Key Points

  • The Third District held that a qualifying-fee check drawn on a campaign account but signed by a candidate who was not the designated campaign treasurer or deputy treasurer is not a "properly executed check" under section 99.061(7)(a)1., Florida Statutes.
  • Following the Florida Supreme Court's Amador decision, the court construed the undefined phrase "properly executed" by reference to section 106.11(1)(b)4., which requires the treasurer's or deputy treasurer's signature on campaign checks.
  • The clerk's acceptance of the check and the bank's payment of it did not cure the defect, because the filing officer's role is ministerial and substantial compliance does not apply to basic qualification requirements such as payment of the fee.
  • The court declined to dismiss the appeal as moot after the Nov. 3, 2026 election because the issue is of great public importance and likely to recur, and it held Medina's standing objection under section 99.0211(2) unpreserved.
  • The panel adopted the reasoning of the Fourth District's Oct. 28, 2026 decision in Wright v. Gelin and distinguished Wright v. City of Miami Gardens, which involved a bank error beyond the candidate's control.

A Florida appeals court on Nov. 13 upheld a ruling that knocked Hector Medina out of a North Miami City Council race because he signed the check for his qualifying fee himself instead of having his designated campaign treasurer sign it.

A three-judge panel of the Third District Court of Appeal affirmed a Miami-Dade circuit court judgment won by Medina's opponent for the District 2 seat, Kassandra Timothe, and by the City of North Miami. In an unsigned per curiam opinion, Chief Judge Scales and Judges Lindsey and Rebull held that the check was not a "properly executed check" under Florida's candidate-qualifying statute, even though the city clerk accepted it and the bank paid it.

The Fourth District Court of Appeal applied the same reading on Oct. 28 in Wright v. Gelin, a case the panel said involved "nearly identical facts." The statute provides that "[f]ailure to pay the fee as provided in this subparagraph shall disqualify the candidate."

Medina filed paperwork on April 6, 2026, naming his wife, Alina Medina, as his campaign treasurer. He did not designate himself as treasurer or deputy treasurer. On Aug. 11, during a qualifying period that closed at noon on Aug. 20, he submitted his qualifying papers with a campaign-account check that he had signed personally. The city deposited the check, the bank paid it, and no one in the clerk's office told him of any problem before qualifying closed.

Timothe wrote to the city on Aug. 20 demanding Medina's disqualification over the signature. Medina answered by email that the issue was hyper-technical and that, under Florida law, doubts about a candidacy should be resolved in the candidate's favor. The city concluded he should be disqualified and notified him by letter dated Aug. 25.

On Aug. 27, the city filed its own suit for a declaratory judgment and sent the Supervisor of Elections a ballot that included Medina's name so the result would be fair whichever way the case came out. Timothe sued the same day, and the cases were consolidated. Circuit Judge Christopher Green held an expedited final hearing on Sept. 1 and ruled against Medina on Sept. 3.

Because Medina's name was already on the ballot, Judge Green directed the Supervisor of Elections to follow Florida Department of State procedures for a candidate found not qualified after ballots have been programmed, including notice to voters that votes cast for Medina would not be counted. The appeals court twice denied Medina's requests for a stay but expedited his appeal. The election was held Nov. 3.

Chapter 99 of the Florida Statutes does not define "properly executed." The panel applied the method set out in the Florida Supreme Court's Aug. 11 decision in Amador v. Secretary, Florida Department of State, which construed the undefined term "campaign account" in the same provision by consulting related sections of the Election Code. That led the panel to section 106.11(1)(b)4., which requires a campaign check to contain "[t]he signature of the campaign treasurer or deputy treasurer."

The panel called Medina's position that the clerk's acceptance and the bank's payment made the check properly executed "irreconcilable with the statutory text." "If any campaign account check that clears is 'properly executed,' the phrase would do no work at all; the Legislature could have required only a check drawn upon the candidate's campaign account," the court wrote.

Medina also argued that the signature rule comes from Chapter 106, which he said creates no private right to sue and leaves such disputes to the Florida Elections Commission. The panel held that the disqualification rests on Chapter 99 itself, and that consulting Chapter 106 to define one of its terms "does not transform a Chapter 99 qualification challenge into a Chapter 106 enforcement proceeding."

Florida law provides that the filing officer "performs a ministerial function" and "may not determine whether the contents of the qualifying papers are accurate." The panel held that the clerk's acceptance of a check that appeared negotiable on its face said nothing about whether it was legally sufficient. "Responsibility for compliance with the qualifying requirements rests with the candidate, not the filing officer," the court wrote.

Quoting the Fourth District, the panel also held that substantial compliance "does not apply to basic qualification requirements, like proper payment of the fee."

The panel declined to invoke the policy of resolving doubts in favor of ballot access, because the statute is not ambiguous and the Florida Supreme Court has described it as "a true bright line." "This may be a harsh result, but a generalized preference for candidacy cannot displace a clear statutory command," the court wrote.

The panel distinguished the Supreme Court's 2016 decision in Wright v. City of Miami Gardens, which held the statute unconstitutional as applied to a candidate whose properly executed check was returned solely because of a bank error beyond his control. "Who served as his campaign treasurer and who signed his qualifying check were matters entirely within his control, fixed by his own filed designation and his own signature," the court wrote. Medina had not challenged the signature requirement as unconstitutional.

The city argued the appeal was moot because the election had passed. The panel refused, writing that "the issue presented is of great public importance and is likely to recur in future elections." It also refused to consider Medina's argument that section 99.0211(2), a newly enacted provision letting a candidate sue over a rival's qualifications, covers only party-affiliation disputes, because the trial court found he had conceded standing.

Juan-Carlos Planas of the Law Firm of Juan-Carlos Planas, P.A., represented Medina. Timothe was represented by Dedrick D. Straghn of Straghn Law, PLLC. Richard Rosengarten and Amanda Pulido of Weiss Serota Helfman Cole & Bierman represented the City of North Miami.

The opinion is not final until the court disposes of any timely motion for rehearing.