The job of Supervisor of Elections in Collier County has not been in the spotlight for decades but is this year.
Melissa Blazier, who was appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis to the position last year, faces two opponents in her bid to retain the job.
The primary for the three-way race among the Republican candidates is Aug. 20. Qualifying wraps up June 14.
The two other candidates are Tim Guerrette, a retired chief with the Collier County Sheriff’s Office, and Dave Schaffel whose background is in information technology.
Both candidates looking to unseat Blazier talk of election integrity, security and transparency without directly saying there have been problems with the local elections, which would be prior to Blazier becoming the supervisor last year.
Guerrette raises character questions, namely Blazier’s arrest in 1996, at the age of 18, for fraudulent credit card purchases of $881. He says the records were available on the Clerk of the Courts site until three to four months ago.
He questions why they were sealed or removed, and says it is “a bit odd to happen right at election season” and says it shows a lack of transparency by Blazier in the office.
Blazier does not deny the arrest, and said adjudication was withheld and that her mother thought she had gotten the records sealed soon after the case was over. Realizing it was not, an order to seal was done in August 2023.
“Everyone has skeletons in their closet,” Blazier said. “It’s unfortunate he brings up something (from) 30 years ago.”
Blazier has worked in the elections’ office for 18 years and points out that neither opponent have any experience in elections. They have never served as poll workers or shown interest in election administration by attending a public canvassing board meeting until they filed to run.
They have not provided evidence that the safety, security and integrity of the local elections should be questioned but doing so helps their fundraising efforts, she said.
Collier supervisor of elections have all been women
Blazier is the fourth supervisor of elections in Collier’s history and all have been women. She said the elected position as a constitutional officer has not been on the ballot since 1980.
She was appointed by DeSantis in May 2023 on the recommendation of Jennifer Edwards, who retired in April 2023 before her term was up after serving for 23 years starting in 2000. Edwards was the third elections supervisor in Collier.
More:New supervisor of elections in Collier named; longtime deputy stepping in
More:Collier Supervisor of Elections Jennifer Edwards retiring April 28 after 23 years at helm
Edwards replaced Mary Morgan who held the job starting in 1981. Morgan also retired mid-term after 20 years as the second supervisor.
The first was Edna Cribb Santa who started in 1961 when the position was called Supervisor of Registration, later changed to supervisor of elections, and her tenure lasted until 1981.
The supervisor’s office has 24 employees and the budget in 2023 was $5.1 million. The salary is $177,211 in Collier, according to state records.
What to know about the Collier Supervisor of Elections candidates
- Blazier, 46, grew up in Naples and graduated from Naples High School. She earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Hodges University.
She is a certified elections/registration administrator from the National Association of Elections Officials and is a Master Florida Certified Elections Professional through the Florida Supervisor of Elections.
She has worked for the supervisor’s office since 2006 and was chief deputy prior to being appointed as supervisor by DeSantis.
Blazier is a graduate of Leadership Collier class of 2014 and Leadership Marco class of 2019. She was named one of Gulfshore Business’ Top 40 under 40 in 2014.
She was named Distinguished Fundraising Volunteer in 2018 through the Association of Fundraising Professionals and Leadership Collier Foundation’s Volunteer of the Year in 2020. She was named Kiwanian of the Year by the Kiwanis Club of Naples in 2022.
- Guerrette, 57, retired in 2021 as a chief of operations with the Collier sheriff’s office. He started in the sheriff’s office in 1990 and worked his way up the ranks.
Before his 31-year career with the sheriff’s office he was a Sergeant in the U.S. Air Force from 1986 to 1990.
In the role as chief of operations for the sheriff’s office, he had oversight over 700 employees, assisted with the recruitment of new agency members, conducted performance evaluations, and provided training.
He has a bachelor’s degree in business and a master’s degree from Barry University. He is an instructor with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and for the Office of the Florida Attorney General. He is a past member of the National Association of Police Chiefs and has been an instructor for the Southwest Florida Public Service Academy.
He was a 2008 graduate of Leadership Collier. He has served on the board of the Florida Gang Investigations Association; on the board of Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Sun Coast; and on the board of Youth Haven.
Guerrette is a Broker Associate with Compass Florida and he has been a law enforcement officer for the Florida Marine Patrol,according to his candidate biography.
- Schaffel, 63, grew up in South Florida and graduated from the University of Florida in 1982 with a bachelor of science in business finance. He has a master’s degree from the University of Miami in operations research/statistics.
From 1986 to 19989, he had a contract with the U.S. Air Force through the Department of Logistics to automate several operations that included a database to monitor the inventory of non-aircraft vehicles, developed software for other Air Force vehicle fleet controls, according to his resume.
In 1989, he was a partner in the commercial real estate data start-up CoStar Group and named Chief Technology Officer in 1998.
He designed and developed the first commercially adopted multiple listing service that fundamentally changed how commercial real estate professionals access and share information. ATTRIB
Schaffel was involved in the funding of the corporate expansion via venture funding in 1991 and transition to a publicly traded company with an initial $22.5 million public offering in 1998 and a follow-up public round of $97 million in 1999.
CoStar filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission show he left the company in July 2005.
He was hired in 2010 by Teach for America to become public middle school mathematics teacher in underperforming school district where he stayed for one year, according to his resume.
Since 2012 to the present, he has been a consultant for information technology systems where he has reengineered outdated systems and been responsible for software design, workflows, customization and more.
His resume for the supervisor’s job does not list civic involvements in Naples where he has lived full time for the past five years.
What are the issues?
Guerrette and Schaffel provide similar reasons for why they are running for the position.
Guerrette said “free, fair, ethical and transparent elections” are absolutely critical to preserve “this wonderful constitutional, democratic republic in which we live.”
“If citizens lose confidence in the fairness of elections, we lose the democratic republic,” he said in an email.
Guerrette said former and current employees of the supervisor’s office approached him to run “because they have seen first hand that the current temporarily appointed supervisor does not possess the leadership or management skills need to foster a cohesive, well-functioning team.”
He says his decades in enforcing laws and regulations, and supervising hundreds on his team, make him ideally suited for the position.
“We live in dangerous times, with thousands of unvetted people streaming across our southern border, with our FBI director telling us that all of the intelligence information he receives now indicate that we are in the highest threat environment he has ever seen,” Guerrette said.
He said he has spent years at the sheriff’s office preparing for threat scenarios at our voting locations and elsewhere across the county. He would “leave no stone unturned” to assure our elections office staff and citizens are safe and secure.
When asked if he thinks the 2020 elections in Collier were compromised, he said he does not have access to the systems or data to give a thoroughly informed opinion.
“With that as a caveat, I have not seen any evidence personally indicating that the elections in Collier County in 2020 were compromised,” he said.
What does Schaffel say?
Schaffel said election integrity is really what the supervisor’s job is all about.
“I believe that we need to lead the way in protecting elections and making sure that all elections are secure and valid,” Schaffel said in an email. “We need to address the critical issues of voter registration accuracy, accessibility and cybersecurity. Collier County is a gold standard community. We should be leading the way on this issue, not just in Florida, but across the nation.”
He said elections systems nationwide are broken, antiquated, and at high risk for outside interference and nefarious activity.
“With my background in information technology, as well as all of the work I have done over the last few years to raise awareness on the issues, I am the only candidate that has the background to actually address and fix the issues,” Schaffel said.
Schaffel did not respond when asked if thinks Collier’s elections have been valid or not.
“I am dedicated to upholding the integrity and transparency of our election process and ensuring that we develop solutions that can be implemented across the country,” he said. “That being said, the process of protecting free and fair elections starts at the local level. We in Collier County must lead the way in fixing the issues and work with other counties across Florida to lobby for changes at the state and national level.”
How does Blazier respond?
When asked why she is being challenged for the job given her experience and the recommendation to DeSantis from her former boss that she be appointed, Blazier said in an email: “That is a great question.”
She has been working for the supervisor of elections office for more than 18 years and has been involved in every aspect including voter registration, voter outreach and election administration.
“In my tenure, Collier County has been a leader in election administration and I’m proud to be part of a team that has continued to provide excellent elections in Collier County,” she said.
Her opponents have no experience in elections yet both have implied that they don’t have confidence in elections since the 2020 general election, she said.
Blazier is not aware if Guerrette has made any comments publicly that there was anything wrong in the 2020 general elections in Collier. He has publicly voiced concerns about the 2020 general election at the national level, she said.
“Additionally he did publicly question the results of the presidential preference primary election and publicly suggested that the canvassing board and our staff counted provisional ballots of voters that were not eligible to vote in the Republican primary,” she said. “This would have been against the law.”
Schaffel has publicly questioned the 2020 general election results, she said.
“On the contrary, he has also publicly stated that our office and I do a good job conducting elections in Collier County,” she said.
Calling into question that our elections are anything but above not only is an attempt to erode confidence in them but also is being used as a fundraising opportunity, she said. Both Collier and the state are considered nationally as the gold standard for conducting elections.
She and her team have come together to combat misinformation.
“We continue to invite members of the public to learn about our operations on transparency tours: we promote trusted information on our social media and website; and we haver introduced new technologies including a text messaging service (TextMyGov) that proactively provides reminders and information about elections and voting information in Collier County,” she said.
When her opponents question the hard work of her staff and herself, and imply they are not working in the best interest of Collier votes, she considers it a personal attack.
“Every single member of our team takes an oath to follow Florida law and abide by the U.S. Constitution,” she said. “(It is) something we take very seriously.”
Guerrette targets past misdeeds
Guerrette provided to the Daily News one page of Blazier’s arrest on July 26, 1996 at the Burdines store in Coastland Center mall. She was arrested after purchasing $881 in clothing and cosmetics using a Burdines credit card that was issued to someone else. She admitted finding the credit card a few days earlier in a nearby parking lot.
Guerrette said he did not have two other parts of the arrest report for the credit card fraud and forgery and said they had been on the Clerk of the Court’s website up until three or four months ago.
“According to my documents, (she) was charged and convicted, and the charges were not dropped,” he said in an email.
He said the removal or sealing of the records should be looked into and that the public needs to know she was arrested.
Guerrette said she was arrested in 1995 for driving without a license and for an attached tag not assigned to the car she was driving.
She disclosed the credit card arrest on her application to be appointed supervisor last year to the governor but left off the driving infractions, he said.
“I am not sure how (these) arrests got passed Governor DeSantis,” he said. “(She) does not qualify to work in a bank, mortgage broker, deputy, etc. … with these past fraud violations.”
Blazier said the forgery count was dropped and the fraud count dropped to a misdemeanor in 1996 but adjudication was withheld.
Her parents thought they had gotten the records sealed after it was over. When she learned it had not been, the case documents were sealed in August, 2023.
Blazier said she “would love to know” how Guerrette got the partial copy of the arrest report and it “leads me to believe” it involved connections in the sheriff’s office to get it.
In terms of the driving infractions, she was pulled over in 1995 on Golden Gate Parkway and the officer told her the tag on her auto was not the assigned tag and that her license had been suspended.
Her parents had given her the car and her license was suspended because of a lapse in insurance. She did not know her license was suspended.
“I was not arrested,” she said, adding that the reason she did not disclose the driving citations on the application to the governor’s office for the supervisor’s appointment is that the document only asked for arrests.
Blazier said her “life is open” and that she has lived in Collier for 45 years and is known in the community.
Blazier submitted a public records’ request to the Collier Sheriff’s office for Guerrette’s performance reviews and other matters and initially was quoted a charge of $419,000, a copy of which she provided to the Daily News.
She narrowed the search down for a cost of $90 and received extensive documentation, with numerous positive job performance reviews and recognitions.
There were five internal affairs investigations based on complaints. One was for use of force in 1996 that was not sustained and a harassment complaint in 1998 that was unfounded.
There was a probe in 2006 involving a domestic violence/conduct unbecoming that was closed with no discipline and a similar complaint in 2008 where he was exonerated, records show.
One of the complaints of unbecoming conduct in 1999 while off duty was sustained with a letter of counseling.
