People run for local elected office for different reasons – to address a specific cause, or fulfill a calling to public service, or even to launch what they hope will become a career in politics.
Then there’s Keith Ridings.
The 25-year-old political newcomer last month filed to run as write-in candidate in the District 5 County Commission race, where the headliners are incumbent Laura Moss and challenger Tracey Zudans, currently a member of the Vero Beach City Council.
His reason for running?
“I just wanted to close the primary and let Republicans vote for Republicans,” Ridings said last week. “I feel if you open the primary to everybody, you dilute the vote with Democrats and independents, and you might not get the outcome most Republicans want.
“I want a more-Republican person to be elected.”
So, Ridings arrived at the county’s Supervisor of Elections Office on June 13 – minutes before the qualifying period ended – and filled out the paperwork necessary to become a write-in candidate for the Nov. 5 election.
He will not be on the ballot, which will contain the name of the Republican primary winner and a blank space for write-in candidates. But his presence in that commission race will prevent nearly half of the county’s registered voters from participating in the Aug. 20 Republican primary.
That’s because Florida is a closed-primary state, allowing only voters registered as members of a particular party to vote in partisan primaries.
There is an exception, however, if all candidates in the race have the same party affiliation and the primary winner will not face any opposition in the general election. Then, under state law, the primary must be declared open to all registered voters in the county.
Ridings, who said he was a member of the Vero Beach Young Republicans Club, made sure that won’t happen in the District 5 commission primary, where both Moss and Zudans are Republicans, too.
As a write-in candidate, Ridings was not required to pay a filing fee or collect signatures on a petition. According to the mainland address on his paperwork, he doesn’t even live in District 5, which includes the barrier island.
“I’d have to move if I won,” he said, “but I’m not really running.”
In fact, Ridings said he will not accept campaign contributions – because he doesn’t plan to run a campaign.
“There’d be no purpose in it,” Ridings said. “People would have to know my name, write it on the ballot and spell it right. It would be futile. Maybe, someday, I’ll run for real, but I have no intention of winning.”
Supervisor of Elections Leslie Swan expressed shock and concern over Ridings’ questionable motives, especially since Ridings could’ve chosen to enter any of the three commission races, all of which included only Republican candidates.
She also wondered aloud whether someone in the community – or connected to the District 5 race – would file a complaint with the Florida Ethics Commission, which governs such matters.
“I can’t do it,” Swan said. “It has to come from someone in the community.”
Ridings, who lives in District 2, seemed oblivious to any potential ethics violation, saying he chose to run in the District 5 race because he became more knowledgeable about the candidates.
He said he wasn’t aware the District 1 and 3 races also featured only Republicans.
“I’m sure there was another race where that was the case,” Ridings said of the all-Republican District 5 competition, “but I knew of this one.”
Ridings said he had no prior contact with either Moss or Zudans and hadn’t done much research on them, but that he had spoken to friends involved in local politics and they explained the process he needed to follow to qualify as a write-in candidate.
“It’s a very easy thing to do,” he said. “I’m very surprised more people don’t do it, just to make sure only Republicans vote.”
As for the primary, the newly married Ridings said he probably would vote for Zudans because he defines himself as a “very patriotic clean-cut person who believes in strong Republican and family values,” and her positions most closely align with his conservative principles.
But he rejected any suggestion that Zudans, or anyone else, urged him to run.
“Nobody put me up to it,” Ridings said. “I just decided to do it. Somebody else made me aware that I could do it, but nobody enticed me. I’m not being paid or anything like that.
That’s totally illegal.”
Ridings said he moved from northern Georgia to Florida when he was 14 and has been living in Vero Beach for about seven years, adding that he plans to attend Indian River State College in the fall.
Oddly, he would not identify his friends in local politics, nor would he say where he works or what he does to earn a living – which is odd for a candidate.
He said the idea to run as a write-in candidate to close the primary “came across my radar late,” but he’s hoping to gain the experience necessary to someday launch a serious campaign for local office.
“For now, I’m just learning the process and how the system works,” Ridings said. “To be honest, I know nothing about how to run, so it’s good to get my feet wet and put my name out there and make some connections, just in case I decide to really run for something in the future.
“That’s another reason I’m doing this.”
