As part of our commitment to providing you with what you need to make an informed decision in the 2026 elections, News 6 joined with the News Collaborative of Central Florida to present the Voting Central Florida 2026 Voter’s Guide.
Tuesday, Aug. 18 is the Florida Statewide Primary election, a mix of party primaries and nonpartisan local elections, such as school board races, judicial races, and county commission races in some counties.
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Florida has a closed primary system, which means only members of a political party may vote in party primaries. To be eligible, a voter had to identify with that party by July 20.
However, judicial races and local races, for the most part, are open to all registered voters, regardless of political party.
Everything you need to know in order to vote in the Aug. 18 Statewide Primary, including how to vote by mail, vote early, and vote on Election Day, can be found in our Election 2026 section HERE.
Seminole County Judge Group 6
The Seminole County Court handles local legal matters, including misdemeanors, local ordinance violations, small civil claims like financial disputes up to $50,000, tenant evictions, and traffic violations.
All county judge races are nonpartisan elections, which means all voters can vote in the election, regardless of party affiliation.
Since there are four candidates in the race, the top vote-getter must get more than 50% of the vote (50%+1) in order to win outright. Otherwise, the top two candidates will go to a runoff in November.
The News Collaborative of Central Florida created a list of common questions to ask the candidates. Questionnaires were sent to all candidates.
Not all of the candidates responded. Where candidates did not respond, we have filled out the information to the best of our abilities.
Our News Collaborative partners at Oviedo Community News compiled the candidate responses for Seminole County judge. Below is an excerpt of each candidate’s profile.
To see the full responses, go to the Oviedo Community News candidate page link for each candidate.
You can also see the full Oviedo Community News Voting Guide HERE.
Alena Chaban
WEBSITE: www.chabanforjudge.com/
Oviedo Community News Candidate page: oviedocommunitynews.org/profile/alena-chaban/
Candidate Q&A: Candidate Q&A: The questions below are based on voter questions and expressed priorities. Each of the candidates within a race was asked the same questions and given the same amount of time to respond. The candidates’ answers were fact-checked, checked for spelling and grammar but otherwise unedited.
What professional experiences have best prepared you for the bench?
I’ve spent my career in the courtroom, not just around it. In my firm, I’ve practiced family law, criminal defense, traffic law and estate planning. This means I’ve stood on both sides of nearly every kind of case that comes through Seminole County Court. I’ve represented parents fighting for time with their children, defendants facing the weight of the state and families trying to protect what they’ve built for the people they love.
That range matters. A county court judge doesn’t get the luxury of specializing; one morning it’s a landlord-tenant dispute, the next it’s a misdemeanor docket, the next it’s a small claims trial. I’ve been preparing for that breadth my entire career.
I’d also point to my work as a Guardian ad Litem, where my job is to represent a child’s best interests, not any adult’s agenda. That role requires exactly what I’d bring to the bench, which is listening carefully, setting aside assumptions, and making a recommendation based on what the evidence actually shows, not what’s easiest or most convenient.
What role should personal values play in judicial decision-making? None, when it comes to the outcome of a case. A judge’s obligation is to apply the law as written and the facts as presented, not to substitute personal belief for legal analysis. That’s not a limitation; it’s the job. People don’t come to court hoping the judge agrees with them personally. They come hoping for someone who will follow the law fairly and consistently, regardless of who is standing in front of them.
Where personal character does matter is in how a judge conducts the courtroom, as in whether people are treated with respect, whether both sides are actually heard, and whether rulings are explained clearly enough that even the losing party understands why.
How do you balance precedent with evolving societal standards? Precedent is not optional. It’s what gives people confidence that the law will be applied the same way tomorrow as it was yesterday. A trial court judge’s role is not to decide whether a precedent is still fashionable; it’s to apply controlling law as the appellate courts and legislature have written it.
That said, precedent is naturally tested and refined by higher courts as new facts and circumstances come before them. That’s how the system is designed to evolve, through the appellate process, not through individual trial judges deciding case by case which rules still apply to them. My job at the county court level is to apply the law faithfully and let that process work as intended, not to get ahead of it.
What steps do you take to avoid conflicts of interest? I take this seriously both in practice now and in how I’m building my campaign. In my current practice, I run conflict checks before taking any matter, and I will not take a case when a personal or previous client relationship could reasonably call my impartiality into question, even if I believe I could still be fair.
As a candidate, that same discipline shows up in complying with Canon 7. I don’t personally solicit contributions or endorsements, campaign fundraising runs through my committee, and I’ve been careful about how attorney outreach is handled so it can’t be perceived as influencing anyone who might appear before me.
What barriers to justice do you see in the current system, and how would you address them? The biggest barrier I see, especially in family court, is delay. I’ve had clients wait months just to get in front of a judge on custody or timesharing matters; meanwhile, a parent isn’t seeing their children, and a case that should take weeks stretches into half a year or more. That backlog does not just inconvenience people. It actively harms families and children during the exact window when stability matters most.
The second barrier is access. Many people in county court, especially in small claims and traffic, do not have attorneys. If a courtroom is not run in a way that is clear and navigable for a self-represented person, justice becomes something only available to people who can afford a lawyer.
I’d address both by running an efficient docket, which means being prepared, starting on time, and making rulings promptly. I would also make sure my courtroom is a place where a self-represented litigant can understand what’s happening and why, without needing to already know the system to get a fair hearing.
Wayne Culver - Incumbent
WEBSITE: www.seminoleforculver.com/
Oviedo Community News Candidate page: oviedocommunitynews.org/profile/wayne-culver/
Candidate Q&A: The questions below are based on voter questions and expressed priorities. Each of the candidates within a race was asked the same questions and given the same amount of time to respond. The candidates’ answers were fact-checked, checked for spelling and grammar but otherwise unedited.
What professional experiences have best prepared you for the bench? I was an assistant state attorney in Brevard County from 2001 to 2004. I had my own law practice in Seminole County from 2004 to 2009 with areas of practice in: criminal law, family law, bankruptcy law, dependency cases, civil litigation, and real estate transactions. I worked at the Office of the Public Defender from 2009 to 2021, practicing criminal law and was a supervisor for five years, training new attorneys in the misdemeanor division. I have served as a county court judge from 2021 to present in both the criminal and civil divisions. I currently have over 4,000 civil cases and resolve about 1,200 cases per month for the citizens of Seminole County.
What role should personal values play in judicial decision-making? A judge must resolve case in accordance with the law. Personal values do not play a role in ruling in a case; only experience and knowledge guide a judge’s decision.
How do you balance precedent with evolving societal standards? A judge must follow precedent and the law. Evolving societal standards are for the legislative branch of government to consider.
What steps do you take to avoid conflicts of interest? If I know a party in litigation, I disclose that to each party and if they request a reassignment of the case to a different judge, I comply with their request.
What barriers to justice do you see in the current system, and how would you address them? A general lack of understanding of the legal system. In criminal cases, I appoint the Office of the Public Defender to represent defendants. In civil cases, Legal Aid is a great assistance to many litigants. In general, a judge must be patient with people who represent themselves; they are going through a difficult time in their lives and the legal system can be challenging to navigate on their own. A judge cannot give legal advice but can be a patient and understanding arbiter of justice.
Erik Swenk
WEBSITE: voteswenk4judge.com/
Oviedo Community News Candidate page: oviedocommunitynews.org/profile/erik-swenk/
Candidate Q&A: Candidate Q&A: The questions below are based on voter questions and expressed priorities. Each of the candidates within a race was asked the same questions and given the same amount of time to respond. The candidates’ answers were fact-checked, checked for spelling and grammar but otherwise unedited.
What professional experiences have best prepared you for the bench? As the owner of my own law firm, I practiced in both county and circuit courts throughout Central Florida, representing financial institutions in foreclosure and creditor’s rights cases. I also dedicated my time as a volunteer attorney with the 9th Circuit State Attorney’s Office, helping advocate on behalf of victims to prosecute crimes while supporting our local law enforcement. Largely, the bulk of my legal experience is derived from my close to 10 years serving the State of Florida as a hearing officer and hearing officer supervisor. In these roles, I have served in a quasi-judicial capacity, ruling on motions and objections, conducting evidentiary hearings, and presiding over and adjudicating administrative appeals subject to direct appeal to our State District Courts of Appeal. I have also developed and provided direct training to my office’s hearing officers throughout the state on the matters of high-volume order writing, guidance for administrative disqualification hearings, guidance for managing pro se parties and building a record, and procedure for default judgments. Professionally, I also believe my years in the restaurant industry as a server and my service on many different boards in our county provide great experience when it comes to working with people and understanding the different resources available in our county to address the many underlying issues that cause the actions that bring our citizens into our courts in the first place.
What role should personal values play in judicial decision-making? Certain values such as integrity, temperament, compassion and work ethic broadly play an important role in carrying out the general duties as a judge. Temperament and compassion allow a judge to better relate to the parties when it comes to identifying and understanding the issue and to help moderate many of the emotions that are inextricably tied to the process. Some of these personal values, such as integrity, may even play a role in the decision-making process. However, largely, personal values have, or should have, very little bearing on the decision-making process itself. The guiding force behind judicial decision-making is largely based solely on the facts of the case and the application of law to those facts while keeping separate personal values, beliefs or emotions.
How do you balance precedent with evolving societal standards? In the administrative realm, as it is on the county bench, our judges are not afforded the discretion to deviate away from precedent. Precedent serves a great purpose in continuity and provides our communities reliable guidance on what actions can and cannot be taken. Our Seminole County Court is bound by decisions made by our 18th Circuit as it is by our 5th DCA and Florida Supreme Court. Our county court judges, just as personal values are separated from decision-making, are likewise bound from allowing personal values or societal influences to provide grounds to deviate from binding precedent.
What steps do you take to avoid conflicts of interest? I generally do not involve myself in organizations or activities that could create conflicts of interest. When a conflict is ever discovered, I immediately remove myself from the occurrence to resolve the conflict.
What barriers to justice do you see in the current system, and how would you address them? Some of the biggest issues involve state funding to ensure highly qualified and long-term support staff of the judiciary as well as additional judicial seats to ensure proper and timely administration of our justice system. After all, justice delayed is justice denied. Though some of this is largely a legislative issue and something difficult for only one person to address or overcome, there are a few ways that I could address these issues, at least when it comes to proper and timely administration of cases. First, as a hearing officer, I presided over 1,600 appeals in my first three years and did so without missing a deadline or having received any negative treatment for any order of mine that was appealed to one of our state’s DCAs. This is a product of great time management, use of multiple management tools and dedicated preparation and review of pleadings prior to hearing. Second, what I practiced as a hearing officer is something I learned as an attorney in many of our county courts, and that is providing general procedural guidance to an entire courtroom gallery so that all parties, pro se or not, are apprised of how their case will proceed, what authorities will govern and what actions they can and cannot take on their case. This, I have found, drastically reduces confusion and streamlines the procedural process, particularly in county court.