Lee County Supervisor of Elections apologizes for affair

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Credit: WINK News

The Supervisor of Elections for Lee County, Tommy Doyle, is making a public and personal apology days before he is up for re-election.

Doyle sent WINK News a statement about allegations of an extramarital affair with a female employee in 2019 after it was reported by the Miami Independent.

According to the Miami Independent, Doyle visited her home many times during work hours. An equal employment opportunity complaint was filed by the employee after the affair ended.

The Miami Independent’s investigation found testimony Doyle told his subordinate to take back the complaint and resign. She was given 20 weeks of severance pay.

In the statement to WINK News, Doyle admits to making a terrible decision five years ago that hurt his wife deeply. His full statement is as follows:

“I am very remorseful for a terrible decision I made five years ago, which has hurt my wife deeply. This was the worst decision of my life and something I greatly regret. My wife and I are working through this together and through the grace of God we are healing as a family.
I also apologize to the staff of the Supervisor of Elections office and my constituents of Lee County. I acted outside my moral integrity. I take full responsibility for my behavior. I want to assure voters that this will not affect the Supervisor’s Office’s ability to conduct secure and accurate elections in our upcoming Primary and General Elections.”

Will this affair impact the upcoming election? WINK News Reporter Olivia Jean spoke with UCF Political Science Professor Aubrey Jewett.

“I will say that it’s not out of the ordinary for voters to take into account the personal behavior of candidates. In fact, we know, again, political science research would suggest that a lot of voters aren’t really paying that much attention to policy, specific policies and issues, but they are paying at least a little bit of attention to what kind of a person they think the candidate is. And so for some voters, if a married man has an affair with a subordinate at their workplace, that might be disqualifying,” Jewett said.

Doyle is up for re-election in our primary this Tuesday.

Stay tuned to WINKNews.com, WINK News App, streaming, and on-air for any new developments on this story. 

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