When the Elections Commission loses focus, administrators can’t make routine improvements, voters lose trust and lawmakers must referee performative fights.

The drama at the Oct. 29 Elections Commission meeting wasn’t just another long day of testimony and accusations. It was a reminder that who we appoint matters.

When a commission behaves erratically or talks past the evidence, that reflects a selection system that prizes familiarity and faction over competence and clarity. If we want better outcomes, we have to fix the front end: how commissioners are chosen, what skills we seek, and what we expect of them once they’re sworn in.

That truth was hard to miss during the commission’s six-and-a-half-hour meeting — a marathon of testimony that ended with a vote to launch an audit of the 2

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