Fact check: Satcher attack ad takes Farrington quote about voters way out of context
GOP incumbent elections supervisor misleads text message recipients about primary challenger's answer to debate question about problems in past elections.
Supervisor of Elections James Satcher’s campaign on Monday hit text message recipients with a highly misleading attack video ad that took out context challenger Scott Farrington’s reply to a debate question about past problems with elections in Manatee County.
The 30-second ad includes a clip of Farrington say, “Elections would be great if we could take the voters out it.”
Left out of the ad — which also slams Farrington, a longtime employee of elections offices in Sarasota and Manatee counties, as a “big government bureaucrat” and a “liberal” — is that Farrington’s comment was part of his response to a question from the moderator during a debate with Satcher in Lakewood Ranch on Thursday.
“What were the problems in this county in 2016, 2020 and 2022 in the election process, if any, that you found that need to be addressed?” Bruce Stamm asked.
Farrington’s response: “No system that requires human input is perfect. And I’ve always said elections would be great if we could take the voters out of it, right? I mean, they would be perfect. Any system that you have voters, candidates and you have humans involved in his going to be 100% percent.”
Actually, elections “would be great” if candidates like Satcher didn’t deliberately mislead voters.
Watch and listen to the question and Farrington’s response in the video below, starting at the 1:07:00 mark.
Marc R. Masferrer, previously a newspaper and digital editor in Bradenton for more than 16 years and a journalist for more than 33 years, has received multiple awards for his writing, including a first place for commentary writing in the Florida Press Club’s 2022 Excellence in Journalism Competition and a second place prize in the 2023 contest for work published in The Bradenton Journal. You can reach him at Marc.R.Masferrer@gmail.com. You can also like The Bradenton Journal on Facebook.
It's times like these that I fantasize about an angry God in heaven who would look down on dishonest conniving sinners like Sacher and Ostenbridge and smote them.
Typical Pedicini tactic. Take things out of context to try to make someone look bad. Didn't work. Still voting Farrington.