Manatee County election director fires four employees after election defeat

BRADENTON, Fla. – Manatee County Elections Supervisor James Satcher will remain in office until January despite his loss in the primary election last week.

In the hours following that defeat, Satcher fired four staff members, three of whom were fired by Satcher's chief of staff shortly before 5 p.m. the day after the primary.

“He just said, 'Your services are no longer needed,' and I was shocked,” Christine Palmer said. “He said, 'Here are your boxes. Pack them up and go.'”

Palmer is one of four employees fired just hours after the primary election. She worked for the elections office for nearly 16 years and questioned her firing, only to be told the same thing again.

“Then I got more and more angry and said, 'I have done nothing against this office. I have done nothing decisive against it. I have done everything for this office,'” Palmer recalled. “I worked hard for this office. Tell me what I have done. Your services are no longer needed. You had no reason. He just had a fit of rage because he had lost and had to do something about it.”

Harriet Darnell and Teresa Margraf are both temporary workers. Darnell has worked as a temporary worker every election year since 2016, and Margraf since 2010.

“That was it. I was completely surprised, completely shocked,” Darnell said.

“That's it. No reason. I mean, I was shocked,” Margraf said. “The whole day seemed to go more smoothly. Everyone was maybe a little calmer, like they saw a light at the end of the tunnel. But there was no warning, nothing.”

The head of the election commission confirmed that the dismissals were carried out on Satcher's orders.

Neither Satcher nor his chief of staff, David Ballard, were available for an interview on Wednesday, but staff issued two statements regarding the firings of the two permanent employees.

“Mark Darnell's employment has been terminated, effective August 21, 2024. This decision was made following his failure to perform a critical task during the August primary election – a day that requires absolute dedication from every team member,” the statement said.

“Despite the obvious importance of the task at hand, Mark decided to resign, leaving the team severely understaffed on one of the most important days of the year.”

But Harriet Darnell, Mark's mother, said he was fired on election night and she later took him home.

A statement from Palmer said: “Ms. Palmer had great difficulty adequately managing a group of full-time voter services staff… along with long breaks that were not recorded on timesheets and tasks not completed, she culminated in verbally abusing a subordinate, causing the staff member to burst into tears.”

“Due to the impending primary election, Supervisor Satcher waited until after the election to terminate Ms. Palmer's employment. However, during the processing of post-election voter information, Ms. Palmer severely reprimanded a subordinate when he asked his supervisor, Ms. Palmer, for assistance. This caused the employee to burst into tears.”

Palmer was shown a copy of the full statement and denied that the allegations were true, adding that she had never been disciplined in her nearly 16 years with the election board.

Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed Satcher as elections director in April following the retirement of longtime elections director Michael Bennett. Bennett had recommended his longtime deputy in his resignation letter to DeSantis.

Scott Farrington was not appointed prime minister but won last week's primary election and will be sworn in in January.

On election night, ABC Action News was with the election commissioner and followed the results with Satcher and others. But when it became clear that Satcher would lose, he left the office even though not all of the votes had been counted.

“I'm very disillusioned with the entire process,” Palmer said. “Satcher should never have been there. I think Governor DeSantis did the voters of Manatee County a disservice by allowing developers to cloud his judgment to appoint Satcher.”