“I stand corrected.”
actually, i had never heard of the Public Administrator being elected either ... in most states, the local Public Administrator is appointed by the local court; apparently in a few states it’s an elected position ...
Estates without a vigilant heir and a protective judge are always a temptation as a chance for insiders to loot. Years ago, before the rules were tightened, my father was astonished as a chief circuit judge to see the lush fees that estates routinely generated for lawyers, appraisers, and administrators. A handful of eager judges always jockeyed to be assigned to the probate division, so my father’s solution was to assign honest new judges and rotate them out every year.