Alan Hays has proven his incompetence and inability to run the Lake County Supervisor of Elections office.  It is time for Alan Hays to retire.

The latest qualifying debacle between well-liked incumbent Lake County Property Appraiser Carey Baker, and dishonest, meandering, last minute challenger, Mark Jordan (brother of Lake County Tax Collector, David Jordan) calls into question the competence and management in the hiring, training and supervision under Alan Hays’ management.

But, this is not the only issue under Alan Hays’ control which highlights his inability to function as an elected administrator in Lake County.

This writer is the current First Vice Chair of the Lake County Republican Party, a candidate for the seat currently held by Alan Hays, and a 2022 candidate (unsuccessful) for Florida State House.  I have had numerous interactions with Alan Hays and the SOE office staff, and I have a better than an average understanding of election law and procedures.  Until now, I have refrained from personal attacks against my opponent, choosing rather to focus on real issues which are important to Lake County citizens.  But, the obvious faults with Alan Hays’ lack of leadership and incompetence have left me no choice except to make the public fully aware of his mismanagement and dereliction of duty.

I have lost track of the dozens of people who have come to me complaining about Alan Hays personally, as well as the operation of the SOE office.  Some have asked specifically that I keep their names confidential.  For others, I did not take names because I did not want to EVER put them in an uncomfortable or compromised position.  I was hoping to win this election without permanently ruining the reputation of my predecessor, but the issues are now too big to ignore.

A long time SOE staffer who was handling candidate issues recently resigned and was replaced with someone who is still not yet fully familiar with the responsibilities of that position.  This is NOT an attack on that individual, as anyone taking on a new position deserves at least 90 days to learn all the duties and responsibilities of a new position.  But, this IS a criticism of the Office Manager who should have supervised the execution of one of the most critical phases of the election process closely, qualifying candidate application and approval.  And obviously, this criticism lands on the desk of the Captain of the Ship, who is responsible only to Law and the Voters in Lake County, Alan Hays.

Besides allowing the Jordan Conspiracy to occur in his office, while accomplices kept watch for Carey Baker in the parking lot outside, it seems that issues arise in almost every election that Alan Hays has been nominally in charge of.  (Large parts of election execution in Florida are facilitated by contractors who print and mail ballots, program and operate the electronic check-in software, program and operate the ballot counting computers, program and operate campaign finance reporting, program and operate election night results reporting, and maintain voter registration records).  Most voters in Florida are unaware of the extent that private contractors run our election systems.

Here are a few of the operational failures caused by ineffective training and supervision:

• The Republican Party is officially comprised of Precinct Representatives who must qualify for election every 4 years in a manner similar to publicly elected officials. I was personally told by Alan’s staff in 2022 that this was NOT their duty, even though it is clearly controlled by Florida Statute.  Additionally, I was told that a person could not run on the same ballot for a publicly elected position and a party position.  This is also CLEARLY not true, as one member of the North Lake Hospital Board is running for re-election to BOTH a seat on the Hospital Board and Republican Party State Committeeman.
• Alan Hays’ staff has accepted qualification documents which were CLEARLY invalid. Rather than informing the applicant at the time of submittal, the applicants were told AFTER the qualification deadline that they had not qualified.  Again, the fault here lies PARTLY with the frontline staffer.  That is easy to remedy.  More importantly, this highlights deficiencies in training, supervision and management under Alan Hays’ control.
• In 2022, voters in the City of Tavares were given incorrect ballots. As usual, Alan Hays’ response was that all was OK, the mistake did not affect the outcome of the election.  But, true to form, this answer fails to address the obvious failure of training and supervision.  This DOES NOT inspire confidence in the operation of Lake County’s elections.
• Also, in 2022, highlighting a different, longstanding failure of Alan Hays’ “leadership” and continuing dereliction of duty is the return of approximately 20,000 undeliverable Voter Information Cards which his office mailed out in July 2022. His response to this was a video shifting blame to voters for failing to update their addresses.  The FACT in this case is that the Supervisor of Elections is required by Florida Statute to maintain accurate Voter Registration Records.  Alan Hays has FAILED in that responsibility for which he was elected and is being paid by Lake County taxpayers to do.  He thinks that offloading that statutory duty to a private contractor is good enough because he “trusts” them.  If you ever get a chance, ask him how 40 voter registrations on 12^th Street in Clermont were changed in July 2022 to the non-existent “Red Belly Road” and then changed back to the correct street name after citizens discovered the error and reported it to national news outlets.

There are additional issues needing attention in the Lake County Supervisor of Elections office.

Alan Hays, PLEASE resign and retire while a little bit of your dignity remains.