In late November, Joel Rudman resigned from the Florida Legislature to run in the upcoming special congressional election to fill the seat vacated by Matt Gaetz. Nearly two months later, there’s still no word on when a separate special election will be held to fill Rudman’s State House District 3 seat.
The District 3 seat covers most of Santa Rosa County and a portion of Okaloosa. Santa Rosa Supervisor of Elections Tappie Villane and Okaloosa Elections Supervisor Paul Lux confirm communication with the state about a special election for the open seat. But, to date, there's been no word.
“So we are still waiting, to hear back from, the Governor's office and the Department of State or the Division of Elections,” said Villane.
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At this point in the process, she says there’s really nothing their local offices can do.
“So far as our role, we really don't have a role,” Villane stated. “They announce — they being the governor's office — the Secretary of State, and Division of Elections. They announce the dates. They actually provide the calendar to us and we carry the election out. Now, with this being a state contest, people will qualify with the Division of Elections, they will not qualify here locally.”
According to Villane, historically, special elections are carried out pretty quickly and aren’t totally bound to standard election protocols. For example, qualifying in the congressional special election was one and one-half days, when it typically runs for five days.
However, there are some statutory requirements, such as an advertisement of notice.
“It's based on Florida law as far as they have to give so many days (10) for announcing the election, giving people also a period of time to qualify,” she said. “If someone is currently in an elected office, as we just saw with the congressional qualifying, give them a period of time to resign to run for that upcoming seat that's just opened.”
The state’s “resign to run” rule is what Gov. Ron DeSantis is blaming for the delay in setting special elections for the House District 3 and Senate District 19 seats. Both incumbents, Rudman and Randy Fine, resigned to run to for open seats in congress in Districts 1 and 6. A special election is set for April 1, with a primary scheduled for Jan. 28.
“I would have preferred to do them the same dates,” DeSantis declared. “We just...physically you can’t do it when you’re dealing with “resign to run” because I (candidates) wouldn’t have had enough time to qualify.”
This was the governor’s response when asked about a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Santa Rosa and Brevard County voters accusing him of failing to meet his constitutional obligation to call special elections for the vacant house and senate seats, “effectively disenfranchising voters” in those districts.
With Florida’s Legislative Session beginning Mar. 4, DeSantis says there’s really no scenario now for scheduling the special elections before it ends May 2.
“It just wouldn’t have ended up adding up properly,” the governor said. “So once you know that you can’t physically seat anybody in time for the session to be over at that point.
More likely at this point is Special Election dates for the legislative races after the congressional Special Elections on April 1; but not too soon after.
“So you do have to build in a 10-day window after the election for us to get through the certification process before we can move on to the next round of the election,” said
Okaloosa Supervisor of Elections, Paul Lux, who reminds that sending out Vote-By-Mail ballots is also a scheduling consideration.
“The law requires us to mail domestic vote by mail ballots somewhere between the 40th and 35th day,” Lux stated. “So again you can't put them too close together because we do by statute have to have a certain number of days in between those elections, in order to meet those mailing deadlines that the statute sets forth.”
Currently, there are six candidates, including five Republicans and one Democrat, who have declared to run for the District 3 seat.
As both supervisors wait for the election calendar for that race to be set, they’re moving ahead with final preparations for the Jan. 28 Special Primary Election for U.S. House of Representatives District 1, which features 10 Republican candidates.
This week, Lux and Villane have been sending out mail ballots, conducting poll worker training, and setting up polling sites for early voting, which starts tomorrow, Jan. 18 and concludes on Saturday, Jan. 25. There will be two early voting locations in Santa Rosa, with five sites for early voting in Okaloosa.
