Sherri Hodies, Supervisor of Elections for Monroe County, joined Good Morning Keys on Keys Talk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s going on in the office.
The new website is up and running.
Hodies said, “It is, I tell you, one of our associates at the Key West office, along with the company that we went, they have done a fantastic job. All of the residents and voters out there that gave us ideas, said they didn’t like this, or they liked this, just huge community work on this website.”
Early voting has seen 11% turnout so far.
Hodie said, “Marathon, we have 5,628 of you out there, those are eligible voters for the Marathon proper, which includes Grassy Key, but we only have 606 that have voted. So get in your vote by mails. We sent 700 out. We’ve gotten 413 back. So if you’ve got a vote by mail, get that in as soon as possible. Early voting ends on Friday at five o’clock. We have five precincts that vote on Tuesday. The precincts will be open, ready to go at 7am until 7pm.”
The website has a whole lot of information about the elections.
Hodies said, “I thank everybody, for all of their their help in making this what it is, and it’s a living, breathing website, let’s say. We’re changing it and editing it upon anybody’s thoughts and also what we still want to put on there. It’s just constantly being changed and updated. Under news and community, you can go to our social media platforms, which is Facebook, Instagram. It’s under Monroe County Supervisor of Elections is how you get to it. Also, there are Vimeo videos that are on there as well. We just did a video last Monday and talked about early voting. I was right there at the Marathon office and showed everybody how it’s all set up, and then also our recycling video is getting a lot of clicks on it. We went from like three to four people on our social media account to well over 1,000. Keep getting in those social media platforms, because that’s where you’re going to see the videos, you’re going to see the transparency, you’re going to see what we’re doing behind the scenes and that type of thing.”
What is the recycling program about?
Hodies said, “I worked with waste management, their recycling department, and we got together and decided to set up at Long Key transfer station, an area right when you come into the Long Key transfer station, it’s on the right, right past the office. That is where you can drop off your corrugated signs, any signs that you have, also your post. You can take those out and put them in the metal post recycling bin that’s there. Then anything that you want to recycle that is paper, brochures, newsletters, anything that the candidates have. We also have a bin for that. That is also on our website and and also under news and community, to show the candidates and any resident that had signs where they can recycle, how easy it is. The city of Marathon is working with us also to recycle any signs that they pick up, so everything is set up. Melody did an excellent job. It was so easy to work with her. Waste management, just state of the art department and company to work with. Melody told me it takes 500 years for a corrugated sign to decompose – 500 years. Now I had almost 400 signs out in Monroe County, and the previous supervisor of elections, Joyce, she had started this pilot program and I did recycle all of my 400 signs, and I’m glad I did. I had no idea it took 500 years for one sign to decompose.”
The importance of voting cannot be understated and some kids in a classroom learned that lesson recently.
Hodies said, “Mrs. Carlisle had given me a call, and I took in my ballot intake station, which is a huge metal ballot box, if you will, on wheels, as well as one of our new corner voting booths. We talked to the kids about voting and how important it was. Then we had a cookie ballot vote. It was between Oreos and Chips Ahoy. Oreos won, but we didn’t have the vote until they were election informed and election ready. The informed part comes from, well, they needed to taste the cookies to see which one that they would like. Then we need to talk about the price. We need to talk to talk about the ingredients. And a couple of the students said, well, I can’t have sugar. So what is the one that has the least sugar? So we looked up the ingredients. It was awesome. These kids are so smart. Then they went quietly, respectfully, over to vote. They didn’t tell anyone how they voted, because that is our right to have our vote private. Then they took their little ballot, and they went over to the ballot intake station. They placed it in. We had two helpers that were from the classroom that helped me unlock the ballot intake station, and then we counted in triplicate, one helper, the other helper, and then myself, which is exactly what we do back at the office. Once all of those votes come in, we have election staff that count in triplicate before we announce what we need to announce. Of course, that is after everything is certified, and a whole canvassing board comes in and so forth. But we didn’t get into all of that with these little third graders, but I tell you, they were awesome. They asked some of the best questions. I love going there. I’ll be offering this to the other schools as well. The superintendent, Ed Tierney and myself are going to be putting a schedule together at the beginning of the year to try to get into the middle schools and also the high schools. I just want to thank everyone again for putting me into this position. I am humbled and honored, and I just want to keep working as hard as we can for those that we serve in Monroe County. So thank you, and I want to give a big shout out to all the election workers that are up there right now, early voting in Marathon helping us, the election workers that are going to be in these five precincts. They’ve got to pick up things on Monday, their bags. They’ve got to get things set up. They have to be at their precinct by 5:30/6 o’clock. So thank you for all of that hard work. And lastly, but most importantly, thank you for the 10 associates that I have working with us. They make this happen. Get out the vote. We’ve gotta get those percents up.”
For more information, click here: https://www.votemonroeflkeys.gov/