Sherri Hodies, the incoming Supervisor of Elections for Monroe County, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about the election.
Hodies is grateful for the residents.
She said, “I’m just so humbled and thankful for all of the voters out there that voted for me. I’m thankful for those who did not vote for me, because we’re going to unify everything, and we’re just going to work hard for everyone.”
Door knocking was an important part of the campaign.
Hodies said, “It ended up being 14,718. I did have a goal of 15,000. I didn’t reach my goal. That doesn’t always happen to me. I always try to reach my goal, but this was a hard, hard fought race, and I’m just so humbled.”
The current Supervisor of Elections, Joyce Griffin will help with the transition.
Hodies said, “I just emailed her this morning and just asked, when is a good time on her side that we can sit down and discuss how the transition happens. I know they’re really busy right now trying to finish up everything that needs to be done. There’s some training opportunities for me coming up in November, when they do the canvassing of the vote by mail ballots coming in as military provisional and audits and things that’s going to be done too. So I’m hoping she’ll allow me to just be a sponge and soak up everything I can soak up and her and I will just discuss what’s going to be the best moving forward. This is going to be up to her. She still is the current supervisor of elections. I just want to respect that and learn as much as I can.”
When will the transition be completed?
Hodies said, “My understanding is I would be sworn in on January 7, which is a Tuesday, so my understanding is it’s the first Tuesday of the month of the year beginning of the year after the first Monday and so that puts us at January 7.”
When did she know she had gotten the position?
Hodies said, “I got a lot of phone calls from people that are elected officials, or they know the election analytics and so forth. They kept saying, I won and I kept saying, but how do we know? I want to know how we know. I want to know, so use your analytics to figure out how many more votes are out there in these three precincts and can my opponent win or can I win? But I got so many phone calls, texts and so forth, congratulations. I just I didn’t want to accept it until I knew for sure. I’m very cautious. That’s how I’ll be as your next Supervisor of Elections. We want to make sure we put out the right information.”
Hodies has been involved in the Republican Party of Monroe County for a number of years.
She said, “The Republicans down here were just a force to be reckoned with. All of us worked our tails off and the people that we asked within our precincts to call people and to get them to the precincts. It was just amazing. It was a huge effort with the Republican Party.”
There was record turnout in Monroe County of more than 80%.
Hodies said, “The last couple presidential years, I think we were really close to 86% and this is just amazing, especially, the vote by mail in the early voting, the numbers were just high, especially on the Republican side. There’s just a whole huge push to bank your vote. Anything can happen. I really like to vote on Election Day, but me and my family did go in and vote early, and it was a great experience. You had to wait for just a few minutes, but the experience was wonderful. The people were wonderful, as expected, and it was great to have it over with, so that, then you could just go do what you needed to do, especially those candidates that are campaigning.”
Hodies’ gratitude is very apparent.
She said, “I just again want to thank first, my heavenly Father, my pastor, my family, my team, my friends, all my supporters and all of you voters. I just cannot wait to get to work, and I’m chomping at the bit only because I’m excited. I want to learn anything and everything that I don’t know, and I just want to make sure that we do an awesome job with transparency and integrity in that office, and that’s what I’m going to expect, and every one of you should expect it out of me.”