Brevard judge dismisses lawsuit against Bobanic on eve of primary election
A Brevard County judge on Monday dismissed a lawsuit against elections official Tim Bobanic alleging improper processing of records, just hours before polls were scheduled to open Tuesday morning.
The lawsuit, filed last month by Robert Burns, a Brevard political consultant, seeks to force Bobanic to obtain a court order removing two candidates from the Republican state committee ballot after Burns alleges Bobanic’s office improperly accepted incomplete eligibility documents.
The candidates named in the lawsuit were state Reps. Randy Fine and Wayne Twiddy. Fine is also running for state Senate, but that was not part of the case.
The other two candidates in the Republican race for the committee seat are Edward Brankey and Greg Loyd.
District Judge Scott Blaue dismissed the lawsuit on Monday after citing precedent from a list of cases, finding that Burns had no legal right to seek a court order (called a writ of mandamus in legal jargon) forcing Bobanic to remove Fine and Twiddy from the ballot.
“All of these (cases) demonstrate that there is no private cause of action to compel the election official to make this decision unless … the mandamus is sought by the candidate, the election official or the opposing candidate,” Blaue said.
Bobanic thanked the court in a statement. “My office looks forward to seeing voters at the polls on Tuesday,” Bobanic said.
Burns told FLORIDA TODAY that he plans to appeal the ruling.
“It is disappointing to learn today that, according to the judge, a private citizen does not have the right to hold their election officials accountable, only a candidate does. Hopefully, one day we will have candidates who have the courage to take the actions I took today to fight for the integrity of their own election,” Burns said in a statement.
“What is clear is that our supervisor needed a supervisor in this case. He fired his employee for her mistakes but did nothing to correct his own. I hope this has shed some much-needed light on the process and alleged integrity of Brevard County’s elections. And I will continue to fight for it.”
Burns filed the lawsuit after Fine and Twiddy omitted certain information from their candidate oaths, including the date of notarization and, in Twiddy’s case, his legal residence. Bobanic said the employee who accepted the incomplete paperwork was fired over the incident.
In his own statement, Fine pointed to outstanding cases against Burns unrelated to the lawsuit – including possible election law violations related to his past campaign work and a federal case involving allegations of COVID-19 small business loan fraud – and called him a “career criminal.”
“Our tax dollars paid for the defense and the judge’s time, which was clearly frivolous,” Fine said. “I look forward to Burns no longer threatening this community following his upcoming convictions for voter fraud and Covid stimulus fraud.”
Fine and Burns (who also runs the local news site Space Coast Rocket) have exchanged public insults and attacks on each other many times, dating back to 2020, when Burns ran a campaign for Fine’s opponent in the Republican primary for the state’s 53rd House District.
Eric Rogers is a watchdog reporter for FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Rogers at 321-242-3717 or [email protected].
