The end of the year brings with it a close to a significant election cycle. 2020 wasn’t just lifted by a high-interest presidential election, but significant changes in the mechanics and the values incorporated for choosing representation locally.

Sarasota County Commissioners won election to single-member districts for the first time. Sarasota City Commission races were decided in a November election cycle for the first time in decades. The longevity of these changes remains to be seen, but the impact could be felt in both the ultimate winners of elections and the grip held within the broader electorate and those most closely tied to the political process itself.

Perhaps the most deliberate and conscious impacts were seen in Sarasota’s county contests. Confronted with the possibility of running with a limited electorate different than the ones that elected incumbents, County Commissioners voiced dissatisfaction with voters' decision to change things up. They also responded through an utter perversion of the process, but a legal and ultimately effective one. If county commissioners had to run only in the districts they represented, why not choose exactly what those districts look like through a non-transparent process designed to protect the commission’s most at-risk member?

A divided Sarasota County Commission approved a map, submitted anonymously by a local operative after discarding lines that had been publicly vetted, and ended up putting Commissioners Mike Moran and Nancy Detert in districts they should not — and did not — lose. The lines effectively dismissed Moran’s most qualified challengers from election. The only County Commissioner fervently opposed to the change, Christian Ziegler, ended up in a district that may be unwinnable but doesn’t vote for two years. We’ll see what happens here. Groundwork has been established so lines may be redrawn every election cycle; Census numbers prompting the traditional time for redistricting mean it makes more sense to redraw in 2021 than 2019. And commissioners may yet find a way to dispose of single-member voting.

But notably, opponents of the change found themselves utterly unable to respond effectively to these political tactics. Was no prominent candidate willing to move into a district to run under new lines? Could opponents to the current commissioners truly not find well-known leaders to file instead? Or experienced ones? The final weeks of the campaign were marked by stories of Democrats violating donation limits. Out-politicked until the end.

Proponents of change in the city of Sarasota seemed better prepared for the new political landscape and took advantage. Results included the ouster of a long-serving incumbent and more broadly a besting of a neighborhood get-out-the-vote machine that a decade ago seemed the most organized force in local politics. Of course, the rescheduling of elections from spring until fall was just the most recent challenge to that supremacy. Past election cycles saw the Democratic Party grow in significance. But there too, this change saw the party’s unanimous control of the city commission shaken for the first time in years.

The ultimate result in rescheduling the elections proved to be making this a persuasion election, not just one focused on turnout. Most voters came to polls to vote for Joe Biden or Donald Trump. The trick was convincing them to reach the end of the ballot and bubble in a particular candidate’s name. Losers in the election were the ones caught flat-footed, who didn’t truly comprehend how the change in rules changed the game.

The Sarasota community holds long conversations about process; among the wonkiest residents, that’s a point of pride. But these elections showed you can’t count on outrage over political maneuvering to turn anyone out to polls. Victory goes to the adaptable, those capable of evolution. That remains true as we brace for change leading into 2022.

Jacob Ogles is contributing senior editor of SRQ MEDIA.