Candidate's push forces closed primary

A Republican candidate recruits write-in candidates, which leaves out 58 percent of voters.

By EDIE GROSS and ALICIA CALDWELL

© St. Petersburg Times, published August 8, 2000

Political maneuvering by a supervisor of elections candidate has effectively barred more than half of Pinellas County's voters from participating in that race.

Republican candidate Pat Baker told St. Petersburg Times reporters and editors Monday that she openly recruited people to run as write-in candidates for the elections supervisor post, a move that ensured that only fellow Republicans can vote in the upcoming primary.

That leaves out 340,000 Democrats, minor party candidates and those not registered in a party, or 58 percent of the voters. They would have been able to vote in that race this year under a 1998 constitutional revision that allows all voters to participate in a primary in which only one party is represented.

Instead, Republicans will choose Sept. 5 between Baker and Deborah Clark, an elections office employee for 22 years who was appointed interim supervisor by Gov. Jeb Bush in May after former supervisor Dorothy Ruggles died of breast cancer.

The winner of that match-up will face write-in candidate Clyde J. Walters Sr., an auto salesman and retired St. Petersburg police officer. The names of write-in candidates do not appear on the ballot, just a blank line where a voter can write their name.

Walters' entry into the race closed the primary to non-Republicans. When asked three weeks ago whether Baker had encouraged him to run as a write-in candidate, Walters would not comment.

At the time, Baker said she had not spoken to Walters and was surprised to hear of his candidacy. On Monday, she told members of the Times editorial board that she mentioned to people that "someone" should run as a write-in candidate. She denied approaching individuals.

"I was sitting there going, "Anybody want to run? Anybody want to run?"' Baker later told a reporter. "I didn't go out and say, "Would you like to run? Come behind closed doors, and I'll show you how."'

But Gretchen Ackerson remembers it differently.

Ackerson, 53, a Mary Kay cosmetics representative, said Baker asked her to register as a write-in candidate during a telephone conversation on July 10.

"At the end of the conversation, I asked her how the campaign was going," said Ackerson, who lives in Pinellas Park. "She said "You know how you could really help me?' I said, "How?' She said, "You could register as a write-in candidate.' I was just stunned by that."

Ackerson said she knows Baker through Baker's business, Network Professionals, a group that meets to exchange business referrals. Ackerson said she moved here two years ago and is a Democrat, while Baker is a Republican. The two hit it off despite their different political philosophies, Ackerson said.

In a telephone interview Monday, Baker dismissed the telephone call as a joke.

"I asked her because she is a Democrat -- that would give the Democrats someone to write in for," Baker said. "I did it tongue-in-cheek."

Ackerson said she is quite sure Baker was serious.

"Then she said all you'd have to do is open a checking account with $100 and then pretend you don't know me and don't talk to the press," Ackerson said. Ackerson said she refused.

"I said, "No. I will not do it,"' Ackerson said.

Walters registered as a write-in candidate eight days later.

Nearly 64 percent of Florida's voters approved the constitutional amendment in 1998 allowing all voters to participate in primary elections if the candidates are from the same party.

Baker said she did not feel she was circumventing the spirit of that law by urging people to register as write-in candidates. She said she was motivated by money -- closed primaries are cheaper to run because candidates have to send out fewer mailers, she said.

She said she opposes open primaries. It's the "Democratic Party's fault" that Democrats cannot participate in the elections supervisor primary this year because that party did not put up a candidate of its own, she said.

"A primary is purely political partisan politics," Baker said. "That's what party politics is. Party politics makes this country move."

Baker also said she will ask the Secretary of State's office to send someone to monitor the September elections because Clark is a candidate as well as interim supervisor.

Clay Roberts, director of the Florida Division of Elections, said he only has two employees trained to do that this year. He has several requests that are ahead of Baker's, but he said he would consider it.

"We do hope that people who request monitors are not just requesting monitors because they're running a race against the supervisor of elections," Roberts said. "We wouldn't be able to have an election every four years if we did that."

Clark said she would not mind a monitor being present. She has already removed herself from the canvassing board, which reviews irregularities on absentee ballots.

Clark, who has emphasized the need to keep politics out of the supervisor's office, said she was disappointed with her opponent's recruitment efforts.

"It bothers me that someone who wants to be the supervisor of elections will manipulate the system like that and then ask the voters to trust her with their ballots," she said. "It's just too much politics."

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