The chairman of the Lake County Republican Party is crying foul after an alleged dirty trick at the last-minute of filing time at the supervisor of elections office.
GOP Chairman Anthony Sabatini has issued a statement describing what happened Friday and the last-minute stunt that will block popular longtime Lake County Property Appraiser Carey Baker from running for re-election as a Republican.
“As some of you may know, Carey Baker has a long-standing tradition of saving taxpayers and his supporters money by qualifying for re-election as a ‘write-in’ candidate, instead of a party nominee, when there are no other candidates filed. This saves his supporters money from paying the filing fee,” said Sabatini.
He said that at 11:59 a.m., there were no candidates filed for the office of Lake County Property Appraiser other than Baker, a former state senator. So Baker filed for re-election as a write-in candidate, ensuring his automatic victory.
Meanwhile, Mark Jordan, who was also present, filed for North Lake County Hospital Board.
Confident no one else could file against him, Baker left the building.
Sabatini claims that is when Jordan waited until Baker “was out of sight” and quickly withdrew his hospital board candidacy and instead filed for the Republican nomination for Lake County Property Appraiser.
Sabatini is calling on Jordan to “immediately resign” and said a censure motion will be discussed at a GOP meeting later this month.
Apparently planning to push ahead, Baker was out campaigning on Saturday with Congressman Daniel Webster, whose path to victory was ensured when Sabatini, who had been running against Webster in the GOP primary, dropped out when Webster secured the endorsement of former President Trump.
