Rachel Smith, a lawyer-turned-academic who ran Anoka County elections for four years, will take over Hennepin County's elections operation next month.
Smith replaces Michelle DesJardin, who had managed Hennepin's elections for nine years before recently being named co-manager of the county's effort to expand its online offerings. Smith will begin her new job March 15.
Her appointment helps defuse concerns that the state's most populous county had removed an experienced elections chief just as Minnesota enters a year of important races and significant changes in election law.
The Legislature is expected to move up the primary election date by five weeks, placing it in August, to give military service people abroad more time to vote in the general election. Various reforms have been proposed for the state's absentee ballot system, which came under scrutiny during the lengthy U.S. Senate recount between Al Franken and Norm Coleman.
"There are a lot of balls in the air and you want to have the elections department ready for all these changes," said David Schultz, a Hamline University business and public policy professor. "They really have three months or so in terms of getting ready for the primaries."
An excited Smith called her move "a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work for Hennepin County. I love election administration. It's my passion and it has been for a long time."
As Anoka County's elections manager, Smith was in the eye of the Senate recount storm in November and December 2008. She supervised a hand recount of 182,000 ballots and negotiated with the campaigns on how to handle improperly rejected absentee ballots.
By the time the recount had moved to the courtroom in February 2009, Smith was taking on a new role as program director of the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute's Election Administration Project. For the past year, she has worked with Prof. Larry Jacobs on election issues.
"It was a really great way to get the 10,000-foot view of election administration, to really reflect on where improvements are needed," she said.
Smith, 32, cut her electoral teeth as an intern in the Minnesota Secretary of State's office before graduating from the University of Minnesota in 1999. After receiving a law degree, she worked during the 2002 election for Ramsey County election manager Joe Mansky.
She practiced law briefly before returning to Mansky's office and then moving to Anoka County's elections office as manager in 2005.
Smith has "got a great educational background and she's highly regarded," said Hennepin County Auditor/Treasurer Jill Alverson.
Alverson told DesJardin that she was being moved from her elections post to the e-government initiative on Jan. 29, just before she was leaving on a month-long vacation. DesJardin, who did not seek the job, said the news "completely took me by surprise."
DesJardin, 42, began working in elections in Bloomington in 1991 and moved to the Ramsey County elections office in 1997. She joined the Hennepin County elections division in 1999 and became manager the following year.
According to DesJardin, Alverson didn't give any good reasons for the job shift. DesJardin said she thought her self-described outspoken and straightforward personality made Alverson uncomfortable. She also had challenged a recent job review that concluded she "needs improvement."
The election field, DesJardin said, "is an exacting business which is a great fit for my personality. I take pride in the work I have done in the field in the last 18 or so years. What we do in elections makes a difference."
Alverson declined Wednesday to discuss DesJardin's job situation, saying only that county officials view the e-government task as "a high priority" and a good fit for DesJardin's skills and leadership experience. DesJardin is scheduled to start her new job on March 8.
Kevin Duchschere • 612-673-4455
