- March 14, 2025
Despite a push to raise awareness in Flagler County about Tuesday’s primary, the election yielded a turnout of about 25%.
This figure marks a slight increase since the 2008 election, when turnout was about 24%, said Kimberle Weeks, supervisor of elections for Flagler County. This year’s increase brought approximately 3,000 more voters to the polls, totaling nearly 17,000 people.
“I’d like to see numbers at 100% — or at least closer to 100%,” Weeks said. “But I feel that we did a good job of raising voter awareness this year. People certainly can’t say they didn’t know there was an election going on.”
The results of the primary election settled the candidates running in the partisan races during the November general election.
One of these resurrects a 2008 battle between incumbent Flagler County Sheriff Donald Fleming, a Republican, and Democrat Jim Manfre. In the previous race, Fleming won his second term as sheriff from Manfre by about 800 votes.
Melissa Moore Stens will face Craig Atack for the position of county court judge, and Republican Trey Corbett will face incumbent Weeks, a Democrat, for the title of supervisor of elections.
Also, Democrat Milissa Holland, the former county commissioner, will battle Repbulican Travis Hutson in November for the District 24 seat in the Florida House.
Frank Meeker defeated Dennis McDonald for county commissioner. Meeker will face a write-in candidate and no-party-affiliation candidate Abby Romaine in November.
In the other Republican primary, Charles F. Ericksen Jr. defeated incumbent Alan Peterson for a seat on the County Commission and will face a write-in in November.
Incumbent Gail Wadsworth won the race for clerk of court. She will face a write-in in November.
Weeks said she hopes to improve voter turnout even more in the election this fall.
“When you have a limited budget, and when you have a significantly lower budget than comparable supervisor of elections offices in the state, you’re limited with what you can do,” she said. “We’re doing what we can to reach more people.”
One way Weeks’ office will try to encourage residents of Flagler County to become more involved in the November election is by printing information about the races in menus at local restaurants. Weeks said she negotiated with a local printer who supplies menus to restaurants to launch this campaign at no cost to the county.
This tactic will join the virtual button campaign that Weeks’ office used for the primary election — a link that was posted to public websites and shared online, directing viewers to information about the upcoming election.
“We’re trying to be creative in our approaches,” Weeks said. “With online media, there are always more ways for us to be in conversation with voters.”
Another strategy Weeks adopted was sending an election information card and sample ballot to every registered voter in the county. These were sent early last month, she said.
“I actually saw some voters bring their sample ballots in to help them while they voted,” Weeks said. “We like to think those materials were doing their job.”
The sample ballots and voter information cards cost about $40,000 to mail to voters, and sending the election information cards was required because of the newly redrawn districts in the state of Florida.
Weeks said she would like to see the trend of increased voter turnout continue in elections to come.
“The goal is to make sure every person in the county knows about the election, and that they know how to educate themselves to make an informed decision,” she said.
For full election results, click here.
