March 11, 2024 (Orange County, FL) – There’s a new supervisor of elections in Orange County. With less than three weeks before an election, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on March 4 announced that he was appointing Glen Gilzean as the new supervisor of elections.

Former Supervisor of Elections Bill Cowles retired on January 31, 2024 – about one year before his term was to end, leaving the public office vacant. In an initial public release, Cowles said in part, “it is time to pass the torch and retire to private life and enjoy time with my wife and four grandsons.” He is the longest serving supervisor of elections in the county, according to the elections office.

The appointee’s name may sound familiar because he was most recently selected by Gov. DeSantis as Administrator of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, the former Reedy Creek Improvement District (which was mainly controlled by The Walt Disney Co.) Gilzean had previously worked as the Chief Executive Officer of the Central Florida Urban League.

This appointment comes at a crucial time for the elections office, which is the 5th largest county elections office in the state.

This is a presidential election year and early voting has already started for Florida’s Presidential Preference Primary election and local municipal elections on next Tuesday, March 19. It’s no secret that this is a majority Democratic county and Cowles is a registered Democrat. Reports question why the governor selected Gilzean, a fellow Republican, who has no prior elections office experience.

Also, the country is watching a twice impeached former president, who’s defending himself in four criminal indictments, campaign against the current president seeking a second term. Presidential elections tend to attract the most votes of all elections.

Cowles first announced his retirement in February 2023 and said it would be effective at the end of his term – January 6, 2025. But then there was a shift. Cowles, in his official letter of retirement to Gov. DeSantis, said he was leaving effective, January 31, 2024.

That’s right – a year early, leaving the vacancy in the public office. Cowles said in the letter that he was leaving the elections office “in capable hands of a team with a combined 425+ years of election experience” and that was a “source of great confidence.”

The governor appointed Gilzean.

According to news reports, Gilzean said perhaps the governor sees how he can build bridges. Gilzean now has two jobs: administrator of the oversight district and supervisor of elections, according to reports.

Gilzean said in a local television news interview that his goal was “to bring transparency to our elections cycle.”

He praised Cowles yet said it’s “a general distrust nationwide that has him [Gilzean] focusing on Orange County’s voting process.” The report said one of his goals is to show the process of counting votes on Orange TV and social media.

He has broad shoulders to stand on because of Cowles’ 34 years of service at the elections office. Starting out as chief deputy under then-Supervisor Betty Carter, Cowles was elected as the supervisor in 1996. He has been re-elected in every election since.

According to the elections office: “Cowles has played a pivotal role in advancing election administration technology and cybersecurity. From paper-based voting machines in the 1990s to the implementation of Early Voting after the 2000 election, the switch from absentee to Vote-by-Mail and advanced cyber-technologies in the 2020s, he ensured Orange County stayed at the forefront of innovation, while always keeping a paper trail for Orange County voters – ballots in Orange County have always been paper with optical scan…

“Among his proudest accomplishments are the Voter Registration Helpline created in 1999 in partnership with local TV news outlets and his legacy project, Adopt-A-Precinct.”

Before the new year started, eight people filed to run for the vacant seat. One withdrew his candidacy for the November race.

Sources: Orange County Supervisor of Elections, WESH 2 news online (Nancy Alvarez, anchor, March 4, 2024), Tallahassee Democrat (C.A. Bridges, USA Today Network – Florida, March 5, 2024) and fl.gov (Governor’s Staff, March 4, 2024).