TAVARES, Fla. – The contentious race for property appraiser will continue in Lake County after a judge refused incumbent Carey Baker’s request to kick challenger Mark Jordan off the ballot, in a case that has angered Republican leaders in the county and left Baker to run for reelection as a write-in candidate.
Baker, a Republican who has been the property appraiser since 2012, sued Jordan, claiming he failed to properly qualify for the race because he didn’t withdraw first from the other race he had qualified for, which was a seat on the North Lake County Hospital District Board, timestamps showed his paperwork was filed after the noon qualifying deadline on June 14, and failed to pay the candidate qualifying fee from an account designated for the property appraiser race.
But the judge ruled that under Florida election law, Jordan was not required to do any of that.
On June 14, the last day for candidates to qualify to run for county office, records show Baker chose to run as a write-in candidate for his job, thinking no one else was filing to run against him. This would save him the qualifying fee of $10,685.04. Baker had done the same thing in 2020 and was reelection unopposed.
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However, Jordan, who had qualified earlier in the week for the hospital board race, filled out the candidate qualifying registration form at 11:48 a.m. that day and was in a waiting room when Baker left. He filed a new form to designate he was changing to the property appraiser race and paid the qualifying fee to run as a Republican. The paperwork was done with a final time stamp of 12:46 p.m.
In his ruling, the judge said that while state law did require a candidate to refile forms if they were changing races, it did not specifically say the candidate had to withdraw from the first race to file for the second.
The judge also said state law said, “qualifying items must actually be present at the qualifying office’s physical location by the close of the qualifying period.” So even though the paperwork wasn’t formally filed before noon on June 14, the paperwork was in the elections office physically before noon. This gave the elections office some grace to deal with the flood of last-minute candidates trying to qualify by the deadline.
Jordan’s decision to jump in the race caused an uproar in the heavily Republican county. County commissioners urged Jordan to leave the race. The county Republican Party censured Jordan and his brother, county tax collector David Jordan, for the move. But Jordan has remained resolute.
Jordan and his brother admit they knew that Baker would run as a write-in if he believed he had no opponents. Mark Jordan even asked hypothetical questions to the county elections staff about what it would take to change the race he was running for when he filed to run for the hospital district board.
Lake County elections Supervisor Alan Hays, who was also sued by Baker, posted a lengthy statement responding to the ruling on the office website, saying in part:
“The judge concluded that no statutes were broken. He concluded that the SOE process was the correct procedure to follow so that everyone desiring to qualify for an office who was present before the noon deadline with completed paperwork, would be able to qualify.
“Where do we go from here? Mark Jordan’s name will be printed on the 2024 General Election ballot. Right under his name you will find a blank line with a blank oval beside it. On that line, since only one person is a qualified write-in candidate, ONLY ONE name will be counted and that is the name of Carey Baker.
“Those who wish to vote for Mark Jordan should darken the oval beside his name. Those wishing to vote for Carey Baker, should darken the oval beside the blank line AND write the name Carey Baker on the line. The canvassing board will examine individually, each ballot to determine if the name written on the line is for Carey Baker. The final results for that race are likely to be delayed until the following day for publication.”
Elections Supervisor Alan Hays
Baker has filed to appeal the decision. The initial brief is due to the Fifth District Court of Appeal by Sept. 26.
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