The Libertarian City Council candidate has asked a judge to dismiss a Duval County GOP lawsuit to get her removed from the August special election ballot.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Attorneys for Addison \u201cLiberty\u201d Patrick filed the motion Friday in 4th Judicial Circuit Court in Jacksonville. She\u2019s challenging a argument by the Republican Executive Committee of Duval County\u2019that she did not follow state statute \u2014 that candidates seeking a political party\u2019s nomination must be a registered member of that party 365 days before filing to be on the election ballot.<\/p>\n
The Duval GOP filed the lawsuit June 12, the day the qualifying period ended for the special election to fill the Jacksonville City Council At-Large Group 1 race in August.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Republican Party wants Patrick removed from the ballot. Circuit Judge G.L. Feltel Jr. has set a hearing for 1 p.m. Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The outcome of the case could have implications for who\u2019s on the Aug.18 ballot and whether it will be a three-way race or a one-on-one contest between Republican Deborah Wesley and Democrat Mon\u00e9 Holder.<\/p>\n
If no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote in August, the top two candidates will go to a runoff Special General Election on Nov. 3.<\/p>\n
The race\u2019s eventual winner will replace two-term, Republican council member Terrance Freeman, who is resigning<\/a> Nov. 2 to run for the Florida House of Representatives.<\/p>\n The local Republican Party says Patrick was not a registered Libertarian until Nov. 12, 2025, less than the 365 days required in Florida election laws<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n In response, Civil Rights attorney Michael Minardi, who\u2019s representing Patrick, alleges in a motion to dismiss that the Duval GOP is misapplying the statue. Minardi asserts, in part, that the complaint fails to adequately allege that Patrick is seeking the Libertarian Party\u2019s nomination in the August election.\u00a0<\/p>\n Patrick told Jacksonville Today on Friday that she is the party\u2019s official declared candidate, which is also listed on the Libertarian Party of Duval County\u2019s website<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The defense also argues that Jacksonville\u2019s Special Unitary Election is not a general election required for the state statute to apply to the 365-day rule.<\/p>\n Patrick calls the lawsuit part of a broader effort for \u201centrenched political interests\u201d to restrict electoral competition.<\/p>\n \u201cTactics to prevent new candidates from appearing on the ballot send the wrong message to voters across the country, and I expect Jacksonville voters to make their voices heard at the ballot box by rejecting those responsible for these anti-competition efforts,\u201d Patrick said last week in a written statement.<\/p>\n The lawsuit also names Duval County Supervisor of Elections Jerry Holland as a co-defendant.<\/p>\n In a statement sent to Jacksonville Today on Monday, the Republican Party of Duval County chair, Charles Barr, said the party maintains that, according to Florida statue, Patrick does not qualify to run for City Council.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe lawsuit lays out the position of our argument and we await the Court\u2019s rule,\u201d Barr said in a written statement.<\/p>\n Patrick\u2019s voter registration moves<\/p>\n Patrick\u2019s voter Florida registration record does show a history of hopping between the Libertarian Party and no party affiliation.\u00a0<\/p>\n Her voter audit report, obtained by Jacksonville Today through a public records request to the Duval County Supervisor of Elections Office, says Partrick first registered as an independent in January 2018. She switched to no party affiliation in June 2020.\u00a0<\/p>\n Her records show that she changed her affiliation back to Libertarian on Nov. 12, 2025, as stated in the Duval GOP\u2019s complaint.<\/p>\n Patrick said Friday that she didn\u2019t remember when or why she dropped her Libertarian Party affiliation, but she says she\u2019s always been a Libertarian since moving to Jacksonville in 2018.\u00a0<\/p>\n According to the party\u2019s website, Patrick is the Libertarian\u2019s five-county regional representative and is a former chair of the county party. She is also listed as the former public relations director for a Libertarian State Senate campaign.<\/p>\n In April, the Legislature passed, and Gov. Ron DeSantis later signed, a bill<\/a> aimed at clarifying rules around qualifying for elections in Florida. That included the 365-consecutive-day requirement.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The law previously required the party registration timeframe to seek nomination, but there was no method to remove someone from the ballot. The new law provides for judicial enforcement.<\/p>\n The oath signed by Patrick in her qualifying documents<\/a> with the supervisor of elections attests that she had been a registered member of the Libertarian Party, \u201cfor which I am seeking nomination as a candidate\u201d for at least 356 consecutive days preceding the qualifying period.<\/p>\n \u201cWe argue that the way the federal Constitution is, that they don\u2019t have the right to tell us who our party candidate is, that the Libertarian Party has chosen me as their candidate and affirmed that I am their candidate,\u201d Patrick said. \u201cThe oath that I signed was correct the way that it was worded.\u201d<\/p>\n Temporary injunction hearing\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n This would be the second time in two election cycles that a Libertarian has made a run at the At-Large Group 1 council seat. Freeman defeated Libertarian Eric Parker<\/a> in the first round election in 2023 with 65.13% of the vote.\u00a0<\/p>\n Parker received 53,704 votes, or 34.87%, to Freeman\u2019s 100,297 votes.\u00a0<\/p>\n Of the current qualified candidates, Patrick is at the bottom of the three-person field in terms of fundraising. According to reporting from the supervisor of elections, the Republican Wesley has received $86,238 for the race to Democrat Holder\u2019s $13,495. Patrick has reported $3,063.42 in fundraising activity.<\/p>\n Attorneys are scheduled to be back in Duval County court on Wednesday for a temporary injunction hearing requested by the Duval GOP. The first ballots are scheduled to start mailing on July 2.<\/p>\n Patrick, whose legal name is Addison Jade Patrick, is originally from rural Virginia, moving to Jacksonville eight years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n She\u2019s a frequent speaker during the public comment period of City Council meetings. Patrick has been a consistent critic of the speed and transparency around housing developments on Black Hammock Island in Northeast Duval County and a supporter of council\u2019s adopting a new \u201cNeighborhood Bill of Rights.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cWe want a none-of-the-above,\u201d Patrick told Jacksonville Today. \u201cWhen people have the option to write something in, a lot of times, that is what Libertarians will do. It\u2019s a protest. We don\u2019t like the options available to us. We don\u2019t have ballot access, and that is essentially what this lawsuit is. It\u2019s ballot access and it\u2019s telling the voters who their choices are.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Libertarian City Council candidate has asked a judge to dismiss a Duval County GOP lawsuit to get…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323777,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[43323,114192,88005,116,4040,118,117,52066,115,99],"class_list":["post-323776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-distribute","tag-elections-2026","tag-government-politics","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-city-council","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-jaxtdy3","tag-news","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}