A Tale of Two SOE Candidates

On Thursday, James Satcher and Scott Farrington participated in a debate organized by the Lakewood Ranch Republican Club. The difference between the Republican candidates for Supervisor of Elections could not have been more stark. A closer look behind the curtain suggests even more space between the two, who will meet in the August primary.

If serious voters take even a cursory look at the two candidates on paper, this matchup is not even close.

Farrington has over two decades of experience running elections in Sarasota and Manatee counties. He is the only Certified Elections Administrator in Manatee County and has also achieved the rank of Master Florida Certified Election Professional. The record clearly demonstrates that recently retired SOE Mike Bennett ran fair, secure, and efficient elections for the past 11 years and did so on the sort of impressively lean budget one would expect from a true fiscal conservative. During this time, Farrington was Bennett’s Chief of Staff and Deputy Supervisor of Elections. Bennett gave a full-throated endorsement of Farrington to be appointed in his stead when he announced his retirement.

Satcher is a political hack whose career has been propped up by developers after he failed miserably as a grassroots candidate. In 2016, after relocating from Georgia, Satcher actually attempted to run for Congress, challenging incumbent Republican Vern Buchanan in the primary, where he lost in a historic landslide. In 2018, he lowered his expectations and challenged incumbent Republican Carol Whitmore for a countywide seat on the BOCC and lost another landslide, as Whitmore had not yet fallen out of favor with the development cabal.

Satcher was finally elected to the Manatee County Commission in 2020 after developers funded dark money PAC attacks against incumbent Republican Priscilla Trace. Trace, a fifth-generation Manatee County native who refused to bow to the demands of the cabal, was branded a RINO in deceitful attack ads paving the way for Satcher’s victory. Ironically, it would be the same refusal that would see Whitmore successfully primaried two years later when developers backed one of Satcher’s similarly inept buddies, Jason Bearden.

From there, Satcher busied himself carrying water for mega-developer Carlos Beruff and, in his words, being a local voice on national political issues. To put it another way, he did as he was told when it mattered to his paymaster and then bloviated about Biden, liberals, socialists, illegals, abortion, and every other right-wing talking point he could think of, none of which had anything to do with the county commission. Satcher came into the office clearly knowing nothing at all about the job and left without any suggestion that he had learned much along the way.

One of the things that makes Satcher dangerous is his enormous reserve of misplaced confidence. He doesn’t see himself as a hapless goldbricker who has proven to be the perfect useful idiot. Instead, he envisions himself as “one of the good guys that won” and genuinely seems to think he was appointed to the office by the governor because DeSantis thought he was the best person to protect the integrity of our elections and not because the development cabal pressed for his appointment via one of their bagmen, former Senate President Bill Galvano.

Another thing that makes him dangerous is how badly he needs to be on the public dole. According to his financial statements, before being plucked from obscurity by the cabal, Satcher was broke and not very good at earning a living. Now, the father of six lives in a big house and drives a big SUV, and his six-figure salary is even higher since securing the SOE appointment. His wife also runs a non-profit that apparently has something to do with praying over the dancers in local strip clubs. It has seen its donations swell since her “minister” husband got elected. If he falls out of favor with the folks who have made those things happen, it is impossible to imagine either maintaining the lifestyle they have become accustomed to.

Satcher would very much like to tangle this election in national red meat issues, telling the debate audience that liberals are doing everything they can to make our elections less secure and that the entire nation is on the line in this election, which is why DeSantis appointed him as our local defender of democracy. But the LWRRC wasn’t having it. Members came prepared and asked why a county with such stellar election management should so greatly increase its SOE budget, as Satcher has done, as that did not sound very fiscally conservative.

Satcher had no direct answer for that question and so many others that the moderator actually paused the debate to implore him to respect the thoughtful questions asked by members enough to answer them.

Farrington pointed out that he and Bennett had run the lowest cost-per-voter budget in the state and had prided themselves on not only being able to deliver top-tier results but also increasing the wages of underpaid rank-and-file employees in the office. This sounded much more conservative than Satcher’s request for a bloated budget increase that is ostensibly to “secure the election,” although, as Farrington pointed out, only a fraction of the requested funding had anything to do with such measures.

Another question addressed Satcher’s claim at the budget request meeting that Bennett had left the SOE’s office hundreds of thousands of dollars “in the red” when he retired. Satcher appeared to have been coached to make this claim by Manatee County Commissioner Kevin Van Ostenbridge, whom he’d met with at the SOE’s office ahead of the meeting. When pressed, Satcher couldn’t explain exactly what he meant, and Farrington’s response made it clear which candidate understood the intricacies of the office and which did not.

Text messages between Satcher and his equally unqualified Chief of Staff David Ballard that were obtained by the Florida Center for Government Accountability were also rather instructive. When Satcher texted him that he was planning on bringing the new IT guy, “Jonathon,” to the budget request meeting, Ballard responded, “Should you be bringing the IT guy that you're asking for in the budget amendment? Doing that makes it clear that you're spending money you don't have yet.”

Satcher tried to defend his lack of qualifications on such matters by citing his time as the chair of the port authority, a largely ceremonial role limited to running the meetings when the BOCC convenes as that body. He claimed that it demonstrated experience with a large budget, and he even took credit for significantly growing port-related business, even though both are handled by SeaPort Manatee Executive Director Carlos Buqueras.

In reality, Satcher has never run an organization anywhere near the scale of the SOE office. Furthermore, at best, he has a checkered personal credit history, including evictions and even bouncing a $10 personal check to the Florida Department of State for his certification fee after being elected to the BOCC. The very questionable filings of the non-profit he headed before turning it over to his wife amidst a scandal also do nothing to bolster confidence in Satcher's attention to detail.

What is perhaps most troubling about Satcher’s words in Thursday’s debate was how much he clearly thinks that the SOE office inherently belongs to the Republican Party and should be used to advance its agenda. Because only Farrington and Satcher have filed for the race, and the GOP primary will decide the SOE, this should be an open primary. However, like just about every other instance in which a developer throws tons of cash at such a race, the write-in loophole has been employed.

Those who are plugged into local politics may recognize the name Thomas Whitten Dell. Mr. Dell has been prolific as a write-in candidate despite making exactly zero effort to win a race. In 2012, Dell filed as a write-in to close the District 7 Republican primary between incumbent Joe McClash (TBT’s publisher) and Beruff-backed Betsy Benac. In 2020, Dell filed again, closing the same district’s Republican primary between Beruff's arch-enemy Ed Hunzeker and George Kruse, who Beruff had supported generously the first time around and then went scorched earth on after Kruse strayed from the script.

Interestingly, the address previously used by Dell when filing as a write-in has been owned by River Woods LLC since 2005. According to Sunbiz, River Woods LLC shares the same address as Beruff’s Medallion Home. In this year’s filing, Mr. Dell, 72, claims a Palmetto address that appears to belong to his son.  That may be owed to the fact that River Woods LLC has applied to develop an RV park on the property where Dell formerly claimed to reside. A Thomas Whitten Dell can also be found to have made donations to several pro-development dark money PACs.

Satcher and his handlers want Manatee County voters to believe that this is about making sure that illegals don’t vote in our election and that the George Soros crowd does not steal it from Donald Trump. Farrington believes that the Supervisor of Elections should remain a non-partisan office in which proven experience and results should continue to ensure that every valid vote is counted.

Let’s be clear. Donald Trump has nothing to worry about in Manatee County, where he will likely get somewhere around 75% of the vote in November. The only thing the special interests that are running this con are interested in protecting is the bought-and-paid-for government and administration they have installed.

Until now, the development cabal has been able to exploit enough low-information voters by pouring money into scurrilous negative ad campaigns to have their way with Manatee County Government. But what happens once you start to worry about whether you’ve pushed the envelope a bit too far, angered too much of your base, and might face a race or two in which the voters are simply too knowledgeable to fall for it? Well, I suppose you might want to ensure that a friendly face decides which votes are actually counted …

Click here to watch video of Thursday's debate.

Dennis "Mitch" Maley is an editor and columnist for The Bradenton Times and the host of our weekly podcast. With over two decades of experience as a journalist, he has covered Manatee County government since 2010. He is a graduate of Shippensburg University and later served as a Captain in the U.S. Army. Click here for his bio. His 2016 short story collection, Casting Shadows, was recently reissued and is available here.