Nina Hayden is out of the race for the Democratic nomination for Congress in District 13.
Initially ruled ineligible because a notary failed to his sign his name on her qualifying form, Hayden sued and was placed back on the ballot. But the Division of Elections office never attempted to cash the $10,440 needed to qualify until last week.
Unfortunately for Hayden, the check bounced. So she's out of the race for good.
It's been a rough month for the former Pinellas County School Board member. She turned in her qualifying forms and check to qualify for the race against fellow Democrat Jessica Ehrlich on Friday, June 8, the last day to qualify. She says that when she turned in her form late that morning the election clerk reviewed it and said everything looked fine.
But she grew anxious a few hours later when she saw that her name wasn't listed on the state's website list of eligible candidates. She called the Division of Elections and was not told that there was a problem. Instead she was told that because of a backlog, it would her name would probably go up on the site later that day.
It didn't, but nobody informed Hayden. She learned through reports on the Internet the following Monday that the Division of Elections had rejected her forms because of the lack of a signature by a notary
Hayden went to court and sued the state, and a judge put her back on the ballot.
This article appears in Jul 5-11, 2012.