Alfie Oakes accuses Collier County election office of 'interference at the highest level'

Vowing to use "every legal avenue available," in his fight to be on Collier County's primary ballot, MAGA grocer Alfie Oakes promises he won't back down.

Collier Supervisor of Elections Melissa Blazier says she won't either.

"My job as a constitutional officer is to uphold Florida laws and that's what I have to do," she told the Naples Daily News.

Oakes, a farmer, store owner and conservative influencer, says he properly filed the paperwork to qualify to keep his seat as the GOP committeeman, who serves as a liaison between the county and state parties. The deadline was noon Friday. Two others did qualify to be on the ballot:  Frank Schwerin and Douglas Rankin, who had served in the position from 2008 until 2020, when Oakes unseated him.

In dueling statements, the two disagree about what happened when and who said what to whom.

Letters to the editor: Alfie Oakes at fault for missing filing deadline, now he's grandstanding

Oakes: 'A flat-out lie (and) a desperate attempt'

Oakes said Blazier's claim he filed wrong is "a flat-out lie (and) a desperate attempt from Melissa Blazier to remove me from the ballot in order to guarantee victory for one of her campaign's mega-donors. It is downright despicable." When he handed in his notarized candidate oath and qualifying paperwork, he wrote, "these documents were accepted by Collier SOE staff, and confirmation of my successful qualification was given to multiple people on my team.

"Then, approximately 10 minutes before the 12 p.m. filing deadline, I received a call from the SOE alleging that my qualifying documents did not meet proper standards. Despite this being blatantly untrue, I immediately hurried to the SOE office to sign the additional documents that they requested. All documents were accepted and processed by the SOE at 12:04 p.m."

And finally time-stamped four minutes after that, Blazier told the Daily News: "It comes down to this: Alfie didn't file the correct paperwork initially," Blazier said. "He had someone else file his paperwork the first time (which) I believe is time-stamped at 11:03. So we're talking 57 minutes before the end of candidate qualifying. And I'm sure it's true for all SOE offices across the state, but we all have a flurry of activity on the last day."

Republican Blazier, a more than 18-year veteran of the office, is running for reelection as well; her opponents are write-in candidate Edward Joseph Gubala, with no party affiliation listed, and Republicans Tim Guerrette and Dave Schaffel, who Oakes is backing because he's "a cybersecurity expert and could be the best elections supervisor in the country,” Oakes told Florida Politics.

The Oakes camp says Dave Carpenter, the elections office's qualifying officer, assured them everything was in order. "The man said he was 'good to go,' " county Republican Executive Committee Chair John Meo told the Naples Daily News. "I'm in the investment business. If I tell a client that's depending on something, 'Yep, I've got your paperwork; it's good to go,' and the client finds out it's not, that's on me," Meo said. "If it happened to a Democrat, I would say the exact same thing."

Could Carpenter have made a mistake? Absolutely not, Blazier says. "Dave has been in this office for 29 years on Friday and all he does is candidate qualifying."

Maybe Blazier could just let this slide? "I can't," she said. "Florida Statute 99.061 is very clear. It's not something I have any leeway in. "

In his statement, Oakes says what he did "more than met the standard laid out by the Florida Secretary of State as well as the Republican party of Florida. Melissa Blazier is legally using her petition to circumvent the election process in favor of her campaign, mega-donor, my opponent, Doug Rankin," his statement continues. "Make no mistake, this is election interference at the highest level in Collier County (and) I intend to utilize every legal avenue available to stop this fraud and allow the voters' voices to be heard in August."

It wouldn't be the first time Oakes has taken a public official ‒ or officials ‒ to court. Last year, he sued the Collier County School Board over its superintendent search, claiming the board and its search firm violated Florida's Sunshine Law. A judge eventually denied his motion.

Blazier: Oakes 'Irresponsibly is blaming this office for his shortcomings'

In her statement, Blazier calls Oakes' account "unfounded and without merit." In it, she points out that though prequalifying began May 27, "Mr. Oakes chose to wait until after 11 a.m. on the last day of qualifying (the busiest time in this office during the qualifying period) to have a third party deliver his qualifying documents. No one in the Supervisor of Elections office confirmed to Mr. Oakes or any member of his team that he had successfully qualified as a candidate for State Committeeman at that time. Handing paperwork over to a staff member is not tantamount to being qualified.

"Immediately upon discovering multiple errors with his submitted qualification documents, my staff and I made several attempts to contact Mr. Oakes and his team beginning at 11:36 a.m., as documented in our call records. The calls were neither answered or returned until 11:51 a.m. when Mr. Oakes finally returned my call. Mr. Oakes then arrived to our office at 12:04 p.m., after the qualifying deadline, to submit the correct qualifying forms which were timestamped upon completion at 12:08 p.m."

No election for Alfie, supervisor says Oakes improperly files campaign paperwork; can't run for office

As for Oakes' accusations of malfeasance: "Mr. Oakes, now irresponsibly, is blaming this office for his shortcomings and the shortcomings of his team in getting himself qualified in a proper and timely fashion. Mr. Oakes knew precisely what needed to be done and the timeframe to do it in, as exemplified by his timely and proper filing for this same position in 2020. The law and requirements have not changed since then."

Bottom line, she writes: "All decisions are objective. The role of this office in reviewing candidate qualifying documents is dictated by the law. Our role is ministerial. It is either right or wrong, timely or untimely ... Do not be fooled into believing that party rules take precedent over state statutes and state administrative rules. There is no fraud. There is no racketeering. All the actions taken by this office in this matter, and all matters, are justifiable and done in accordance with the law (and) Mr. Oakes is ultimately responsible for his failure to properly qualify for placement of his name on the ballot."

This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Alfie Oakes accuses Collier election office of fraud, interference