Pursuant to Florida Public Records Law, the Supervisor of Elections will provide access to certain government records in its custody for the purpose of copying or inspecting at any reasonable time, under reasonable conditions, and under supervision by the custodian of the public records or the custodian's designee, absent an exemption. At all times, the custodian or records shall provide safeguards to protect the content of public records from alteration and to prevent disclosure of those portions of public records that are exempt or confidential.
Exemptions
Pursuant to Federal and State laws, some information is confidential or exempt from disclosure. If you request a record that contains confidential or exempt information, we will redact any confidential or exempt part. Confidential or exempt information includes:
Voters’ driver’s license, ID card, or Social Security numbers
Records for pre-registered voters
Information related to where a voter registered
Identifying information of persons with high-risk professions or victims of certain crimes
Information related to critical infrastructure
Records related to cybersecurity, network schematics, or hardware and software configurations
Trade secrets that are held by an agency
Voter signatures can only be viewed, not copied
Vote-by-Mail ballot request information can only be given to certain persons and organizations at certain times upon request and form submission
Florida law allows certain persons to request that an agency not publicly disclose specific identification and/or location information contained in its agency records. For more information, please visit the Voter Information as a Public Record page on the Florida Division of Elections website.
Procedures for Requesting Records
Requests to inspect or copy public records in the custody of the Supervisor of Elections should be made verbally or in writing to the records custodian, located in the Walton County Supervisor of Elections office located in the Walton County Courthouse at 571 East Nelson Avenue, Suite 102, DeFuniak Springs, Florida 32433, by phone 850-892-8112, or by email to [email protected].
Fees and Process for Inspection and Copying of Records
Charges and fees for public records are in accordance with F.S. 119.07.
The Supervisor of Elections will provide assistance free of charge except when the nature or volume of public records requested to be inspected or copied is such as to require extensive (in excess of 15 minutes) use of information technology resources or clerical or supervisory assistance, or both, including the time it takes to search for the records, remove exempt data, photocopy the record, protect the records during inspection, and re-file the records, etc. The requestor will be informed of the estimated time of completion and an estimate of the cost. A deposit in the amount of the estimated cost will be required to initiate the request. Should the time required to fulfill this request exceed what was estimated, you will be provided with the final cost to finish the additional work. If the time required is less than what was estimated, we will refund the difference back to you.
Complete payment is required in advance with successful deposit of funds before work will begin to complete the request. Checks should be made payable to: Walton County Supervisor of Elections.
If successful deposit of funds is not completed within 30 days of when the estimate is provided, the request will be closed.
Public record requests will be acknowledged within a reasonable timeframe and handled as time permits but will not take precedence over official elections processes and/or deadlines. Requests are handled on a first in, first out basis. As such, requests for public records placed during an election cycle may require more time to fulfill. The Supervisor of Elections will advise the requestor when the records will be available, if due to the nature and/or volume, the request cannot be fulfilled at the time of the request.
Digital records will be available for download on a share site for 30 days, available by a link provided to the requestor.