Rep. Paula Stark’s move to be placed on the ballot to retain her District 47 seat was rejected by a Leon County court Wednesday, News Service of Florida reports.
At a hearing held Wednesday morning, Judge Joshua Hawks of the Second Judicial Circuit believed the five state elections officials working in the hour before the deadline that if they had received all of the required paperwork, they would’ve stamped it on June 12, the deadline for candidates to qualify to be on the ballot, the day Stark and campaign treasurer Joel Davis took paperwork to Tallahassee to turn in.
The five employees with the Florida Department of State's Division of Elections who were processing paperwork delivered by candidates on June 12 filed affidavits as part of the a court case filed by Stark to get her name on the ballot, saying they stamped all paperwork that came in that day.
"Staff at the counter were instructed to, beginning at 11:30 am that day, prioritize receiving and timestamping in all items handed to us and to not provide courtesy reviews of the items so that all timely submissions could be timestamped before the deadline," one of the affidavits read.
Stark's application to qualify for the ballot was rejected for the lack of a financial disclosure form, which Davis says was submitted to Division of Election officials before the noon June 12 deadline. But Judge Hawks didn’t credit that testimony, believing instead the five officials working in the hour before the deadline that if they had received the paperwork, they would’ve stamped it; no such stamped copy of Stark’s financial disclosure form, known as Form 6, was presented to the court.
“Given the Court’s adverse credibility determination regarding (Stark’s) only witness, (Stark) has not established a clear legal right for the Respondents to perform a ministerial duty,” Hawkes wrote. “The Court does not credit the story of DOE staff immediately returning the Form 6, the Form 6 was not turned in before the noon deadline, and (Stark) did not show that she qualified for HD47.”
Hawkes gave Stark seven days to file evidence showing why her petition shouldn’t be dismissed, but otherwise his order leaves her off the ballot. If the order stands, it would mean Democrats flip the district, which covers a sliver of Orange County south of State Road 417 and the Florida Turnpike, and a swathe of Osceola County that includes St. Cloud and Buenaventura Lakes.
Neither Stark or Davis have returned calls or texts for comment as of midday Thursday.
Should this action stand, Democrats Jorge Figueroa and Anthony Nieves will square off in the Democratic primary to see who will replace Stark. With no other candidates qualified for the race, all voters in District 47 regardless of party affiliation will vote in that race in the Aug. 18 "universal primary", when it will be decided. Had Stark been in the race, Figueroa and Nieves would have run in a Democrat-only primary, with the winner facing Stark in the Nov. 3 general election.
Mail-in ballots to overseas military voters have already been mailed, and those going to local voters who've request vote-by-mail ballots are already printed, the Osceola County Supervisor of Elections office said Thursday.
Stark, 69, was first elected to the House in 2022, when she narrowly defeated Nieves by 878 votes out of more than 46,000 cast, or about 1.8 percent. In 2024, Stark defeated Democrat Maria Revelles by 1,246 votes out of more than 77,000 cast, or about 1.6 percent.
News-Gazette Editor Ken Jackson contributed to this story.,
