents of all candidates to see just how many more deficiencies are found. Conveniently, unlike the Florida Division of Elections website which has all the documents instantly accessable online, Tim Bobanic requires the public to do a public records request for the same documentation to be fulfilled at a timeline and cost to the citizen of their choosing. Brevard County’s website votebrevard.com even has a tab to for the Supervisor to include these documents however, not one document is available there. As the controversy unfolds, the public and other candidates are left questioning the fairness and transparency of the upcoming election.