$1 discrepancy on check prevents 22-year-old FAU poli-sci major from qualifying in HD 91 race

Twenty-two-year-old Alexander Lambridis has failed to qualify for Florida’s House District 91 race after he mistakenly wrote his check for $1 less than the required qualifying fee.

According to documents uploaded to the Florida Division of Elections website, Lambridis’s check was received the Thursday morning before qualifying ended.

The numeric amount printed on the check is $1,781.82, the correct amount for party-affiliated state House candidates. However, the amount written in words is “one thousand seven hundred and eighty dollars and eighty-two cents” ($1,780.82), one dollar short of the required fee.

Due to that discrepancy, Lambridis failed to qualify. He says he and his lawyer are still trying to get him on the ballot, but insists he won’t be too upset even if it doesn’t work out.

“I’m a first-time candidate, I’m 22 years old, I have a lot to learn and this kind of taught me everything,” Lambridis said. “This isn’t the end of the world and I’m not too mad about it.”

Lambridis, a rising senior and political science major at Florida Atlantic University, announced his candidacy in April. He describes himself as “working-class” and highlights rent prices, insurance premiums and affordability issues in his platform.

House District 91 covers a densely populated area of Palm Beach County that includes Boca Raton and FAU. The seat is currently held by Republican Rep. Peggy Gossett-Seidman, who was first elected in 2022 with 51.7% of the vote and reelected in 2024 with 54.5%.

Democrat Luis Garcia, a retired firefighter paramedic, has also qualified to run. He has labeled Gossett-Seidman “the Epstein oligarchy” and attacked her for having a $28 million net worth and a $5 million Highland Beach home.

“God is good! There will be no Democratic Primary in HD 91,” wrote Garcia after Lambridis failed to qualify.

Lambridis would not be the first Florida candidate undone by a qualifying technicality — and the recent track record offers him both warning and hope. Just this month, two-term Republican Rep. Paula Stark failed to qualify for House District 47 in Osceola County over a financial-disclosure dispute, handing the seat to Democrats and prompting her to pursue legal action to get back on the ballot. A decade earlier, Miami Gardens mayoral candidate James Barry Wright was kept off the ballot in 2016 after his qualifying check was returned by the bank through no fault of his own — only for the Florida Supreme Court to strike down the law as applied and order a new election.