Voters have the same choice this November that they had four years ago in the race for Pasco County clerk of court and comptroller.
Two-term Republican incumbent Paula O'Neil again faces a long-shot bid by Roberta Cutting, a no-party candidate whose campaign hinges on unsubstantiated allegations.
Cutting hopes to unseat O'Neil, who was first elected in 2008 after serving six years as chief deputy clerk. And even though O'Neil, 60, overwhelmingly defeated Cutting, 57, in 2012, Cutting is running virtually the same campaign.
"The corruption, I want to try to do whatever I can to stop it," Cutting said in a recent interview. "The one way you can hold public officials accountable is to vote them out of office."
Among the issues Cutting has continued to raise include:
• That O'Neil has violated public records laws, citing a 2010 incident in which Cutting alleges she was improperly denied records to which she was entitled that pertained to a case involving her daughter.
• That O'Neil attempted to "sabotage" her career by dismissing her from a position at the clerk's office after one week.
• Tens of thousands of dollars O'Neil spent on new furniture and the office seal.
"Cutting is my name, and cutting is my plan," her campaign literature states.
O'Neil said she always follows public records laws, and complaints made by Cutting about O'Neil to various state agencies, including the Florida Elections Commission and the Florida Commission on Ethics, all have been denied or dismissed.
Further, O'Neil said, Cutting proved not to be a good fit for the office.
"I don't know how someone sabotages your career when you're 52," O'Neil said.
O'Neil has repeatedly said the furniture was purchased for a new area assigned to the Clerk's Office within the West Pasco Judicial Center. She also said the office had three versions of the seal, and money was spent in-house to create a unified design.
A new issue Cutting has raised during this year's campaign is a federal lawsuit filed last April in which the plaintiffs alleged that O'Neil's office and others committed fraud in the handling of a mortgage foreclosure case. But that case was dismissed months later.
Cutting has also made an issue of the fact that O'Neil is married to Circuit Judge Declan Mansfield. O'Neil said there should be no concern about impropriety.
"We have 21 circuit judges," O'Neil said. "He's just one of them."
O'Neil said she would rather "stay away" from talking about her opponent, but acknowledged she was considering adding a place on her campaign website where voters could read the truth about Cutting's allegations.
"Because there's been a lot of accusations," O'Neil said.
Instead, O'Neil said, she is running on her office's accomplishments during her time as clerk, like getting records online and creating an e-portal for vendors. And the office plans to overhaul its juror management and criminal case maintenance systems; the latter has been in use since 1979, she said.
"I think we've proven that the quality is there for the office. What I've been told over and over and over is we have a customer-friendly staff and environment," she said. "I'm making decisions for the right reasons. I care about our community, and I care about our future."
One of the largest controversies during O'Neil's past four years as clerk was her decision in 2014 to discontinue courthouse marriage ceremonies. Her office stopped offering the service after a federal judge struck down Florida's same-sex marriage ban, but before those marriages were allowed to take place.
"It was an easy decision," O'Neil said at the time, citing both limited resources and concerns that members of her staff would be uncomfortable performing same-sex ceremonies. The clerk's office continued offering marriage certificates in accordance with the law.
Last week, O'Neil said in hindsight she would have done things differently.
"I would have gotten more information before we made a decision on other ways to manage that service," she said, though she stopped short of saying she wouldn't have ended the practice. She said she has no plans, if re-elected, to reinstate the service due to budgetary limitations.
Cutting said that, if elected, she would bring the practice back: "I would make that an option, because you're representing everyone in the county."
Cutting, who said she once ran a day care in Hillsborough County, said prior experience in the clerk's office doesn't matter because the state trains new clerks.
"The most important qualification that any public official can have is true integrity," she said. "There's no requirement to be clerk of court. So why bring up experience in the first place?"
In an email, Cutting said a constitutional officer only needs to show up for work roughly six times a year to keep the position from falling into vacancy, based on state law.
"It does not take much experience for that," she said.
Cutting sued both O'Neil and the Tampa Bay Times, alleging defamation, after her failed 2012 bid for clerk. The suit against O'Neil was dismissed in Pasco Circuit Court, and appeals to the 2nd District Court of Appeal and the Florida Supreme Court were also dismissed, according to court records. A circuit judge in Pinellas County ruled in the Times' favor. Court records indicate that case is also being appealed.
In Cutting's financial disclosure form, which outlines a candidate's assets and liabilities and requires the person to swear to the information's accuracy and completeness, Cutting did not list anything, saying her financial information does not matter. O'Neil listed several hundred thousand dollars in both assets and liabilities.
"That really shouldn't have an effect on the office, am I right?" Cutting said. "What really matters is what's going on in the office. I'm sure the elections office would let me know if I had to actually fill that out."
Contact Josh Solomon at (813) 909-4613 or jsolomon@tampabay.com. Follow @josh_solomon15.