By Rick Madewell
Assistant Editor

An Osceola County Commission candidate has filed a complaint with the Florida Commission on Ethics in Tallahassee accusing the county elections supervisor of purposely sabotaging his campaign.
District 4 candidate Jose Colón said he also intends to call a press conference Monday to demand the County Commission launch an investigation into the elections office.

Colón claims Supervisor of Elections Mary Jane Arrington did this to impede his campaign because her daughter-in-law, Kristen Arrington, is the campaign manager for one of Colón’s opponents in the race, Don Miers. Kristen Arrington is the wife of County Commissioner Brandon Arrington, Mary Jane Arrington’s son. Miers is a Democrat. The other candidate in the district race is Republican Frank Attkisson.

“This was a deliberate attempt by the supervisor of elections and her family members to damage my campaign and help their friend Don Miers,” Colón said. “It is very troubling to know that this type of ‘good ole boy’ politics still exists in Osceola County. Our democratic system form of government is the best in the world and this type of action by Mrs. Arrington taints the electoral process and is un-American.”

According to Colón, on Sept. 8 he asked for and paid $15 for the disc containing district 4 addresses and was given a disc by the election office’s campaign coordinator. There was no indication what the disc contained either on the sleeve it came in or the disc itself, the candidate said. Colón, who is legally blind, took the disc to Osceola Press to download the addresses onto his mailers.

While Colón was at the printer earlier this week he mentioned that he had not received his own mailer yet. When the printer double-checked the list, he discovered the addresses were for district 2. Colón then contacted the employee who gave him the disc.

“I asked her, ‘Do you know the damage you guys have done to my campaign now?’’ he said.

Mary Jane Arrington stated in a press release issued late Tuesday that she, through the Supervisor of Elections office, reimbursed Colón the $2,878 it cost him to have mailers printed and then mailed out.

“This was an honest mistake by one of our employees,’’ Arrington said. “As soon as the mistake was brought to our attention, we immediately apologized and remedied the situation. We paid to have his printer send out his mailer to the voters in the correct district. By Florida law, I was not required to do this, but having been a candidate myself, I understand the impact this could have and we wanted to make amends.’’

But Colón took the gesture a little differently.

“She said that under law they didn’t have to pay anything back. What kind of condescending thing is that?” Colón asked. “I want to make sure that voters know what the good old boys – and girls – are doing in Osceola County. Her sorry attitude is not going to work with me.”

Colón said that normally he would look at the situation as an unfortunate accident, “but put that together with the Don Miers campaign and I do suspect it was done deliberately.”

Miers said he learned of the situation when a story was posted on the News-Gazette’s website Wednesday afternoon. He discounted any political conspiracy and is calling the matter “unfortunate” and an “honest mistake.”

“I think it is very unfortunate that Mr. Colón received the wrong disc, but I also believe that was an honest mistake on the part of a clerk at the Supervisor of Elections office,” he said. “I do not think that Mary Jane Arrington would ever do anything deliberate to hurt any candidate in her role as supervisor, nor is she that type of person to use her position in that way.”

Miers also intimated more should have been done by Colón and his campaign staff to verify the accuracy of the material.

“I can tell you that when I purchase anything for my campaign, whether it is a proof of a newspaper advertisement, a draft of a brochure or a disc with names and addresses on it, I check it thoroughly for accuracy before I use it. I also have members of my campaign team review it as well,” he said.

Arrington on Thursday said she doesn’t believe the error will cost Colon any votes.

“I do not believe so,” she said. “We have paid for the mailer to be sent to the voters in the correct district and it is being sent closer to the election date now. All he lost was a day or so. We rectified this within hours of finding out about it and hand delivered a check to his printer.’’

Arrington emphasized that although there was a mistake, there would be no repercussions against the employee who made the mistake.

“My candidate service manager is a valued employee. She has an impeccable reputation and every candidate is treated equally and with dignity and respect,” she said. “Again, this was not an intentional mistake. She hit the wrong button when it asked for the district. I see no reason to reprimand the employee.’’

Because of the incident, Arrington said she has implemented safeguards against it happening again.

“The main one is that candidates or whomever requests the data must sign a release that they are responsible for reviewing the information and making sure that it is the information that they requested,” she said. “There is some responsibility on the person making the request.”

As far as sabotaging Colón’s campaign, Arrington said she doesn’t even deal with the candidate side of the operation.

“I have no personal knowledge of what candidates request or receive from this office on a daily basis. In an election cycle like we are in now, I have 750 election workers that we train, 84 poll watchers and 32 staff members to oversee along with serving the needs of the 147,520 voters in this county,” she said. “I leave it to my candidate services manager to handle the needs of the 53 candidates for this election cycle.’’

Information has also surfaced on another candidate who ran in the district 4 primary who also was given the wrong disc of voters’ addresses.

Bob Healy, a Democrat, said he, too, was given a disc containing incorrect information from the supervisor’s office. That disc, like Colón’s, also contained information for district 2 voters.

“What I did when I got it was to look for myself, because I’m a super voter, and then some family members and then I realized …,” he said.

Healy, who discovered the error within two days of receiving the disc, said he immediately contacted the Supervisor of Elections office about the problem.

“They told me, ‘We check these things pretty closely, but if you think it’s not right, bring it in,’” he said.

The disc was exchanged without problem.

“I don’t feel it was intentional,” he said. “Of course, how often do you have two mistakes made in the same race and there’s a family member involved with one of the other candidates. It certainly has the appearances of impropriety, and they’ve got to deal with it.”

Colón said that because of this, his campaign is “dead in the water.”

“If Mary Jane did this to me this year, what does that tell the voters when her and her son’s re-elections come up in 2012?” Colón asked. “I want them out of Osceola County.”