Countdown To November

Elections are not what they used to be. Before the notorious 2000 presidential contest, when punch cards were the norm, overseeing an election was a “pretty simple job” for an elections supervisor, says the woman who has held the post in Indian River County for the last 12 years. “It has all gotten very complex,” says Kay Clem, who figures she has spent “many hundreds of hours” just getting acquainted with the machinery of voting since the polarizing Bush-Gore debacle.

“I’m a hard-core fiscal conservative and always have been, which is pretty tough to do when you go through three voting systems in eight years,” laughs the 54-year-old Clem, bounding into a conference room in her sprawling 43rd Avenue office across from Dodgertown Elementary School. In the front lobby, visitors can sit in front of one of the latest machines, a Sequoia Insight optical scan unit, and practice marking a demonstration ballot in advance of the November 4 elections. A surprising number of walk-ins have taken advantage of the opportunity, as have many of the 600 or so poll workers.

The staff working at the Supervisor of Elections office appears to genuinely love the boss, who is jovial, fast-talking, and tends not to mince words. “She has a sense of humor and uses it to get through the tough times,” says Martha Osborne, poll worker coordinator. “Did she tell you she sank her car in the river last summer? She even has pictures.” Apparently, the Clems – Kay and her husband, Chester – were at the Wabasso Causeway to spend a day boating on the Indian River. Chester was with the boat and Kay was with the vehicle when it disappeared under the water.

Read the entire article in the September 2008 issue