Supervisor of Elections addresses Chamber
Lee County Supervisor of Elections Sharon Harrington shared the challenges of her office with the North Fort Myers business community last Wednesday at the monthly North Fort Myers Chamber of Commerce luncheon at Jersey’s Sports Cafe.
Harrington was the main speaker and she talked about the primary – decided on Tuesday – as well as some of the controversies and changes she has faced in her nearly 25 years on the job.
Harrington provided some stats that showed how much Lee County has grown. In 1989, Lee County had 160,000 registered voters. Today, there are about 400,000.
Also, the fastest growing group of voters is unaffiliated with a party, about 94,000, compared with 170,000 Republicans and 143,000 Democrats.
“They’re sick and tired of both parties and all the negative ads, and it’s becoming a major classification,” Harrington said.
Harrington also discussed the Presidential election fiasco of 2012, where some voters had up to six hour waits at the polls. Meanwhile, at other districts literally next door, there was almost no wait.
“Legislation passed in 2011 in Tallahassee cut early voting and restricted locations. Also, there were all the referendums, some of them took a whole page,” said Harrington, who went to Tallahassee and told legislators that while they run for office, they have no clue how an election is run.
“I did not start that day thinking about how I could ruin my career in 12 hours,” Harrington said, and laughed.
As a result, Harrington has been cheered by the amount of mail-in ballots being turned in, which has made her job easier on Election Day, especially since the Elections office has paid for return postage as an incentive to “go mail.”
Harrington said another technological improvement has been the polling pad, which can be used to check in voters and find his or her voting history with the swipe of a driver’s license. It can also be used to check on turnout in real time.
Harrington also discussed the Cape Coral mayoral election lawsuit, as well as the elimination of the touch-screen voting machines that were phased out for scanners by then governor Charlie Crist.
The next Chamber luncheon will be on Sept. 17, where another “top cop” award will be presented.