By Ron Kelley
After nearly 20 years serving as Supervisor of Elections for Walton County, Bobby Beasley has decided to retire. His retirement will be much deserved, and all of us are grateful for his many years of service.
Assistant Supervisor of Elections Ryan Messer has worked in that office for over 15 of those years and is seeking the opportunity to become your next Supervisor of Elections. Ryan is a Master Florida Certified Election Professional as designated by the Florida Institute of Government at FSU and has a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration.
In addition to these credentials, Ryan Messer has an unmatched level of experience in the election office and already has nearly 50 elections and 7 recounts under his belt. More importantly, each recount demonstrated flawless accuracy, without a single error. With regard to voter integrity, there is no greater confirmation of skill level and competency than a perfect score year after year.
During his 15 years working in the office, Ryan has seen the election process evolve significantly and played an important role in keeping Walton County elections secure and accurate by using the most advanced tools and techniques in the industry.
Ryan helped make the VoteWalton.gov website a valuable resource for voters, adding many online tools, statistics, and data. He helped implement a new state-of-the-art voting system and electronic poll registers to increase security, efficiency, and accuracy. He helped establish two new early-voting locations, in Freeport and Miramar Beach, to provide more options for voters and manage growth.
Ryan also initiated digitizing paper records. He established an online training platform and curriculum for election workers, and even manages a kid’s voting platform to assist teachers with conducting elections in the classroom. Ryan is especially honored to have played a part in growing the Vote-In-Honor of a Veteran program at the Walton County Courthouse. Visitors to the Courthouse have seen the inspiring veteran’s wall of fame, which continues to grow.
The development of Ryan’s skill and insight was not a random event. His desire to serve and help others began at an early age. During high school, Ryan was fortunate enough to work for then Supervisor of Elections Melissa Beasley, helping set-up polling places for elections. After her untimely passing, Ryan continued to help with elections under Supervisor Bobby Beasley, serving as a roving technician on Election Day, while also working other jobs and attending college.
While finishing college, Ryan began working at the Elections Office, becoming Systems Coordinator, and later, Assistant Supervisor, being primarily responsible for ensuring a successful election from start to finish, including databases, ballot creation, machine prep and testing, polling places, canvassing, results, recounts, audits, and reconciliation.
Throughout his career, Ryan has continuously taken the steps needed to keep our elections secure and up to date and has been a speaker at state-wide election conferences and meetings to share his ideas and best practices with colleagues.
Ryan is a lifelong resident of Walton County with family roots running back to the 1840s. His great-great-great-great grandfather was a Walton County voting precinct clerk for the first Florida election in 1845. Ryan credits his success due to coming from a family of hard-working public servants who taught him to always do his best, to love God, and to love his country. Growing up, he spent much of his time helping his dad do odd jobs to provide for the family. Those days instilled in Ryan the values of integrity, hard work, know-how, and common sense, which he wisely employed by marrying wife Cathlynn. Together, they have a beautiful daughter, Hannah.
When not working, Ryan enjoys spending time with his family, gardening, camping and cheering for the ‘Noles. Ryan is also a deacon, teacher, and Information Technology/Audio Visual technician at his church. He loves working with his hands and helping those in need.
When elected, Ryan plans to keep raising the bar for election integrity, by focusing on ways to educate and demonstrate the efforts taken to secure our elections. Ryan believes that it will take knowledge, experience and common sense to spend tax dollars wisely, maintain friendly and fair customer service, develop a training program for candidates and create how-to and educational videos. He will continue to promote civics and government education and use state-of-the-art auditing tools to ensure the accuracy of our elections.
To assist the campaign, donate or to simply show your support, visit VoteMesser.com. To maintain secure, accurate elections, on August 23rd, please vote for Ryan Messer for Walton County Supervisor of Elections.
