Roberta Walton Johnson, general counsel for the Orange County Clerk of Courts, won Tuesday\u2019s Democratic primary to replace her outgoing boss Tiffany Moore Russell in a contentious race for an otherwise unsung office in which her opponent sought to discredit her over a decades-old criminal conviction.<\/p>\n
Walton Johnson trounced former Orange County Property Appraiser Rick Singh with about 53% of the vote, according to unofficial results.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel supported,\u201d she said. \u201cI always felt like Orange County voters deserved someone in this seat that was competent and experienced, and I feel like tonight, they even stretched it and said competent, experienced and with integrity. I appreciate that.\u201d<\/p>\n
She will go on to face Terrell Thomas, a no-party-affiliation candidate, in the November general election as there is no Republican candidate.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just told the team: It\u2019s not over,\u201d she said. \u201cWe still have a race ahead of us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both candidates ran on promises to modernize the office\u2019s services and digital infrastructure.<\/p>\n
Walton Johnson, who began at the clerk of courts office overseeing its online Self-Help Center, pledged to install kiosks at the Orange County Courthouse and its surrounding branches to cut down on wait times. She also hopes to implement a tool to send electronic notifications reminding customers of payments they owe, suspended licenses, upcoming hearings and more.<\/p>\n
But the race to replace Moore Russell, who went on to qualify Tuesday for a run-off election for county mayor, turned controversial in the weeks leading up to the election. One candidate, departing county Commissioner Maribel Gomez Cordero, withdrew from the contest amid a legal effort by Singh to boot her from the ballot over an alleged violation of Florida\u2019s \u201cresign-to-run\u201d law.<\/p>\n
Once she left the race, Singh\u2019s supporters turned their gaze to Walton Johnson and a federal bank fraud conviction she received in 1996, for which she was sentenced to probation before being granted clemency. Her critics argued the conviction would impede her ability to access a state database crucial to the office\u2019s functions, which she dismissed as \u201ccomplete nonsense.\u201d<\/p>\n
After her clemency, Walton Johnson went on to become a lawyer, working in private practice before she became general counsel at the Clerk of Courts in 2021 \u2014 a trajectory she said is a redemption story.<\/p>\n
\u201cI tried my best to maintain a standard throughout this campaign because I really feel like noise is not what voters need to hear at this time,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Singh\u2019s past controversies while he was property appraiser also became an issue in the race. Most recently, a 2024 Seminole County Sheriff\u2019s Office investigation accusing Singh of shoplifting was resurfaced by Walton Johnson\u2019s supporters, despite no criminal case ever being filed.<\/p>\n
As with his past scandals, Singh denied wrongdoing in the alleged shoplifting, calling it a \u201clast-minute political attack\u201d by his opponent\u2019s allies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Roberta Walton Johnson, general counsel for the Orange County Clerk of Courts, won Tuesday\u2019s Democratic primary to replace…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":375183,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[2811,114,115,139,141,140,99,109],"class_list":["post-375182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-election","tag-latest-headlines","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-politics","tag-social"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375182","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=375182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}