Mike Ertel's first actions as the appointed Supervisor of Elections for Seminole County bring back some alarming memories of our 2000 elections debacle.  It also creates some frightening premonitions.

It was in 2000 that Florida changed from an elected statewide Secretary of State to an appointed one.  The Secretary of State in that year was no longer an elected constitutional officer.  Instead, it was one to be appointed by the Governor.

The Secretary of State oversees elections in the state of Florida.  Essentially, by making the office an appointed rather than elected one, it made the Secretary of State directly answerable to the governor rather than being held accountable by the people.

The history of Florida elections since that time shows the peril and undesirable outcomes of such transference of accountability.  Rather than presiding above the political process as an independent arbiter whose main goal is fair elections, the office of Secretary of State has now become as partisan a part of the electoral process as is possible.

The actions first of Katherine Harris and then of Glenda Hood have shown that party loyalty clearly ranks ahead of electoral integrity in terms of performance.

The most obvious example of this has been the continual attempts to enforce the felon voter list.  Despite having been shown time and again to be inaccurate and to unfairly disenfranchise voters who were incorrectly placed on the list, Hood and the Bush administration went so far as to seek court action to make the list secret.  Fortunately, their plans went awry, but had pressure not forced them to release the list, thousands of voters would have been improperly denied their constitutional right to vote, despite never having been felons.

Other failures of the Secretary of State's office since 2000 include not setting standards for a uniform and standardized statewide voting system.  Such a recommendation was put forth by a bipartisan commission whose input was ignored.  Instead, Hood and the Bush administration have allowed for counties to choose between optical scan and touch-screen systems.  Optical systems have been shown to have the highest accuracy rates of any systems, and are especially preferable to the still-emerging technology of the touch-screen machines.

The Division of Elections, in the annual report it is required to issue to the Florida Legislature regarding discrepancies in ballot counting, sought to downplay the inadequacies of the touch-screen system by saying it affected only a slight number of ballots, and is therefore not of any consequence.

It is incredible that such partisan politics can be played by the governor's administration in a state that saw its 2000 presidential electors determined by only 537 votes.

Even more incredibly, Secretary of State Glenda Hood earlier this year fronted an administration attempt to take power from local supervisors of elections and consolidate it in Tallahassee.  Hood has sought authority to fine and criminally charge local elections supervisors who are perceived to not follow elections rules.  The Bush administration's track record in handling the felony voter list strips them of any credibility in seeking such authority.  If anything, they themselves should be subject to the possibility of fines and criminal charges for their illegal attempts to disenfranchise innocent voters.

Locally, this brings us to Mike Ertel, appointed as Seminole County Supervisor of Elections in February following Dennis Joyner's resignation for health reasons.

Ertel is known locally as one of the Republican Party's most aggressively-partisan members.  His pattern of behavior in two failed campaigns for public office have shown him to be confrontational and combative.  Such qualities are not those most valued in a person holding the office of Supervisor of Elections.

Given his history, Ertel's first move as Supervisor was not surprising:  he created a position on his staff for a former campaign worker for the Republican Party who has also been closely tied to Ertel's efforts within the Seminole County Young Republicans.

To make room in the budget for the newly-created position, Ertel disspelled from his office several workers with valued experience in serving the public and the elections process.

Ertel's actions are also not surprising in light of the history of Jeb Bush's gubernatorial administration.  The appointment of Ertel extends into Seminole County the Bush administration's desire to have as much control as possible over the electoral process.

Most disturbing in all of this is the public's seeming failure to realize the shift that is being made within our system of voting and electing public officials.  The Bush administration's actions are setting an example that says it is acceptable to control and manipulate the electoral process beyond that normally limited to campaigns.  Instead, they are setting forth a precedent that establishes it as acceptable to apply partisan politics to the process of counting votes rather than only the quest of them.

Obviously, the passivity of the electorate will play a large role in determining the success of their plans.  To succeed, the Bush administration is relying to a large extent on the failure of the electorate to recognize and respond to their machinations.

Hopefully, the electorate's desire for fairness and integrity in our democratic system is still much more alive than those in Tallahassee apparently believe.