BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. — Christopher Hattaway and Shawn Overdorf have a lot in common.

In addition to running for elected positions in Brevard County’s District 2 — Hattaway for the county commission seat and Overdorf for the school board seat— both are veterans, worked in law enforcement and said they were asked to drop out of their races by Sheriff Wayne Ivey.

“June 16th he called me and asked me if I would step down from the race and support his candidate, Courtney Lewis, and he would get me a job working in Mr. Goodson's office,” Overdorf said. 

Goodson is a longtime Brevard resident and businessman, who at one time was a member of the Florida House of Representatives.

He is now running for Brevard County commission, against Hattaway. Hattaway claimed he received a similar call from the sheriff, with the same message and offer to work for his current opponent.

“I have no problem with him endorsing anybody, but why ask people to get out of the race?” questioned Hattaway. 

Both Hattaway and Overdorf said their conversations with the sheriff were casual, and at first, they thought he was just trying to help them. But the more they each thought about it, the more uneasy they felt.

“That is when the questions start to get raised, is this right? Is this above water or whatever?” Hattaway said. 

“The more I thought about it, I am the most qualified candidate, I have the best resume," Overdorf said. "I don’t know why he would want to talk me out of this race instead of getting behind me.”

Eventually, they spoke to each other about these interactions and realized how similar they were. Hattaway even spoke to a candidate in another race with the same story of being offered the same job.

“You need this, you’ve got to do this, you cant win this, you cant do that. so it seems like he reads almost from a script when it comes to trying to talk somebody out of running a race,” Hattaway said. 

“What bothers me is how long has this been going on?" Overdorf said. "Like obviously, this is not the first time this has happened.”

Our Spectrum team based in Brevard County reached out to Ivey’s office twice on Wednesday asking for his side of the story.

Each time, the sheriff’s office said there will be no comment at this time. While Hattaway and Overdorf were not persuaded to throw in the towel, they said they hope these incidents are investigated.

“I would hope that, after this, that it doesn't happen anymore,” Overdorf said. 

Spectrum News did reach out by phone and email to Tom Goodson, the man they’re claiming the sheriff offered them a job with, using his publicly listed information. He has not yet replied.