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The Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections race is heating up. Political candidate Billy Christensen is challenging Democratic incumbent Craig Latimer, who’s held the position since 2012.
Christensen is a Republican running against Craig Latimer.
He says he was inspired to run after his wife was affected by a massive voter data breach last year.
Christensen says he didn’t get any answers from Latimer.
“After this cyber hack, again I had my concerns, we asked questions. His response fueled those concerns. I was concerned enough to get involved to come off the bench so to speak, to get involved.”
A data breach at Hillsborough’s Supervisor of Elections Office exposed private information belonging to nearly 60 thousand voters.
It included social security and driver’s license numbers.
But Latimer says his office was completely transparent.
“As soon as this happened, we made a press release, notified the public. I’ve done updates to that- this is an active criminal investigation by the FBI. I’m not going to do anything to interfere with a criminal investigation by a federal agency.”
Both candidates were asked if they felt the last presidential election was fair and accurate.
Christensen refused to answer, calling the question “divisive.”
“What need to focus on is the issues that we can factually identify, in our office right here in Hillsborough County, get those fixed, so that at least locally, we have fair and honest elections.”
However, Latimer says the elections were completely accurate, and that Christensen’s statements are absurd.
“It’s election deniers like that that keep eroding the confidence of voters in not only this community, but our country.”
Christensen and Latimer will be on the ballot in November.
