Our assiduous governor never stops learning on the job. Trace the arc of his nearly two years in office and you will notice several political stances taken and reversed, asserted and discarded.

Gov. Rick Scott’s latest 180-degree shift also may be his most stunning: After signing a bill last year that shortened the number of days of early voting, the governor last week announced that Florida needs to … extend early voting.

What a difference an election makes. President Barack Obama’s victory, in which he carried Florida, underscored demographic shifts expected to favor Democrats for years. That has led Republicans at every level to ruminate on how to remain relevant. For Gov. Scott, the calculus is complicated further by low polling numbers — even a majority of Republicans don’t want him to run — and former Gov. Charlie Crist’s recent move to the Democrats, raising the possibility that he could mount a serious challenge to Gov. Scott in 2014.

What’s an inexperienced, political novice of a governor to do?

The answer, evidently, is to renounce controversial stands and make an abrupt dash to the political center, the same reflexive thinking evident in Gov. Scott’s new embrace of public education and his “tour” this year of the state’s public schools. After the election, Gov. Scott’s secretary of state went on a listening tour of his own to meet with county elections supervisors. Halfway through the governor’s term, the Scott administration finally is trying to understand how Florida works.

On Wednesday, Gov. Scott told CNN that Florida officials need to “go back and look at the number of days of early voting we have.” That’s a reasonable idea, and we agree. But it sounds odd coming from a man who, less than two months ago, ignored calls to extend early voting, despite long lines and hours-long waits around the state.

Let’s review: Last year, Gov. Scott signed House Bill 1355, a horrendous, baldly political bill passed by GOP lawmakers that, among other things, shortened early voting from 14 to eight days, although the total number of available hours remained the same. Gov. Scott’s administration defended the law after it was challenged in federal court and opposed by the U.S. Department of Justice as potentially harmful to minority voter turnout. Only after all the supervisors agreed to keep early-voting precincts open for the maximum amount of time did a federal appeals court allow that part of the law to stand.

All throughout, Gov. Scott endorsed the shortened early voting period, which mirrored attempts by Republican-led legislatures in other states to curb Democratic turnout. Faced with long lines during early voting and asked to extend the number of days — Mr. Crist extended early-voting hours in 2008 — Gov. Scott refused.

But now, political expediency and a dawning realization about how elections actually work apparently has changed the governor’s thinking. The reversal is like his decision to oppose, then support, necessary changes to the state’s prescription-drug database to crack down on “pill mills.” It is in keeping with the actions of a man who came into office with little notion of how state government operates, and for whom each day promises some new policy revelation on the taxpayers’ dime.

Andrew Marra

for The Post Editorial Board