Commission, School Board, County Judges Qualify For Pinellas Primary

PINELLAS COUNTY, FL — As Florida's candidate qualifying period closed, the Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections announced that 17 candidates have qualified for the 2022 primary election in Pinellas County.

The list of all local candidates who qualified with Pinellas County is available here.

They include candidates for county commission, school board and county court judge.

Candidates for federal, state and multi-county offices qualify with the state and can be found on the Florida Division of Elections website. They include candidates for U.S. senator, U.S. representative, governor, attorney general, chief financial officer, commissioner of agriculture, state senator, state representative, supreme court justice, district court of appeal and circuit judge.

Unopposed candidates will not appear on the ballot and are automatically declared nominated for office.

Primary ballots are based on the districts voters live in and party affiliation.

Florida has closed primaries, so voters must be registered with a political party to vote in that party's primary election Aug. 23.

Primary ballots are based on the districts voters live in and party affiliation.

All voters, whether affiliated with a party or not, will vote on nonpartisan issues and races (including school board and judges) and universal primary contests, which occur when all candidates in a race have the same party affiliation and the winner would be unopposed in the general election.

Voters may change their party at any time, but to be valid for the upcoming primary, the change must be made by July 25, which is also the deadline to register to vote for the primary election.

As of June 20, Pinellas County has 688,077 registered voters. Of those, 237,332 are registered as Democrats, 242,718 as Republicans and 208,028 as no party affiliation or another party affiliation.

Ballots for absent military and overseas voters who have requested vote-by-mail ballots will be mailed out July 9.

Ballots mailed to domestic voters who have requested vote-by-mail ballots will be mailed out beginning July 21.

The deadline to request vote-by-mail ballots is Aug. 13 at 5 p.m. Vote-by-mail ballots must be turned in no later than 7 p.m. primary election day, Aug. 23.

Early voting will take place Aug. 13 to 21.

Qualifying county candidates include:

County Commission District 2 (At Large)

• Debbie Buschman, Republican
• Brian Scott, Republican

County Commission District 4 (Single Member, *Universal Primary Contest)

• Dave Eggers
• Heather Aynne Vernillo

County Judge Group 1

• Della Cope
• David Constantine Moran
• Megan Roach

County Judge Group 13

• Ken Afienko
• Kathleen T. "Kathy" Hessinger

School Board District 3 (At Large)

• Keesha Benson
• Dawn Peters
• Carl "Z" Zimmerman

School Board District 6 (Single Member)

• Brian M. Martin
• Stephanie Meyer
• Kimberly Works

School Board District 7 (Single Member)

• Maria DiFore Sotanki
• Caprice Edmond

*The Board of County Commissioners, District 4 contest is a Universal Primary Contest in which all qualified candidates are registered with the same political party. All voters in County Commission District 4 are eligible to vote in this contest, regardless of party affiliation. The candidate who receives the most votes will be the winner, and the contest will not appear on the General Election ballot.