Orange County’s court system will now have a new leader in Roberta Walton Johnson, who won in a landslide Tuesday in a general election race that followed an often bitter months-long primary that at one point was litigated in the very courts the victor is now tasked with leading.
Walton Johnson, the Democratic candidate, won the special election to be the next clerk of courts with 66% of the vote as of Tuesday evening, according to the unofficial count. She is slated to be sworn in Nov. 10.
Serving as the general counsel ahead of her run to replace two-term clerk Tiffany Moore Russell, Walton Johnson — who Moore Russell endorsed — ran on a platform of expanding outreach and resources while continuing to modernize the office’s digital infrastructure.
“I am ready to hit the ground running to close the court literacy gap to make sure more people have access to the courts,” Walton Johnson told the Orlando Sentinel once it was clear she won.
Her opponent, Terrell Thomas, a former clerk’s office IT worker who since continued working with courts systems in the private sector, garnered about 28% of the vote running as a no-party-affiliated candidate.
The special election for Orange County clerk of court came after Moore Russell, who won her race for Orange County mayor, left office to run to replace outgoing Mayor Jerry Demings.
Walton Johnson cleared a contentious Democratic primary with 53% of the vote. Facing former Orange County Property Appraiser Rick Singh and, at one point, county Commissioner Maribel Gomez Cordero, the race quickly turned controversial.
Gomez Cordero ultimately bowed out of the race amid a legal challenge by Singh over an alleged violation of Florida’s “resign-to-run” law. Singh’s supporters then turned their attention to Walton Johnson over her 1996 federal bank fraud conviction, for which she was sentenced to probation before being granted clemency.
Her critics claimed the conviction would impede her ability to access a state database crucial to the office’s functions, which she dismissed at the time as “complete nonsense.” Rather, with her trajectory as a lawyer before eventually becoming the clerk of courts’ general counsel in 2021, she said her journey is a redemption story.
The race’s mood softened following Walton Johnson’s primary victory, with her and Thomas preferring to focus on their own qualifications rather than trading barbs.