Longtime Orange County Democratic leader Wes Hodge, 46, is seeking to rise above a crowded field of contenders beset with recent controversy, to head up the Supervisor of Elections office. The position pays $205,000.

If elected, Hodge said he will be the first LGBTQ+ supervisor of elections and constitutional officer in Florida. He has been endorsed by the Rainbow Democrats, which works with the Democratic Party to promote LGBTQ individuals for office.

Other Democrats in the primary include Orange County School Board member Karen Castor Dentel, attorney Dan Helm and realtor Sunshine Linda-Marie Grund.

The race date is uncertain because Helm is suing independent candidate Cynthia Harris, accusing her of improperly paying her qualifying fee to run and then forging a document to cover it up.

A trial is set for Aug. 13, a week before its Aug. 20 Democratic primary. Chief Judge Lisa Munyon of the Ninth Judicial Circuit Court will decide whether Harris should be removed from the ballot and the primary opened to all voters or if the entire race should be held Nov. 5.

Meanwhile, early voting will take place Aug. 5-18, from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily. Check our list for locations. The deadline to request a mail-in ballot is Aug. 8. Ballots must be received by the Supervisor of Elections office by 7 p.m. on Aug. 20.

Motivated by health scare

Many who enter politics do so because they’re driven to fix something they personally experienced as broken. So, too, with Hodge who worked in real estate until he was  diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2008 and experienced a recurrence in 2012. He underwent high-dose radiation treatment and a bone marrow transplant in 2013. During this time, Hodge told VoxPopuli that because he had a pre-existing condition — like 54 million Americans under 65 — he struggled to get “meaningful healthcare insurance.”

The experience propelled him into politics. Since then, Hodge, now cancer-free, has worked with many political campaigns and grassroots organizations to help candidates who champion causes he supports, like healthcare reform, win their races.

A call from the community

When former Supervisor of Elections Bill Cowles stepped down in January after 34 years of “operating his office with transparency, professionalism and reliability,” as the Orlando Sentinel wrote, Hodge said several members of the community encouraged him to pick up the mantle.

“Right now we need a strong person with a lot of integrity in that office because elections are under attack and we need someone that can stand there, who has worked bipartisan, tripartisan honestly, with both Republicans and non partisans or independents and has trust built up with those different groups and leaders and elected officials,” Hodge said in an interview with VoxPopuli. “So that’s part of why I’m running. Of everybody in the race, I have the most experience working with that office.”

Increasing voter registration

Hodge said the elections supervisor should be the biggest advocate for empowering voters to turn out and cast a ballot. The office should attend “community fairs, festivals, concerts and events,” he said, to ask people if their registration is up-to-date and encourage those who aren’t registered, to get registered.

He also said the department should recruit members who speak Spanish, Haitian and Creole for it outreach teams. 

“At the end of the day every American citizen has the right to vote, and we need to make sure that we accommodate them as best we can,” Hodge said.

Hodge also wants to partner with public and private schools to set up events so high school juniors and seniors can pre-register to vote. He said elementary school students should be introduced to the voting process by, for example, voting on their favorite books, while middle- and high schoolers should be encouraged to participate in student government.

“So my hope is that when they graduate they continue that process and we build a youthful engaged group of voters here in Orange County,” Hodge said.

Educational TV 

Hodge said that he would pitch Orange County’s television network, Orange TV, to educate voters on the roles of different offices. He said that voters could learn about county commissioners, state representatives, state senators and school board members and “highlight some of the elected officials in these positions.”

Many voters are curious about how elections operate so Orange TV could add transparency to the election process, he suggested, by televising meetings of the canvassing board — comprised of the supervisor of elections, a county court judge and county commissioner — tasked with overseeing elections.

Beyond that, he believes Orange TV could help residents become more familiar with other government services like the parks and recreation and health departments and who to contact for problems with garbage pickup.

Accessible voting

Orange County currently has 22 early voting locations, but Hodge wants at least another eight because oftentimes voters are forced have to wait up to two hours in line. That can be difficult for those who are trying to vote on their lunch hour or who have young children with them. When the wait is too long, voters leave and sometimes they don't come back. That is a “form of voter suppression,” he said.

Other important issues for him are ensuring that all polling locations are connected to a LYNX bus route and that these locations are also accessible to disabled voters.

“One of my big goals is to empower an ADA [Americans with Disabilities] advisory panel… to audit all of the early voting sites, all of the voting precincts, and make sure that they are fully accessible for persons that have mobility issues, visual limitations, auditory issues and sensory issues,” Hodge said.

Touch screen voting machines should also be updated with more languages like Haitian/Creole, Portuguese and Vietnamese. Together with Spanish and English, he said “those are the top five languages spoken in Orange County.”

One of Hodge’s signature ideas is appointment voting, in which voters could schedule a time to come into a polling location to cast their ballot, like going to the Department of Motor Vehicles to renew  driver's license. He said, adding that appointment voting is already in place and working in Palm Beach County.

Election integrity

Hodge criticized the DeSantis administration for making voting more burdensome since 2020 despite the governor's assertion that Florida's 2020 presidential election was “the most efficient and transparent election in Florida’s history.”

Among the restrictions, was the requirement that voters renew their mail-in ballot requests every federal election cycle. All mail ballot requests were voided after Dec. 31, 2022, and voters now need to request ballots again by Aug. 8 or risk not receiving one for the primary election. To date, mail-in ballot requests for Orange County at 90,424 are way down, compared to the primaries in 2020 (214,555) and 2022 (195,935). Ballots are mailed within two days of requests.

Ballot box accessibility was also curtailed, making the drop boxes available only during early voting hours —Aug. 5-18, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. — rather than around the clock. Election workers must also be present to babysit the drop boxes to ensure they aren't tampered with. Supervisors of elections can incur personal fines of $25,000 for unattended drop boxes.

“You know, that’s just nutty,” Hodge said.

He emphasized that Cowles, who never tolerated election interference, set Orange County up to run secure accurate elections. The former supervisor installed state-of-the-art voting machines that tabulate, report and record ballots. He also implemented a system called Clear Ballot, which creates digital copies of each ballot cast. Clear Ballot allows for elections to be easily audited, but it also flags ballots that may be problematic, he said.

Still, he thinks about being prepared if heated rhetoric sparked real life action. Fair elections are dependent on the community and good citizens who care, said Hodge, adding, “vigilantes sitting outside of polling locations” aren’t necessary. He said he would work with the Orange County Sheriff’s Office and municipal law enforcement agencies to ensure they could intervene if there disruptions on Election Day.

“I’d strategize with our law enforcement partners and come up with plans to address potential issues before they happen and ensure the safety of everybody involved,” Hodge said. “But most importantly, [I would] watch out for our election workers… It’s my duty to ensure the staff is safe at all times and that is something I do not take lightly.”