The voters of Miami-Dade County will be asked to elect candidates for offices they have never had to vote on before, after approving constitutional Amendment 10 in 2018, that will create five new offices including county sheriff, tax collector and supervisor of elections.
Up until now in Miami-Dade, these offices had been under the county mayor’s office.
In a time where election integrity is front and center, this newly independent elected supervisor of elections will assume responsibility for the county’s elections department.
DECISION 2024
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Democrats vying for the position include former member of the Florida House of Representatives and Miami native J.C. Planas, who was vice chair of the Miami-Dade Citizens Redistricting Advisory Board.
He now serves as a professor of election law and government at St Thomas University. He was a Republican in the Florida House, who has changed his political affiliation.
"As the new independent supervisor of elections, outreach is going to be one of the main focus, I mean everybody wants transparency, efficiency, fast results, acxcurate results," Planas said.
Planas is running against two other Democrats, incluyding political consultant Willis Howard, who is a former Army reservist and has served as chief of staff for Congresswoman Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick and the city of North Miami Beach.
He said he hopes to bring new direction to the office.
"Just understanding administrative law and I know folks are voting us like we're politicians, but these, we're administrators, and I think I'm the best administrator to come in there and ensure that folks get their votes counted and they feel safe and secure about the process," Howard said.
Media entrepreneur Arnie Weis, a lifelong Democrat whose family has been in South Florida since the 1970s, is running after having first-hand experience with inconsistencies with the ballot.
"I received the notice from the county, the end of March, saying they were going to purge me from the voter rolls, because the notice said I hadn't voted in the last two elections, which I had," Weis said. "The investigation that the department did led me to look into like what's going on, and I found out about the election and I said 'ok, well who's running?' What we had was someone who had been a career politician on the Republican side of the ticket and someone who had a background as being a political consultant in North Miami."
The winner in Tuesday's primary will face freshman Miami Republican Rep. Alina Garcia in the November 5th Election.
According to the county, residents can expect to see that most services will remain the same, although they may look different under new leadership.
