Alan Hays fends off Republican challenger in Lake County elections supervisor race

LAKE COUNTY, Fla. – Lake County Supervisor of Elections Alan Hays fended off a challenge from a Republican on Tuesday night to win the GOP primary. He’ll face two write-in candidates in November, Edward Prosienski and Ronald Wingerter.

With 100% of the precincts reporting, Hays beat Tom Vail 68% to 32% in the Republican primary.

[RELATED: Here’s what will be on the Aug. 20 election ballot in Lake County | Florida election voting guide]

Speaking to News 6 Wednesday, Hays said he was honored by the win.

“I think this margin of victory is a clear indication of the confidence the voters have in the way we’ve been administering elections,” Hays said.

He also said he couldn’t do the job without the county’s election workers.

“My team that I get to work with day to day are second to none,” Hays said.

News 6 sat down before the primary with both candidates running for the Supervisor of Elections Office in Lake County.

Incumbent Alan Hays and his opponent, Tom Vail are both vying for the office of Supervisor of Elections in Lake County. Both candidates are Republicans. The winner will face two write-in candidates in November.

Hays has been supervisor of elections in Lake County since 2016, and before that served in the Florida Legislature. Vail is a businessman and Republican Party activist who also co-hosts an anti-abortion talk show.

Vail has been critical of Hays saying elections aren’t run as well as they could be and has a 31-point plan on his website of things he would like to see done differently, like restricting vote-by-mail or counting ballots by hand. Both of those things, however, would require changes in Florida law.

“Well, the problem with vote by mail is you really lose track of who the voter is, who’s delivering the vote, how the votes coming to be,” Vail said. “So normally, the original way you vote, you show up at the polling place, you identify yourself as a legitimate voter because you’ve already registered to vote and you cast your ballot. Those things don’t happen with mail balloting. We don’t know exactly who’s getting the ballot. There’s a lot of reports and photographic evidence of ballots being found in places where they shouldn’t be.”

We asked Vail if he had an example of this happening in Lake County specifically and he said he did not.

Florida law requires all people voting by mail to be registered voters and to request a ballot using a specific form. Voters must include their Florida driver’s license number, Florida ID card number, or the last four digits of their Social Security number when requesting a ballot. There are also rules on who can request a ballot for a person and drop it off.

All ballots are individually numbered and the voters can track the status of their ballot using the BallotTrax system.

In addition, all ballot envelopes must be signed, and that envelope is checked against the voting record. If a problem or a discrepancy is found at any point in this process, the voter must be contacted to fix the ballot.

Alan Hays maintains elections in Lake County are fair and safe.

“About the kindest thing I can say is that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Hays said. “I could spend 10 minutes and tear down completely the absurd idea of hand counting the ballots. I could tear down basically every argument that he offers.”

Vail has also been critical of the accuracy of the county’s voter registration rolls.

“Recently I found 140 people registered at UPS stores, someplace where nobody lives,” Vail said. “So I sent a letter to all these people, 140 of them — 20 of those came back undeliverable. So what does that mean? Do these people exist or not? There’s something wrong with the voter registration if we can’t send mail to where people are registered to vote.”

We asked Hays if Vail’s claim is accurate and how the county is keeping up with voter registration rolls.

“Lake County is and has been 100% compliant with every statute and every rule of the Division of Elections,” Hays said. “Contrary to what Mr. Vail and other people would tell you, we are totally compliant with the law. Now, the fact that he had ‘X’ number of addresses that he identified in one way or another that he thought were in conflict with the law doesn’t mean anything, except that’s a snapshot in time.

“People need to understand that the list maintenance process is far too involved for a brief interview like this, you need to do a series of tv shows on the list maintenance process. It’s a very complicated process, but it’s based on the premise of we’re trying to protect your right to vote. We’re not going in there trying to just chop, chop, chop and move everybody we can,” he said.

Florida law requires supervisors of elections to conduct registration list maintenance at least once a year, beginning no later than April 1 and completing at least 90 days before any federal election. That includes identifying registration records where a voter is registered at an address that is not their legal residence. If address confirmation requests mailed to the voter are sent back as “undeliverable,” the voter’s status is supposed to be marked as “inactive.”

While both candidates seem to not agree on much, they do agree the Supervisor of Elections must serve all voters regardless of party affiliation.

“It’s got to be run professionally and neutrally,” Vail said. “No preference to any party or any individual. Everybody needs to be treated equally, professionally and fairly.”

“If you’re registered to vote in Lake County, I owe you the same level of respect and treatment that I give to everybody else,” Hays said.

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