Should elections chiefs be elected?

The practice seems flawed — until you consider the alternative.

It took us a while, but the final statewide candidate in Florida’s last contested race conceded Monday.

Republican Matt Caldwell grudgingly acknowledged defeat in the agriculture commissioner‘s race to Democrat Nikki Fried.

I don’t blame Matt for holding a grudge. A Republican losing to a Democrat in Florida is kind of like Godzilla losing a battle with Barney.

Still, much of this election cycle has been overshadowed by votecounting messes involving elections supervisors down in South Florida.

All of which has some people asking: Why do we elect elections supervisors in the first place?

It’s a fair question. After all, isn’t it weird to expect someone who’s seeking re-election to serve as a neutral arbiter of that election? Yes. But here’s another reality: The alternative might be worse.

Think about it. Elections officials have to get into office somehow. They aren’t just born there. (Except maybe Mike Ertel in Seminole. He seems kind of oddly born for the job.) So, if they aren’t elected to the position, they get appointed … by people who are

elected.

And that can lead to all sorts of potential conflicts.

In 2007, for instance, a guy who wanted to run against Buddy Dyer for Orlando mayor was told he wasn’t eligible … by a clerk Dyer appointed to the position.

A judge later ruled the clerk did the right thing. But you don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to wonder about the motives of political appointees whose livelihoods depend upon their appointers staying in office.

With elected officials, voters get direct accountability. If you think someone’s doing something wrong, you can vote them out of office. You’re the boss.

“Some folks have one boss, others have several,”

Ertel said. “Elections administrators understand we have hundreds of thousands of supervisors who will be conducting our performance review at the next election, based on their experience in the previous election. “

(Of course, that principle — which sounds swell in theory — falls apart when you consider Broward County voters repeatedly elected Brenda Snipes and all her baggage.)

On the state level, we’ve seen problems when secretaries of state were both elected and appointed.

In 2000, the state’s last elected secretary, Katherine Harris, looked like such a partisan overseer of that infamous election — trying to halt the recount before it was finished — she became a national pariah. Even fellow Republicans wanted no part of her next campaign.

Then Floridians decided to make the position an appointed one, handselected by the governor — and new controversies arose. The latest came just a few months ago when a federal judge ruled against Rick Scott’s appointee for trying to ban early voting on college campuses, saying the ban revealed “a stark pattern of discrimination.”

If you wanted to kick Florida’s secretary of state out of office, too bad. It’s not up to you. For that kind of direct accountability, you need elections.

I think most people like having that power. I do. (Except when it means needlessly politicizing an office that performs basic administrative functions.)

The bottom line: There’s no perfect way. It largely depends on who’s in the office. But with elected posts, at least you have a say.

Dems damage selves

For all the scorn heaped upon South Florida elections supervisors — most of it deserved — it’s worth noting that the ineptitude of these Democratic officials has primarily hurt Democrats.

Twice now — in 2000 and again this year — South Florida elections supervisors designed whackadoo ballots that resulted in voters either missing a race or mistakenly voting for the wrong candidate.

You can argue voters should be more careful. (I would.) But you also can’t argue with the statistics that show that, when supervisors do something like Broward did this time — designing a ballot that placed the U.S. Senate race at the bottom of a full column of instructions — some people miss it.

In this case, the number of people in this Dem-heavy county who skipped the race was four times what it was in any other county in Florida.

It’s not clear the design flaw impacted the final results in the nail-biter between Republican Rick Scott and Democrat Bill Nelson . But it is clear that when you see undervote variables that are 400 percent higher than every other county in the state, it’s not just a coincidence.

As the number crunchers at FiveThirtyEight.com explained: “Broward County’s undervote rate is way out of line with every other county in Florida.”

So, while both parties can rightfully scoff at supervisors messing things up again, it’s also pretty clear that Democratic officials are mostly hosing their own party.