Instead, she said she wants to concentrate on "the lack of involvement by people in the process. It's the bedrock of our democracy. I know that sounds corny." She said she wants to do something to make people enthusiastic about voting and improve the low level of participation.

"This position is to me an extremely important one because the supervisor can inspire people," she said. "People are disgusted. And they say that I don't want to vote because my vote isn't going to count. That's not true. Everyone's vote does count."

Snipes acknowledged that there have been occasional glitches during her tenure but she said the office has been transformed.

"There are challenges that you're always attempting to overcome. No elections are perfect. It's just like life. Nothing is perfect," she said. "I hope the voters will say Dr. Snipes came in, she's done an outstanding job in bringing stability back to the office, and bringing credibility back to the process, and we'd like to continue that."

Snipes said expanded community outreach is one of her greatest accomplishments as supervisor. "We're writing the book on that. We have done some outstanding things on community outreach, and we're just getting better and better."

Examples:

- High school voter registration drives, including training students in the schools to conduct the drives. "That has caught on really, really well."

- Staying open late into the night on days when voter registration applications are due before elections, to allow as many people to get signed up as possible.

- Operation of the "election connection" mobile unit throughout the county for activities such as voter registration. The election connection had 2,000 public contacts in one year, she said.

Reesey, who's been active in the Dolphin Democrats gay and lesbian political club - she was given the organization's Humanitarian of the Year award in 2007 - had contemplated running for state Legislature.

But she decided to seek the elections post after what she described as an epiphany. A student at ITT Technical Institute, where Reesey teaches criminal justice, responded to one of her instructor’s frequent pitches to register to vote and get involved by suggesting Reesey should get an election-related job if she was so interested in promoting voting.

Reesey, 48, lives in Fort Lauderdale. For the last year and a half she's been a community outreach specialist to the gay and lesbian community, women's groups and veterans for the Broward Sheriff's Office.

She wouldn't say whether the Supervisor of Elections Office under Snipes is well run. "That's a tough one," she said. "Have they had snafus? Have they had elections that are free of glitches? No. But human beings are human beings. And they are fallible."

Then-Gov. Jeb Bush named Snipes, a former school principal and area supervisor for the Broward School District, to the job in 2003 after he removed then-Supervisor Miriam Oliphant following a series of elections problems and charges of administrative missteps. Snipes was elected to a four-year term in 2004.

Snipes, 64, said she plans to do what she did four years ago: "Juggle two things, a campaign and an election."

The office has 81 employees and the supervisor's job pays $141,845. So far, no Republicans have indicated an interest in the race.