Election Administration "Tempting"? Yes, Please …

[Image courtesy of socialpoliticalart]

Last week, the Miami Herald‘s HTPolitics had a blog post entitled “Suddenly, elections supervisor becomes a tempting job.”

Here’s the first part of the piece:

Suddenly, everyone thinks they can run an election.

For years, county elections supervisor jobs were viewed as mundane administrative posts with so little public policy work that most politicians did not even consider running for them.

Now, along Florida’s west coast, seasoned political players are looking to parlay their years of experience in partisan battles into an advantage in becoming elections overseers.

• In Sarasota County, three-term county commissioner Jon Thaxton, a Republican, is challenging supervisor Kathy Dent.

• In Manatee County, state Sen. Mike Bennett, a Bradenton developer known for antagonizing Democrats in Tallahassee, is banking that his decade of name recognition will help him succeed retiring supervisor of elections Bob Sweat.

• In Charlotte County, former four-term county commissioner Adam Cummings is looking to unseat first-term incumbent Paul Stamoulis.

• In Hillsborough County, former state Rep. Rich Gloriso, a Republican, passed up an opportunity to run for the state Senate to instead run for supervisor of elections.

It’s part of a trend term limits created in Florida politics, said University of South Florida political science professor Susan MacManus. Limits on how long state legislators and local officials can serve have forced politicians to seek new avenues to remain in public office.

Elected officials once typically followed a progression from local to state to national positions as they opened, or remained in the same post, sometimes for decades. Now, candidates at the local and state levels jump for openings wherever they are, she said.

The overall tenor of the post is classic newcomers vs. old-timers; most of the challengers are quoted as saying that they think they’re qualified for the job, while the incumbents express doubt and say the job isn’t easy.

The truth of the matter is that they’re probably both right.

Obviously, election administration isn’t simple or straightforward, as I’ve mentioned before, elections aren’t for amateurs:

Elections aren’t like the old Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney movies where one person has ballot boxes, someone else has a polling place and “hey kids, let’s put on a show” … it takes time, money and skill to do elections right[.]

But it’s also a mistake to assume that people with no previous elections experience are “amateurs” and thus can’t do the job well. One of the upsides to the lack of a career path in election administration is that the door is usually open to a variety of individuals with a range of experiences. In fact, some of the finest and most thoughtful officials I’ve met came from backgrounds outside elections. Moreover, as election offices become more tightly bound than ever with budget concerns and policy disputes, candidates with experience in these areas in state and local government may be incredibly valuable to the field.

In short, as someone who cares about the profession of election administration, I will take my newcomers where I can get them. Once elected or selected, we want to make sure that they know what they’re doing, but the first key attribute is the willingness to start. Here’s hoping that, whatever their reasoning, this new crop of would-be election officials can continue to help “raise the game” of the entire field.