Jane Carroll, one of the longest serving supervisors of elections in Broward County history, has died.
She was 93, and a resident of Cornelius, N.C., according to an obituary posted by the Warlick Funeral Home. She died on Jan. 31.
Carroll was elected supervisor of elections in 1968, and was reelected to the job until she decided not to run again in 2000.
A Republican, Carroll was in office during a different era in politics, serving during a time when Broward was a Republican county, before it became the state’s premier Democratic stronghold.
Rico Petrocelli, a former chairman of the Broward Republican Party and former member of the Plantation City Council, said Wednesday that Carroll “was a staple among the electorate.”
Mitch Ceasar, who became Broward Democratic Party chair in 1996 — in the final years of Carroll’s 32 years in office — said Carroll was “very competent.”
Ceasar, who went on to serve 20 years as Democratic chair, said he “always found her to be polite and professional.” But, he added, in the role of running elections in the county “her actions seemed a bit partisan” at times.
“She really was from an era of a time gone by,” Ceasar said. “This was a Republican county and as it began to switch, she made attempts to moderate her activities and herself. It was a different time in politics, and it was certainly a different time in Broward County.”
The most momentous time of Carroll’s career came at the end.
After she narrowly won reelection in 1996, she decided not to run for reelection in 2020. But she was still in office for the ultra-close, contentious, error-plagued George W. Bush-Al Gore presidential election. The Florida results, still disputed by many, made Republican Bush the president.
With results undecided, and the county elections canvassing boards (including Carroll) were making decisions as the nation waited, Carroll announced she was leaving for a trip to North Carolina in the days after the election.
She returned to Broward, but later resigned from the canvassing board — and was replaced by a judge — saying she was leaving town to visit her son in California for Thanksgiving.
She was 70 at the time, and said she was too exhausted to keep going in the canvassing board’s review of 588,000 ballots after six nearly nonstop days of counting.
“I don’t feel well,” Carroll said, according to news accounts at the time. “I’m not as young as I used to be. I was feeling very fatigued. I was feeling I wouldn’t be any help to anybody.”
A history of the Broward Supervisor of Elections Office on the agency’s website shows that since Broward County was established in 1915, only supervisor Easter Lily Gates, who served from 1929-1969, had a longer tenure.
Jane Conner Carroll was born on Oct. 26, 1930, in Newport News, Va., the funeral home said.
She graduated from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1951, part of one of the first classes with women.
She married Herb Carroll on December 27, 1957. He preceded her in death.
She is survived by her daughter, Sheri Carroll Mullen of Lincolnton, N.C., and Bill Summer of Aliso Viejo, Calif, two grandchildren and two great grandchildren.
Instead of flowers, the family asked for donations to be made to the Western Carolina Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association.
The funeral home said a private family service was planned and memorials or donations may be made to Alzheimer’s Association-Western Carolina Chapter.
Information from Sun Sentinel archives is included in this report.
Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Post.news.