Harrington announces candidacy for re-election to election supervisor post
Lee County Supervisor of Elections Sharon Harrington has announced that she will seek re-election in 2016. Harrington first came to the Lee County Elections office in 1989 as Fiscal Officer/Human Resources Director.
“Facilitating free, fair elections and removing hurdles so that anyone who is eligible may exercise their right to vote is my life’s passion.” Harrington said. “It is with pride that this office is able to do so while returning ad valorem tax money back to the Board of County Commissioners year after year.”
Since 1989 the number of registered voters has increased from 169,000 to more than 425,000. Harrington has supervised the conduct of more than 51 national, state, county, municipal and special elections since 2004. By enforcing a culture of fiscal discipline, she has enabled the Lee County Elections office to return ad valorem tax money to the Board of County Commissioners every year since 1990, including $9.5 million in just the last 10 years.
Harrington notes her significant milestones as the implementation of the National Voter Registration Act in 1993, participation in the pilot project to develop the Florida Voter Registration System (a centralized database of all registered voters in Florida) and the conversion from punch card voting to a touchscreen voting system after the passage of the Help America Vote Act in 2002. A transition from touchscreens to the optical scan system now in use in Lee County was a second major voting equipment change.