“…that’s what I was thinking, this 'error' was really exposure," Montague posted on his Facebook page in response to a commenter who said that they believed McCurdy “mostly (sic) likely won the primary.”  

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Montague did not respond when VoxPopuli asked why he found the SOE’s explanation insufficient.

Meanwhile, Tuan Le, the Republican facing Young in the House District 40 Special Election, was unaware the sample ballot misprint had occurred until VoxPopuli asked him about it. Once informed, Le said, “I don’t think it’s an accident.”

Still, Le is uninterested in an audit, telling VoxPopuli, that because he wasn’t involved in the primary race, it’s not for him to “make that call,” and that it’s “more likely a [Democratic] party concern.”

VoxPopuli was unsuccessful in reaching McCurdy for comment, despite several attempts. Likewise, Young declined to comment for this story.

Summerlin told VoxPopuli by email that “Any claims that this error is part of a conspiracy or that the incorrectly printed candidate won the primary election are unequivocally false.”

In a separate Friday email, Summerlin said that he’s unaware of any request for a forensic audit of the Democratic Special Primary Election and that VoxPopuli’s questions were the “first [he’s] hear[d] about it.”

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“This seems to be another example of a Republican candidate suggesting that the election system is not secure,” University of Central Florida political science professor Aubrey Jewett, PhD, said in a phone interview. “In fact, in most of the cases that President Trump and and others have brought up, there has been very little evidence that there has been any problems, and I would say the same about this.  It just seems like somebody made a proofreading error on a sample ballot. That has nothing to do with casting and counting the votes for the actual primary. You know it's a totally different situation.”

Sharon D. Austin, PhD, professor of political science at University of Florida and author of Political Black Girl Magic: The Elections and Governance of Black Female Mayors, noted that Republican candidates are just copying Trump’s example.

“[They] think that it's okay to allege fraud because it worked for Donald Trump,” she said by phone. “It didn't win him the 2020 election, but he is always alleging that he's been cheated whenever he doesn't get what he wants. That’s the influence of Donald Trump in the sense that he is the person who's always talking about fraud and elections and the need for election reform whether it's needed or not. And that's encouraging other people to do the same thing.”

There’s ongoing concern that spreading conspiracy theories chips away at voters' confidence in the election process.

“Citizens are watching this, and that makes them even more skeptical and cynical about election results because they're hearing their elected officials allege fraud and they naturally believe that,” Austin said.  

 “The more politicians bring up issues like this and put the spin on that somehow there's fraud involved, then the more voters are likely to begin to have less faith and confidence in the voting system,” said Jewett.

Voter confidence in elections improved after the 2024 election, with the largest improvements among Republican voters, according to a Pew Research poll. Eighty-eight percent of all voters said the 2024 election was run well, compared to just 59 percent who said the same about the 2020 election. Among Republicans, only 21 percent believed the election was well-run in 2020 compared to 93 percent who had confidence in the election in 2024. Democrats were a little less positive, with 84 percent expressing confidence in 2024 compared to 94 percent in 2020. A separate poll done by States United Democracy Center attributes Republicans' turnaround on election integrity to Republican leaders not promoting fraud claims once their candidate was in office.

“It’s my observation that our voting system is strong and accurate, and the men and women who run it at the county level do a terrific job," said Jewett. "Occasionally human mistakes happen but I haven’t seen any evidence of across the board fraud. According to the governor, Florida has one of the best election systems,” he continued. “He's a Republican. He seems to have faith and confidence in it.”