Christine Jennings

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Christine Jennings

Christine Jennings (born November 26, 1945) is a self-made banker and businessperson, and a Florida Democratic politician.

In 2006, Jennings was the Democratic nominee for U. S. Congress to represent Florida's 13th congressional district. The seat was left open when incumbent Katherine Harris ran for the U.S. Senate. Jennings is officially contesting the certification of Republican Vern Buchanan as the winner of the race([1]).

In the 2006 election, 237,861 votes were cast, but for unknown reasons, 18,382 of the electronic ballots in Sarasota County recorded no vote for a congressional candidate. By the tally of the remaining votes, Jennings received 373 fewer votes than her opponent, Republican Vern Buchanan. Of the counted votes in Sarasota County, Jennings won 52.8%. Sarasota County was the only county in the district where Jennings won more votes than her opponent ([2]).

An audit of the machines found nothing wrong, and it is believed that some voters failed to vote for the Congressional Candidate because it was on the same page as the crowded Governor's race. Other voters who failed to vote in the Congressional race initially were able to catch the mistake on the review page of the ballot. Still others, who had voted, noticed their votes had not been recorded when they reviewed the votes at the end. There has been no explanation as to why some votes did not record after they were made.

Jennings, a former Republican([3]), never graduated from college and started her career as a bank teller at the age of 17. In 1992, she founded Sarasota Bank, which was bought by Colonial Bank in 2003 for $40.5 million USD([4]).

In her career as a banker, Jennings rose to become President, CEO, Chairman of the Board and Director of Sarasota Bank. She also served as President of the Sarasota Downtown Association and President of the Sarasota Film Festival.

1 Congressional elections
- 1.1 2004
- 1.2 2006
2 Notes
3 External links

[edit] Congressional elections

[edit] 2004

Jennings lost the 2004 primary for the seat to the eventual nominee, Jan Schneider, by 47 percent to 38 percent in a four-candidate race, despite outspending Schneider by a ratio of nearly 4 to 1. "Her supporters attribute this outcome, though, to Jennings’ late start, and they say her business background gives her both better cross-party appeal and stronger fundraising potential" ([5]).

[edit] 2006

Main article: Florida U.S. House election, 2006

Jennings won a 61.8% of the vote in the September 5, 2006 Democratic primary, having heavily outraised Schneider during the campaign. CQPolitics.com wrote that while Schneider had run game challenges to Harris as the Democratic nominee in 2002 and 2004, "[her] strongest appeal was to more liberal elements of the 13th District constituency, and many Democratic officials thought Jennings’ business background would make her a more viable general election contender" ([6]).

Poll numbers showed Jennings with a lead, which varied from 2 percent to 12 percent based on 5 polls ([7]).

In November, Jennings faced Republican Vern Buchanan, (a self-made multimillionaire automobile dealer) who won a bitterly-fought Republican primary with 32.3% of the vote. Buchanan's fund-raising receipts have more than tripled those of Jennings', including infusions of nearly $6 million of his own money. Jennings was endorsed by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, the major newspaper in District 13 ([8]).

After the votes were counted, Buchanan narrowly led Jennings by less than four hundred votes. In Sarasota County, Florida there were almost 18,000 undervotes in the race. Some sources have mentioned a possible revote, but that rarely occurs in the State of Florida, and would be a first in Florida for the federal office.

In March 2007 a letter surfaced "in which Electronic Systems & Software Inc. (ES&S) — the company that manufactured the electronic voting machines that were used in the Florida 13 election — told election officials that the voting screens exhibited slow response times during testing." The following week "California Democratic Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald, chairwoman of the House Administration Committee ... announced the formation of the task force" to investigate the election.^[1]