Each month, NCSL’s elections and redistricting team interviews a local election official or legislative election leader to highlight the work officials and legislators are doing to improve election policy and administration in the U.S. To see other installments in this series, visit Election Conversations.
As the owner of an accounting and IT consulting firm, Tim Bobanic never saw himself becoming the supervisor of elections in Brevard County, Fla.
Before taking that position, he was brought in as an IT consultant to the elections office in Hillsborough County, Fla., which is home to Tampa, in 2009. The county was coming off a difficult election, and Bobanic reached out to help with the new voting systems. He served as a full-time IT director in the Hillsborough elections office, then worked for Brevard County, on the state’s east coast near Orlando, and was later appointed that county’s elections supervisor in 2022. He retained the position in the 2024 general election.
“My IT background provides a unique perspective, especially given the recent focus on cybersecurity and elections,” Bobanic says. “It’s given me a good advantage to have the technical background.”
Bobanic recently spoke with NCSL about the importance of relationships with legislators, changes in election administration and what he enjoys most about his job.
How do you work with the Florida Legislature?
My predecessor really taught me the importance of building relationships with your state representatives, state senators, the secretary of state and members of the executive branch staff. I’ve always been involved with them through our statewide supervisor of elections association. I serve on the legislative committee and am currently the vice chair of administrative rules, which really dives deep into statutes.
We usually have one or two trips a year to Tallahassee, where we advocate for our association. These relationships are also important because it is our job to educate the Legislature on the reality of the legislation and what it means for our offices.
This session, I spent over 30 hours on Zoom with other supervisors of elections and the legislative staff to help craft and clean up bills so that we can implement them. We make sure they are passing something that is logistically possible, and they take our feedback, which has allowed for some of the best cooperation we’ve ever seen.
What advice would you give to other election officials to cultivate relationships with legislators?
Soon after I was appointed supervisor, one of the first things that I did to foster these relationships was invite all of the state senators and state representatives to come take a tour of our office. They saw what we do, how everything works on a day-to-day basis, and that really started the process of building relationships with them. Now I have legislators ask me about the impact bills might have on my office.
What’s been a recent change that your office has had to adapt to?
In the last few years, we as election supervisors have often been named in lawsuits filed against legislation. The most recent example is House Bill 1205, which is an initiative petition reform bill. We assisted the Senate with language for the bill up until the last second of the session. It was signed that night, and by Monday when we walked into the office, we were already named defendants in a lawsuit. So, we’ve become accustomed to the litigative part of the process. As a result, we are now very careful in our conversations, and we keep up with the lawsuits to ensure that we are implementing laws in accordance with ongoing rulings.
What’s been the biggest change you’ve noticed during your tenure?
I would say probably the increased focus on election integrity, which is not to say that election integrity wasn’t a focus before. But recently, it’s opened up important avenues for improvements, like post-election audits. That was a big thing that we implemented in 2021. We moved to what’s called an automated independent audit system, using a vendor called Clear Ballot, where we do a 100% audit of every race, every precinct and every ballot. Looking at the 2024 general election, we were 99.992% accurate with over 8 million votes in that election, and that’s restored confidence in our processes.
What do you enjoy most about your job, and what keeps you coming back?
I believe that voting is the cornerstone of our democracy, and I believe that as supervisors of elections, we have to defend that.
One thing we do here at Brevard County is interview a veteran each month. We mention their medals, accolades, rank and so forth, and we ask them why voting is important. Then we share these stories on our website and in our offices in the hopes that it will inspire younger people to come out and vote to honor the sacrifice that the men and women of the military made to ensure we have the right to vote.
I love hearing the stories of someone who is 99 years old or someone who just turned 18 and is voting for the first time, and we get to celebrate them. I’m very passionate about the civic duty of voting, and I want to make sure that we do it as easily accessible (and) as safely as possible. I do believe that every single vote counts, and in my 16 years, I’ve had three elections with an exact tie in a race where one vote would make a difference. So, when we hear people say their vote doesn’t matter, I tell them the stories where one vote (does) make the difference.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.