Coos County Clerk Terri Turi, has filed paperwork within her own county elections office, signaling her intent to keep her job for another four years.

“It would be an honor to serve as county clerk for four more years - a real pleasure,” Turi said Tuesday. “I have had the opportunity to work with a number of wonderful people in elections - lots of late nights with hard workers who are very dedicated citizens of Coos County.”

Turi, 47, of North Bend, oversees both the elections and records divisions in Coos County.

The elections part of her job is where the late nights - and enhanced sense of civic duty - comes in.

“Elections are vital, and it is such an important piece of our democracy. It does matter,” Turi said. “When I see the majority of the registered voters returning our ballots - I'm sure proud of that.”

Year after year, she said the county always has had a great voter turnout with more than 50 percent of ballots returning.

But elections are not the only thing that Turi manages.

She's also the gatekeeper of the storehouse that is the Coos County records division, which encompasses a vast array of forms and documents including deeds, mortgages, liens, marriage and dog licenses and county contracts.

“I think the position of county clerk is important,” she said; “primarily the integrity of the position and of the person who holds that position. People want to be able to trust that their records are being well kept, in order, managed well and retrieved in a timely fashion.”

Between the two divisions, the annual budget is about $600,000. Turi manages a full-time staff of six employees and hires an additional eight to 30 temporary workers, depending on the size of elections.

She's overseen several key changes while clerk. One of the largest was the transition to the Oregon Centralized Voter Registration system, a byproduct of federal legislation sparked by the fallout from the contentious presidential elections of 2000. County clerks in Oregon worked to revamp voting equipment in efforts to make voting more accessible, better educate the public and reduce fraud by way of a centralized voter registration system managed by the office of the Oregon Secretary of State.

Turi also was at the helm when Coos County made the transition to a digital imaging system that allows the public to access and view public documents on computers at the courthouse.

“I foresee, in the next term if possible, getting those images available online,” Turi said, noting the one stumbling block could be funding.

So far, Turi is uncontested for the May 16 primary. If she remains so, by law she still must win the seat outright in the Nov. 7 general election.

Turi, who became a certified county clerk through a continuing education program from the County Clerks Association, has been Coos County's clerk since 1999. She won the nonpartisan position after a crowded primary and defeated her opponent, Judy Weeks, in the general election with 61.4 percent of the vote.

For the 2002 election, Turi was uncontested.

Before her eight-year run as Coos County clerk, Turi was the city recorder for North Bend, a job she held for eight years.

Turi, who graduated from North Bend High School, is married to local architect Richard Turi. She has two adult children, a daughter, Stephanie Cleary, 25, who is married and lives in North Carolina, and a son, Kyle Johnson, 23, who attends the University of Oregon.