Cuyahoga County, Ohio’s elections chief Jane Platten hasn’t been around as long as some of her peers in the elections world, but she certainly has faced her share of ups and downs. And it is the fact that there were far more ups than downs that it came as a surprise when she announced her resignation in late November. In 2007, Platten became the county’s fourth elections director in seven years after the county suffered a series of disastrous elections and was put under administrative oversight by the Ohio secretary of state’s office.
Under her tenure, Platten replaced the troublesome Diebold DRE voting machines with precinct-based optical scan machines, reduced the number of precincts which saved the county money and conducted several trouble-free elections with elections results coming in before midnight.
“As a board, and under her … leadership, we’ve made leaps and bounds,” Election Board Chairman Jeff Hastings told the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “I think we’ve been one of the premier boards in the country in terms of conducting elections, in large measure because of her leadership.”
It’s not just elections officials who will miss Platten. The Cleveland Plain Dealer opined that the county board of elections will have some big shoes to fill.
Norman Robbins, research director for Northeast Ohio Voter Advocates also wrote in an op-ed that, “It is Platten’s unusual capacity to recognize criticism as a challenge for improvement rather than as a form of undesirable antagonism.”
Platten’s last day in the office is Friday, the 14th, but before that, she took some time to reflect on her elections tenure and look ahead to how she sees the future of elections.
Full Article: electionlineWeekly.