Enter Kaplan, the hero from a city famous not only for flaunting prohibition in the 1920s, but for circumventing fair election practices under mayor-for-life Richard Daley, Sr. and The Outfit. 

During her job interview Constance Kaplan joked that the election fiascos of Miami-Dade County have made everyone forget Chicago’s legendary problems with questionable elections.

On Tuesday Kaplan was officially informed that she got the job: elections supervisor for Miami-Dade County. The first new one since 1981 when David Leahy was hired as an elections supervisor. A quiet man who never tired about telling people the importance of voting, Leahy was fairly popular for a while. That is until a series of recent election mishaps and scandals, culminating with total meltdown when the elections department failed to train its employees on how to use the computerized iVotronic machines in the September 2002 elections. After voters from all over Miami-Dade raised hell about being turned away from polling stations and the county not only increased police presence for the next election but hired the Center for Democracy (theretofore international election monitors in third world countries where elections are typically corrupt bloodbaths), Leahy figured it wouldn’t be a bad idea to retire. 

Enter Kaplan, the hero from a city famous not only for flaunting prohibition in the 1920s, but for circumventing fair election practices under mayor-for-life Richard Daley, Sr. and The Outfit. Old Nixonites are still fond of complaining about how the Daley machine handed JFK a narrow win in the 1960 election. 

Kaplan was not the first choice of the selection committee. Reno, Nevada elections supervisor Daniel Burk won slightly more votes than Kaplan. But County Manager Steve Shiver was impressed with Kaplan, the deputy chief administrative officer of the Chicago Board of Elections. The Windy City has more than four times the number of precincts as Miami-Dade, he said. And, “she even has experience with trilingual ballots, the same as us – except the languages are English, Spanish and Chinese,” Shiver was quoted as telling the Miami Herald. (Another factor in the iVotronic machines’ failure in September: they were not originally programmed to display questions in English, Spanish and Creole as required, causing further delays and…. Well, we’ve been through this before.)

Kaplan has worked for the Chicago Board of Elections since 1971, starting as an election administrative assistant and working her way up to the Number Two spot. There she was in charge in community services, training and special programs. She developed training programs for 15,000 election supervisors. (Think: training temporary workers on how to operate ballot machines.) She was in charge of coordinating crisis management. (Think: angry voters flipping out because the election stations aren’t open on time.) She formulated legislation on election reform. (Think: laws preventing dead people from being able to cast absentee ballots.) And, here is the kicker: she served as a consultant in democratically-challenged regions such as Zambia, Albania, Indonesia and Kosovo.  (Think: able to deal with international observers.)

So can Kaplan make Miami-Dade County elections efficient and accurate? We sure hope so.