Sherri Hodies, Monroe County Supervisor of Elections, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s going on with elections.
Hodies was elected last November.
She said, “The Monroe County Election team is just awesome. I’m actually up here in Tallahassee. I’m going through new supervisor training. A lot of laws have been clarified to me, a lot of questions answered, and next week, I’m going to be beginning another promise that I made to the voters, which is to become certified in running elections. It’s a two year program, and I start next week. I’m sitting right now in the voter registration system office, and here is where the voter registration system will be explained to us in detail, and we’ll capture a lot more of the questions that many of us in the counties have right now. It’s very exciting to start initiating the things that I promised the voters.”
Hodies will also be going to Dominion, where the election machines are manufactured.
She said, “I’m so excited about doing that too. I talked with the voters and said, I think it’s very important that any equipment that we have like this VR system. Well, here I sit at the VR systems offices, I want to understand that. That’s not something that was on the agenda for supervisor training. It’s something that some of us reached out and here we are, and in the same light, I said I was going to go to Dominion to look at their manufacturing processes of the equipment. And sure enough, I talked to the Dominion folks, and I’ll be going to Denver here in about a couple weeks, and I’ll be reporting back on what I see and what I think about it. But something that I am really excited about is almost a month to the day, we were all sworn in, and I just was not sworn in. I asked my team if they would give me the honor and pleasure of being sworn in with me, and they were so excited. We just had such a wonderful day that day. Judge Wilson did the swearing in of my entire team, so there are 10 associates and then myself and I promoted Miss Stacy to Assistant Supervisor of Elections, and it was greatly deserved and of course, she’s doing a great job, as is the other associates.”
The staff of the office was retained.
Hodies said, “Of course. The election team in Monroe County, these 10 associates are absolutely awesome. They work their tails off for the Monroe County voters and the voters don’t even know that. Loyalty, loyalty, loyalty is what I was told when I met with them. Their loyalty is to all of you in Monroe County and it is unprecedented. There is absolutely no way I would not want to lose any of them and they know that. They know how important they are to me, and in that importance is how we build the team together. We’re having team meetings once a month where all three offices get together in one location. It is true, as I figured, that they have a lot of ideas, and they want to implement these ideas, and they’re being given the freedom to do so, and some of those ideas are moving into the 21st century. As I said in the campaign, I want to make sure that we’re going to look at everything within the offices, and if there’s something that needs to be moved into the 21st century, we’re going to do it. Well, voila. These associates have unbelievable ideas, and I’m just so proud of them. What I have to do is just listen to them, make sure it’s the right thing to do, look at the statutes, look at the laws, and then start implementing and we are beginning to implement their ideas, and we’re all excited about that.”
Even during off election years, the office is busy.
Hodie said, “During the off years, as I was told by the election professionals, they’ve got a lot of work to do. Right now they’re cleaning voter rolls, they’re going through list maintenance, they’re doing a lot of things, and they’re preparing for two potential elections that we’re going to have this year, one in Marathon and one in Layton. So we don’t just not do anything during these odd years. In addition, every one of these associates want to be educated. They want to go to training classes. They want to go to the Summer Conference and be able to network and build relationships and partnerships with the very counties that we all serve with and that’s happening, that is happening. We are all going to Summer Conference, and I will be starting four, if we can, into education training to be certified as election professionals. One other thing that I promised is to look at security. I have been in discussions with Homeland Security, with the FBI, with CISA, which is a cyber security infrastructure, which is a division of the federal government, and we are adding three levels of security and three levels of encryption. It’s happening. I mean, we have a great security within the offices and within our servers, but we’re going to add three more levels, and then we’re going to have Homeland Security come down and do a penetration test. Election officials can get bumped up from being two years down on the list of CISA, we have been bumped up. Monroe County has been bumped up, and that penetration test is going to begin in the next few months, where we actually come in and test our security. All seven countries have been marked that none of their stuff can come into the servers. Most of those were already marked, and I added 21 more countries to that security and encryption of anything coming in to our servers. I called both chairs of the Democrat and Republican Party. I promised the voters I would be non partisan, and it’s not hard to do, not when you have the passion and the excitement of this job and the people that I serve with, and so both of the chairs and I are going to be talking individually and what that does for us is I can take their input, and I can take that to Tallahassee. I’m up here meeting with a lot of stakeholders. They want to know, what does Monroe County think? So I’m going to be meeting with the Democrat side and the Republican side, and I’m going to capture their voices, their opinions, and I’m taking it right up here to Tallahassee. It’s very important that the voters know that their voices are going to be heard, and this is one way that we can do it.”
The list of voters is updated on the website.
Hodies said, “Right now, the banner says that the website is under construction, and it is under construction on the backside. If anybody has any ideas of what they would like to see, I will be talking to both party chairs about the website as well, incorporating their ideas into the rebuilding, revamping of the website. So if any of your listeners would like to call me or email me with their ideas, please do so. It’s going to be an ongoing project for about four months. We’ve got to do a lot to that website on the backside, and then in about, I don’t know, four to six months, the voters are going to see a new and improved website that has their input into this website. Tell everyone to come in and make an appointment with us or just show up. My goal is to take 10 people a quarter through the Key West offices, where the hub of all the activity is, and I’m already up to 22. So help me to keep busting down my goals, and achieving, or at least going on and beyond. So give me a call, come in and see us. We would love to just open up the doors and show you everything that is in that office. I thank everyone for putting me in this position. I love this job, and I want to do the right thing. I want to do good things, and all of my team wants the same thing. We want your voices to be heard in the decision making that we must do, even all the way down to a website. I want the voters to be involved. So please join me at the office. Call me anytime, and we’ll get your input and move forward.”
For more information, click here: https://www.keyselections.org/