Collier County voters participate in the 2018 election. (Photo: Author)
April 29, 2024 by David Silverberg
Collier County’s Supervisor of Elections and her team are dedicated to providing “secure, ethical elections,” their work is “excellent,” “they do a great job” and “the way elections are run in Collier county, they are run smoothly.”
Those words of praise for county Supervisor of Elections (SoE) Melissa Blazier and her team came from—of all people—the two candidates who are trying to unseat her in this year’s Supervisor of Elections race by alleging election unreliability.
The unlikely accolades were uttered by Timothy Guerrette and David Schaffel as they testified regarding the “Resolution for a Legally Valid 2024 General Election” on Tuesday, April 23.
The resolution was introduced by Collier County Commissioner Chris Hall (R-District 2). It asserted that the 2022 election in Florida was faulty and it would have imposed new, disruptive conditions on the 2024 election count. Ultimately, the county Board of Commissioners chose not to advance it, effectively killing it.
Nonetheless, the fact that two of the candidates and the incumbent all testified at the meeting highlighted their respective policy prescriptions, qualifications and shed some light on what they might do in office.
Supervisor of Elections Melissa Blazier
Collier County Supervisor of Elections Melissa Blazier. (Photo: SoE)
Melissa Blazier, 46, is the current sitting SoE. She came out swinging against the resolution from the very moment it was shared with her by Commissioner Chris Hall (R-District 2).
In an April 18 message to Hall, she warned that his resolution was “deeply flawed and highly unnecessary” and “riddled with erroneous conclusions.”
Most of the resolution’s demands, she wrote, “are either already incorporated into existing law, are in direct violation of existing law or would require technology that is not yet available or authorized for use in the State of Florida” and asked him not to pass “this egregious resolution.”
She repeated these arguments when she testified remotely at the meeting.
Blazier has served as an election professional in Collier County for over 18 years.
“I was trained by the best, so for over 17 years I worked under Jennifer [Edwards, the previous supervisor] and I have no plans in changing the way that we conduct elections in Collier County, any of our voter registration, voter outreach, elections. Our goal is just to improve,” she told The Paradise Progressive in an interviewed published July 3, 2023.
Improvements are what Blazier and her office have been steadily making during her time in office, mostly of the unheralded, back-office variety, included improving access to archived information, handling public information requests, improving security and streamlining office processes.
In addition to her years of experience in the Supervisor’s office, Blazier is certified as an Elections/Registration Administrator by the National Association of Election Officials’ Election Center and is a Master Florida Certified Elections Professional through the Florida Supervisors of Elections.
Educationally, she has a magna cum laude Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from Hodges University. In 2010 she graduated from the Associate Leadership Collier program spring class of 2010, the 2014 Leadership Collier class and the Leadership Marco class of 2019.
Since July 2023, Blazier has raised $69,104.55 for her campaign, according to county campaign finance records. Much of it was from her own pocket.
Tim Guerrette
Tim Guerrette (Image: CCBC)
Timothy Guerrette, 56, took a cautious position during the commission debate, calling for “a” resolution rather than “this” resolution.
“I want to let you know that I support a resolution that is seeking to improve our elections here in Collier County and send a message to Tallahassee we are pro-actively seeking ways here in Collier County to improve our elections,” he said.
He praised Collier County and its election staff for their dedication to “secure, ethical elections in Collier County.”
Guerrette has no previous election experience. He’s a former chief of the Collier County Sheriff’s Office, from which he retired in 2021 after 31 years of service. He has also worked as a real estate broker and since retirement has hosted an “Uncensored 239” podcast.
He has experience in police operations and management and says in a campaign video that he will bring “competence and integrity back into the voting process.” During his testimony he said that wanted to make sure that Collier County remained the “gold standard” of elections and that once in office he’d make sure that “We are running smooth elections, there is nothing to see here.”
Since beginning his quest for office in March 2023, Guerrette has raised $113,772.93, according to Collier County campaign finance records. Many of the donations came from active and former law enforcement officers, including $1,000 from the Friends of Carmine Marceno Political Action Committee. Marceno is the sheriff in neighboring Lee County.
He also received contributions from members of the Collier County Board of Commissioners. Commissioner Rick LoCastro (R-District 1) contributed $260.25 in September 2023 and Commissioner Dan Kowal (R-District 4) contributed $600 in November.
David Schaffel
David Schaffel (Image: CCBC)
Dave Schaffel, 63, fully supported the resolution.
Schaffel presented himself as “a resident here in Collier County. I spent my entire 40-year career in the information technology field in the private sector specializing in big databases, data analysis, business intelligence and security. I’ve been a successful IT entrepreneur, investor and public company executive.”
However, nowhere in his testimony did he provide any specifics of employment, names of companies or institutions, educational qualifications, past election involvement or specific accomplishments as an entrepreneur. His website is similarly vague.
Nonetheless, he said, “In the last few years I have immersed myself in learning about the technology behind our election systems as well as the Florida election statutes that oversee the process.”
While strongly supporting the resolution, he also made the point “that this resolution in no way disparages or criticizes the excellent work of the many volunteers that work the polling places during our elections or the many hardworking public servants employed in the Collier County Supervisor of Elections office.”
Suspicion of election results is the cornerstone of his campaign. A campaign video opens with questions about the result of the 2020 election. “Corrupt, bloated and out-of-touch bureaucrats are almost always the problem and rarely the solution,” he says. He calls himself a “rock-solid conservative and America First patriot.”
In his testimony to the commissioners, Schaffel had a great many suspicions about aspects of Florida elections including voting by mail, chains of custody and machine versus hand counts of ballots, although he made no specific charges (which were included in the resolution).
He said he and other election activists had been rebuffed in Tallahassee when they tried to promote legislative change in voting procedures. They were convinced that technological vulnerabilities had led to hacking and vote-flipping. As an example, he said that a street had its addresses flipped to create undeliverable mail but he provided no specifics or sources for the charge. It was unclear whether this incident even occurred in Florida at all.
Ultimately, he opposed the use of technology in general. “As a technologist…when it comes to our elections, given our current statutes and our current lack of transparency, that less technology would be the best,” he said.
For all that, when questioned by Commissioner Burt Saunders (R-District 3), Schaffel had nothing but praise for Blazier and her office.
Asked if he was satisfied by the way elections were conducted in the county, Schaffel responded, “Yes, I think the way elections are run in Collier county, they’re run smoothly.”
While he didn’t trust election machine companies and the tendency of officials to accept their assurances, he had no problem with the office or staff.
“This is not a disparagement – they are doing their jobs in that office,” he said. “They do a great job of running the election according to statute. And I want to make it absolutely clear that that is the case.”
To date, Schaffel has received $12,447.54 in campaign contributions, mostly from his own pocket. However, one notable outside contribution came on Jan. 12 of this year: $1,000 from the Friends of Chris Hall Political Action Committee—the commissioner who introduced the election resolution.
Analysis: Making the system work
The discontent with election processes reflected in the election-alteration resolution is an echo of election denialism from the 2020 presidential election and Blazier’s two challengers reflect this.
By their own testimony they denied that there was anything at all wrong with Blazier’s performance or that of the Collier County’s elections office. They praised the volunteers and professionals who conduct the county’s elections.
Why, then, are they running? Is the SoE office so lucrative and desirable that it’s worth spending all the money they’re investing to attain it? Is it so powerful that it can change the world?
Both Guerrette and Schaffel are running on the suspicion that something is wrong in elections.
Schaffel is more specific of the two, pointing to supposed vulnerabilities in vote counting and communications and alleging hacking and vote-flipping—without providing specifics. He’s a proponent of the anti-machine wing of the election-denial movement, one that sees hand counts as more reliable, a position taken by local farmer and grocer Francis Alfred “Alfie” Oakes III.
But neither has any experience or relevant credentials in election administration. Guerrette comes out of the world of law enforcement and has some management experience but it’s nothing that compares with Blazier’s 18-plus years specifically in the Collier County office.
Both say they want “improvements” in election management. But the Collier County SoE has been improving steadily and incrementally throughout its history—and someone like Blazier knows where improvements need to be made. Neither Guerrette nor Schaffel would actually be in a position to make knowledgeable improvements if elected.
As was pointed out repeatedly during the commissioners’ meeting, Hall didn’t question his own election results and that’s been true with election-deniers since 2020; they’re so obsessed with contesting the top line races they ignore all the other down-ballot results. In 2022 Collier County conducted 44 different elections, from state and county officials, to constitutional amendments, to judges to bond issues, none of which have been criticized.
Given the deep-seated disbelief and mistrust among a slice of Collier County voters, there is no result and no solution that would ever allay their suspicions. Indeed, electing either of them would make Collier County elections far less reliable and compliant.
Sometimes it takes the people in place who know how to make something work to make it actually work properly. That’s the case in Collier County.
Both Guerrette and Schaffel, when pressed, acknowledged that Collier County has had clean, honest, competently administered elections. That’s the result of the experienced, knowledgeable administration of Melissa Blazier. Neither offered anything better.
The conclusion seems inescapable: When it comes to the Office of Election Supervisor in Collier County, Fla., perhaps there is no wisdom wiser than that in the old saying: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”—and by their own admission, the challengers don’t believe anything here needs fixing.
Collier County, Fla., voters line up to cast their ballots in the 2020 election. (Photo: Author)
Liberty lives in light
© 2024 by David Silverberg