Far-right figure Ann Vandersteel hosts online forum for election denier candidates in Florida

The county supervisor of elections candidates touted an endorsement from Vandersteel, who has repeatedly promoted conspiracy theories and far-right ideology

Written by Alex Kaplan

Published

Ann Vandersteel, a far-right podcaster who has promoted conspiracy theories and far-right ideology that government agencies have warned are domestic threats, hosted an online discussion in which she endorsed multiple Republican election denier candidates running for supervisors of elections in counties throughout Florida.

Along with having ties to a militia group, Vandersteel has previously promoted sovereign citizens ideology and the QAnon conspiracy theory, both of which have received internal government warnings for being domestic threats. (Vandersteel, who has promoted other conspiracy theories like 9/11 trutherism and Pizzagate, has more recently criticized QAnon.) 

On July 19, she co-hosted an X Space called “FLORIDA TO END ELECTION FRAUD- 9 SOE CANDIDATES BRING THE BATTLE PLAN” with Cathi Chamberlain, a Florida election denier and podcaster. The discussion featured multiple candidates running to be supervisors of elections in Florida, including Dave Schaffel (Collier County), Jeff Buongiorno (Palm Beach County), Chris Gleason (Pinellas County), Tom Vail (Lake County), Michael “Mick” Peters (Lee County), David Kalin (Charlotte County), George Umansky (St. Lucie County), and Judith Jensen (Alachua County). Right-wing pundit and former Virginia congressional candidate Leon Benjamin also participated in the Space.

During the Space, Vandersteel said that counties in Florida had “terrible problems” with supposed election fraud and falsely claimed, “We know that there was corruption and votes were flipped in every single county around this country,” citing the work of MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and fellow conspiracy theorist Dennis Montgomery. She then said of the candidates in the Space, “I’m endorsing all of them tonight. I mean, you’re going to see me start to put it out on Twitter. I'm endorsing everybody that's on this list as an SOE [supervisor of elections].” Chamberlain also claimed that she was involved in putting together this “slate” of candidates.

Ann Vandersteel endorsing all the Florida supervisor of elections candidates in her Space

From a July 19, 2024, Twitter/X Space

ANN VANDERSTEEL (HOST): Alright, so why don't we just get this party started and kind of let everybody know why we’re here, you know, what’s going on. We’ve got a, obviously, a big election coming up, but the biggest problem, you know, Cathi, that I think we have in the state of Florida has always been our, you know, our supervisors of elections. I can speak personally. I, you know, I live in Martin County, Florida, and St. Lucie County has had, you know, the county just to my north, has had terrible problems. I remember when Allen West got cheated out by that limousine liberal, by Patrick Murphy.

And they, you know, the 137% of a county shows up to vote, and a limousine liberal gets put in there because daddy had a lot of money from a construction company. So — and it’s like that everywhere. We’re watching what’s going on in Arizona. You know, we’ve just — we’re seeing it all over the country. 

We have seven states and seven counties that were just totally, totally corrupt, and we know that there was corruption and votes were flipped in every single county around this country because Mike Lindell proved that with some of the stuff he’s done. You know, we’re using Dennis Montgomery. So we’ve just got to get a handle on this. So I’m going to let you kind of take over and kind of give a rundown of everybody that we have here because we have nine supervisor of election candidates.

You are really — and I’m endorsing all of them tonight. I mean, you’re going to see me start to put it out on Twitter. I’m endorsing everybody that’s on this list as an SOE, so we’re going to go through everybody. But, Cathi, why don’t you take it from here? I’ll let you do some introductions, and then we’ll — as we introduce, once we get through everybody’s here, I’ll let you decide what order we want to do this then.

CATHI CHAMBERLAIN (CO-HOST): Great. Well, thank you for the endorsement. I know they’re all going to be very excited to hear that, Ann. 

And just to give folks a little bit of a background on this, I have a very, very small podcast, but it’s all about activism and who’s doing the activism on the grassroots level. And I was asked to have a gentleman by the name of David Kalin, who is one of our speakers tonight and one of the SOE candidates. I was asked to have him on my show, and his story just blew me away.

…

CHAMBERLAIN: So once I shared that podcast, I could not believe how many people called me out of the woodwork saying, “Hey, I know another candidate, America Firster, who’s running against their incumbent SOE.” And one by one, it grew to 11 America First candidates. And all of these folks were just amazing. Every single one of them has a unbelievable story to tell, and every single one of them is running, you know, pretty much because they saw, really, their local SOEs either not following election law properly or not maintaining their voting rolls, and they got very upset. And you’ll hear some of their backgrounds. They’re all very impressive. Many of them have just really strong data backgrounds in the data world. 

And so after I gathered these 11, I’m like, what am I going to do with this 11? So we built a slate, which obviously the numbers alone carry a lot more weight than one single candidate running against this behemoth that we all know to be the FSE Inc., Florida Supervisor of Elections Incorporated, which is really a private organization that we pay our taxpayer money into, that come — regulates a lot of the laws and a lot of the direction that our supervisor of elections go in. And they all follow whatever the FSE tells them to follow.

The Space then featured the candidates introducing themselves, pushing election fraud claims, and discussing supposed solutions. During the discussion, some of the candidates thanked Vandersteel for her endorsement, with Buongiorno saying that it was “greatly appreciated” and Umansky telling Vandersteel that her endorsement “means the world to me.” 

Most of the candidates touted Vandersteel’s endorsement after the discussion, with one calling Vandersteel a “great patriot and warrior” and another saying Vandersteel “knows all too well the horrifying state of Florida’s (S)elections.”