TAVARES, Fla. – Longtime Lake County Property Appraiser Carey Baker wanted to save his qualifying fee to run for reelection. Now, he is fighting for his seat by suing an opponent in a debacle that has outraged county Republicans.
Baker filed a lawsuit this week asking a judge to compel the Lake County Supervisor of Elections to kick Mark Jordan off the ballot.
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The complaint is centered around the last day of the period when candidates qualify to run for office, on Friday, June 14.
According to the complaint, Baker, a Republican, waited in the supervisor of elections office to file for reelection. He was prepared to turn in the nearly $11,000 qualifying fee, but when he felt certain that there was no one running against him, minutes before noon, he ran as a write-in candidate instead.
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If no one else qualified, Baker would have been reelected unopposed.
But according to the lawsuit, Mark Jordan, brother of county tax collector David Jordan, waited for Baker to leave before submitting his qualifying documents for the property appraiser race and paying the fee.
Now Jordan is on the ballot as the Republican candidate. Baker, meanwhile, as a write-in candidate, will not actually be on the ballot. Voters will need to accurately write his name in.
The lawsuit claims David Jordan knew Baker was going to qualify as a write-in candidate if no one ran against him, and he and Mark Jordan purposely deceived Baker into believing he would be unopposed.
Baker’s complaint claims Jordan broke the law by filing to qualify for two public offices at the same time. Mark Jordan had originally filed papers to run for a seat on the North Lake Hospital District Board.
The lawsuit also claims that while Jordan was in the office at 11:48 a.m., timestamps on his qualifying documents show the supervisor did not receive them until 12:26 p.m. and 12:46 p.m. — after the noon deadline.
News 6 called Baker to comment on the lawsuit, and we are waiting to hear back. We also called Mark Jordan to comment, but he did not answer his phone and his voicemail was full.
Jordan’s decision to jump into the property appraiser race has angered rank-and-file Republicans in Lake County. The county party voted to censure David Jordan and Mark Jordan over the incident on June 18, calling the conduct by the two Jordans “deeply immoral and depraved actions unbecoming of a Republican official.”
Republicans are hosting a rally to support Baker on Wednesday at 10 a.m. at the Lake County Tax Collector’s office.
“We hope Mark Jordan withdraws because what he’s done has brought shame to our community,” said Lake County GOP Chairman Anthony Sabatini.
Baker v. Jordan lawsuit by Christie Zizo on Scribd
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