Florida Secretary of State Resigns After Blackface Photos Surface

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February 2, 2019

By Adeel Hassan, New York Times

The newly installed official who oversees elections in the critical swing state of Florida resigned on Thursday after a newspaper obtained photos of him dressed in blackface at a 2005 Halloween party.

The official, Michael Ertel, a Republican who had served as Florida’s secretary of state for only two weeks and two days, confirmed to The Tallahassee Democrat that he was the person in the photographs of a white man in a T-shirt with “Katrina Victim” written on it.

Along with blackface makeup, Mr. Ertel is wearing red lipstick, earrings and a New Orleans Saints bandanna in the photos. They were taken two months after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, a city that is 60 percent black.

The newspaper said it showed the photographs to Mr. Ertel last week, and sent them on Thursday to Gov. Ron DeSantis’s office, which quickly said it had accepted Mr. Ertel’s resignation.

“I think it’s unfortunate,” Mr. DeSantis said at a news conference on Thursday. “I think he regrets that whole thing 14, 15 years ago, but at the same time I want people to be able to lead, and not have any of these things swirling around them. So I felt it was best just to move on.”

When shown the photographs, Mr. Ertel told The Democrat, “There’s nothing I can say.”

The newspaper said it showed the photographs to Mr. Ertel last week, and sent them on Thursday to Gov. Ron DeSantis’s office, which quickly said it had accepted Mr. Ertel’s resignation…

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