Turner keeps increase to 1.6% mark board members had set
Sarasota County commissioners this week offered praise for Supervisor of Elections Ron Turner and his staff, along with gratitude for the efforts that Turner and his employees made to keep their proposed 2027 fiscal year budget within the 1.6% increase that the board members agreed to in August 2025 for the General Fund.
The General Fund pays the expenses of departments and the offices of constitutional officers — such as the supervisor of elections — whose operations generate little or no income to cover their costs.
A chart that county staff included in the June 16 agenda packet for the commissioners showed that Turner’s FY 2027 budget would be higher than the current one by $155,748, for a total of $9,893,224.
(A separate slide that staff had prepared noted that, since 2009, the budget of the Supervisor of Elections Office has risen 153%.)
“We’re maintaining the same number of FTEs going into the 2027 fiscal year], Turner also pointed out, using the acronym for full-time employees. That figure is 36.
However, he did note, his office hires “hundreds of temporary staff,” who are needed for a variety of purposes. For example, Turner continued, “We have a call center that looks like a QVC call center with 20 operators with headsets and computers and things.”
He also reported that he needs more than a thousand poll workers for the Nov. 3 General Election. That hiring process is ongoing, Turner added, noting that more information is available on his office website. (In recent weeks, The Sarasota News Leader has observed a box popping up on the homepage about that need.)
“So if anybody in the public is interested [in being a poll worker],” Turner said, “operators are standing by.” That comment, mimicking a line in old TV advertising campaigns, prompted a laugh from Commissioner Teresa Mast.
During his June 16 presentation, as part of the board’s first 2027 fiscal year budget workshop this week, Turner also talked about the two-step process to ensure that all paper ballots are counted during each election.
“In 2024,” he reminded the board members, “we replaced all the voting tabulation equipment, so we have the latest certified voting tabulation equipment that you can own in the state of Florida.”
“You also invested in an independent, automated audit system,” he continued. It provides him and his team the ability “to audit 100% of the paper ballots in Sarasota County,” Turner added.
After the ballots are tabulated “through a primary system,” Turner explained, his Information Technology staff “runs all of those paper ballots — hundreds of thousands of them — through the secondary system, … and we compare those numbers to each other. It provides us that opportunity to make a 100% post-election audit here in Sarasota County, which I think the voters … are appreciative of here.”
In fact, he told the commissioners, “I think we’re known across the state and the nation for running good elections and are leaders in this field … We keep our voter rolls as clean as possible.”
“You’re very humble about it,” Commissioner Mast told him, referring to the accolades that he and his staff have received. “But I know how very well respected you are across the state.”
His staff always releases election results fast, she further pointed out.
It seems that within 15 minutes of the county’s polls closing, Mast said, “We know exactly [who] are next leaders are going to be. That’s hard work.”
“Thank you so much for what you do,” she told Turner.
Commissioner Tom Knight added, “The scrutiny of the last 20 years of elections — you’re like flawless.”
Chair Ron Cutsinger told Turner, “The process is so secure, and we feel such confidence [in the results].”
During his exchange with Knight, Turner reported no plans to retire in the short term, though Turner noted that he could be defeated during an election. (He most recently won re-election in 2024.)
“I don’t think you’ll be retired at the ballot box, Ron,” Cutsinger said.
“We have a great team,” Turner told the commissioners.
He added his gratitude for the compliments.
Maintaining an accurate voter roll and plans for the 2026 elections
Turning to other details about his office’s operations, Turner reported that his staff uses the Social Security Master Death Index, plus Florida Vital Statistics and other databases, to facilitate the validity of the county voter rolls, he explained. “We remove approximately 5,000 voters per year,” after deaths and because of other reasons, Turner indicated.
Altogether, he said, the county has about 326,000 registered voters.
In regard to plans for the Nov. 3 General Election, Turner said his staff will add an 11th early voting site; it will be at the county’s Twin Lakes Park, which stands at 6700 Clark Road, near Interstate 75.
For the 2024 General Election, he pointed out, early voting “was the most popular way to vote in the county.”
He was one of those early voters, he said, as he makes certain he is in the office before voting begins at 7 a.m. on Election Day, and he often does not leave until early the following day. “I can’t go to my polling location,” he explained, on Election Day.
County residents planning to vote by mail should go ahead and make their requests as soon as possible for the ballots, he continued, encouraging people who want to pursue that voting method to sign up on his office’s website: www.sarasotavotes.gov. A single request can be made for the ballots for both the Aug. 18 Primary Elections and the November General Election, Turner said.
Domestic U.S. vote-by-mail ballots for county voters will go out on July 9 for the primaries, he noted. “We’re talking weeks away.”
Not every voter in the county gets the same ballot, he continued. For example, Turner said, with the Florida Legislature recently having approved a new map for Congressional District 16, the affected voters will be getting new cards showing the districts within which they live.
Generally, he explained, county residents who live east of I-75 are living in District 16; most of those on the west side of the interstate, except for parts of South County, are in District 17.