By Mary Hladky
Boca Raton mayoral candidate Mike Liebelson will not contest the election of Andy Thomson as mayor.
The race was so close that no winner could be declared when polls closed on March 10. Liebelson indicated at the time that he might challenge the results.
Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Wendy Sartory Link held both a machine and manual recount of the ballots on March 13.
The final result: Thomson won by only 5 votes, 7,572 to 7,567.
Liebelson did not immediately indicate if he would follow through on a challenge to the results.
But on March 23, the deadline to file a challenge, Liebelson said he would not do so.
“I got into this race with one clear objective: to help take Boca Raton back from the influence of big developers, support Save Boca, and return the City Council to the people who live here,” he said in a statement. “That mission was accomplished.”
Even so, Liebelson said the tiny margin of Thomson’s victory demonstrates the importance of every resident voting in elections.
“As an outsider candidate in my first race, coming this close sent a message,” he said. “People are paying attention. They want leadership that puts residents first, and they want real accountability when it comes to growth and development.”
But first-time candidate Liebelson continues to have concerns about vote-by-mail ballots that he said put Thomson over the top.
Florida statutes, he said, are insufficient to accurately determine the winner of a close election. The last batch of vote-by-mail ballots that were tabulated in the mayoral race were heavily skewed in favor of Thomson, he said.
“There are a number of anomalies related to vote-by-mail and same-day registration,” he said. “But it wasn’t something we wanted to pursue to contest the election.”
Doing so, he said, would potentially divide the community, obscuring the fact that Save Boca candidates swept City Council seats and voters also rejected the city’s plan to redevelop the downtown campus.
Liebelson also has filed a lawsuit against Thomson in which he restates complaints he made before the election that Thomson’s campaign consultant made false and misleading statements about him in political flyers sent to residents.
The lawsuit, filed on March 3, alleges that Thomson and other defendants in the case acted to “adversely affect his mayoral campaign.”
Thomson could not be immediately reached for comment.
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