'I put my heart and soul into this job.' Supervisor Barton responds to criticism of office

Alachua County Supervisor of Elections Kim Barton knows offices like hers are under more scrutiny than ever before.

With a heavy-handed governor not afraid to suspend or pluck any elected official from their seat, especially a Democrat, and with some Republicans alleging stolen elections and widespread voter fraud, she understands the importance of accuracy and eliminating any appearance of bias and playing party politics.

The past two years haven’t been easy, though.

Since the untimely death of Chief Deputy of Supervisor of Elections William Boyette — Barton’s right-hand man and one many praised for his expertise, attention to detail and knowledge in the field — the office has faced its fair share of hurdles.

Barton, 59, has taken the heat for a law enforcement investigation into voter drives at the county jail that resulted in at least 10 inmates being charged, along with a School Board member's removal from office that resulted in a lawsuit involving Barton's office — all the while dealing with redistricting for Alachua County and city of Gainesville. The office has still had to carry out multiple elections, including an unexpected special election, and saw turnover from key election employees in that time.

But after the August primary, some appear to have lost their patience and have signaled for her removal from office, citing the plethora of issues that also includes two precincts running out of Republican ballots on the evening of the primary. Gov. Ron DeSantis has specifically targeted her at press conferences, including saying that he plans to hold elected officials accountable who fail to uphold the law.

“I understand the buck stops with me, but I can't run elections by myself,” Barton said. “And you can’t say an elections office has never had a problem.”

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About election night

Before polling locations closed on Aug. 23, two precincts in rural Alachua County — Newberry and High Springs — reported running out of ballots for Republicans. The precincts are some of the few places that expect to see more Republican voters than Democrats, who nearly double GOP voters in the county.

Though running low on ballots at a precinct is nothing new, rarely do locations run out.

In a phone interview with The Gainesville Sun, Barton said the issue came down to poll workers not following protocols that have been in place for years. She explained that the locations failed to notify her office in a timely manner that ballots were running low until fewer than 50 were left.

The office sent a “runner” to deliver more at both locations, but the issue occurred again. Runners are typically used on election night. Barton herself has even driven ballots out in the past.

Republicans, including state Sen. Keith Perry, however, were quick to cast blame, saying dozens of voters grew tired of waiting and left without filling out a ballot, calling it “voter suppression.”

Barton questioned the narrative.

“Not one person called my office to complain that they left the polling place and couldn't vote,” she said. “Not one.”

Most of those who were in line to vote were told of the issue and opted to stay and wait, she added. Still, she acknowledged, “it shouldn’t of happened.”

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Alachua County Republican Party chair Ed Braddy, a candidate for County Commission, said he understands issues tend to happen on election night and would much rather applaud the supervisor’s efforts. But the issues often appear to be one-sided, he said

“That’s a concern,” Braddy told The Sun. “Mistakes continue to hit one political party, the minority party. It leaves people scratching their heads.”

So didn’t the office give every precinct enough ballots for each area’s total number of registered Democrats and Republicans?

“That’s a waste of county money,” Barton said. “No one orders 100% ballots in the state of Florida.”

Barton said her office had already ordered more Republican ballots than usual for the August primary, largely due to the party’s increased effort on electing School Board and County Commission candidates.

For November’s midterm election, Barton promised the issue wouldn’t happen again, saying her office ordered a record number of ballots.

Alachua County will have enough ballots for more than 150,000 voters (or 85%) of its 178,000 registered voters. Only 29.6% of the county's registered voters came out in August.

The issues on election night didn’t stop there, though.

The Alachua County elections website crashed and data trickled in slowly, making Barton’s office the last in the state to post results.

To fix the issue, she said the office will also no longer rely on the dial-up transfer of data, which has caused reporting delays in the past, too.

All 64 precincts will now be required to have someone drive in results instead of sending them electronically. She has also asked local Republican Party leaders to help her find more party volunteers to help on election night if they are concerned with the political make-up of poll workers.

“We’re committed to the elections process and making it seamless and learn something and make it better,” she said. “We’re working hard on the November election. All I can say is we corrected the problem and put new things in place.”

Inmates registering from jail

In April, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement wrapped up an investigation into voter drives at the county jail. While employees for Barton’s office were admonished for visiting with inmates in maximum security to inquire about registering them to vote, no criminal charges were filed against them.

The state did, however, charge 10 inmates for illegally registering to vote and for casting a ballot. Several inmates have been convicted, while others await trial. Barton is scheduled to be deposed in one of those cases in November.

At least nine others, who are convicted sex offenders, are currently being investigated. But even if all were charged and convicted, the number of ballots cast would be too few to sway any election result. The same goes for the shortage of Republican ballots.

The charges against the inmates largely center around Amendment 4, a 2018 ballot measure that was intended to restore voting rights for convicted felons who didn’t have violent crimes or sex offenses on their record.

Republican legislators took issue with the changes after voters overwhelmingly passed the initiative. A back-and-forth challenge resulted in a new law that required all convicted felons to pay all court fines and fees and complete all sentencing requirements before being allowed to vote.

Barton said she felt obligated to share the legal changes with inmates and wanted to inform them that they may be able to vote.

“Why would I treat them any different? The mission of our association is to educate everyone,” said Barton, adding that she blames the state for the confusion. “Do they not have the right to know that the laws have changed?”

During a recent visit to Suwannee County, DeSantis expressed different views, singling out Alachua County for its inmate outreach specifically.

“I think that there have been reports that supervisors have told voters, 'Hey, if you're a convicted murderer, you can vote. Go ahead and vote,’” the governor told the crowd. “That's false, and that's not following the law ... I think what you've seen, like in Alachua, they've gone to the prisons to get prisoners to vote. Prisoners are not eligible to vote.”

Barton says his statements are a mischaracterization of basic facts, adding that she has never told murderers they can vote. Inmates also do not automatically lose the right to vote under Florida law.

DeSantis went on to say that supervisors are required to check the accuracy of their voting rolls, though the state — despite being asked to — has failed to implement a database that allows officials to check if convicted felons have completed all sentencing requirements.

Since 2020, Alachua County has purged roughly 12,000 voters from its database due to inactive voters. Some have accused Barton’s office of using Amendment 4 to pad the stats of registered blue voters in Alachua County, a claim she also refutes.

“I may be a Democrat but I’m elected by the people,” she said. “When I do this job, all the partisan stuff is out the door.”

When speaking about Alachua County again, DeSantis signaled that his office may intervene at some point soon.

"There's some local jurisdictions, they just don't care about the election laws. Well, we do, and we think it's important," he said at another press conference. "So if you're not able to run an election right, then we obviously would want to hold people accountable. So stay tuned on that.”

Asked whether she feels more misinformation could lead to DeSantis removing or suspending her from office, Barton said it would be more disruptive to Alachua County's electoral process given her three decades of experience.

“Am I concerned?” she asked. “I put my heart and soul into this job, so of course, I’d be concerned. Elections are absolutely nothing like they used to be.”

This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Supervisor Kim Barton addresses election concerns in Alachua County