July 9, 2008 at 08:04:32 Re: Fox News Report of July 8th by Kindra Muntz     Page 1 of 1 page(s) www.opednews.com

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Brit Hume aired the spot on Sarasota's July 8th mock election at 6:15 rather than 6:30 tonight.  The mock election was a good way to introduce the new voting process to the public.  It is clear the process is simple, easy, and will surely save the county money over time with machines that are much less expensive to maintain than the old DRE touch screens.  Now all voters in Sarasota County can have paper ballots, including the disabled.  The AutoMark ballot marker works like a charm.

Voters like paper ballots, but know we need post-election audits to verify machine counts.  That is still the missing piece.  System audits prior to elections are only part of the equation.

Concerned voters want bottom-line audits (spot-checks) of machine tallies compared to hand-counts of paper ballots in enough races to provide reassurance that the machines are working right on Election Day.  Our Florida legislature has given us an audit of only 1-2% of one race, randomly selected.  That is too little, too late.  It is done after the election is certified, which makes it a historical anecdote, not a tool for ensuring that the election is accurate.

We want election supervisors who strive for accurate, transparent elections, and welcome audits rather than run from them.

We want a state legislature that champions the rights of all citizens to vote, and knows that "We the people" should be picking our elected officials, not elected officials picking their voters by gerrymandering districts so they can stay in office.

We love paper ballots. Finally voters have an independent record of their votes that can be used for audits and recounts as needed.  And yes, we need meaningful recount laws in Florida, not the inadequate recount law our Florida legislature has given us.   We must never have another election debacle like that in 2000. 

All counties using electronic optical scan voting machines need to check the machine counts at the close of the election to make sure they match the ballots.  That includes all 52 counties in Florida that have been using optical scanners for the past six years, plus the 15 touch screen counties that are just now converting to the latest model scanners with new software unproven in the marketplace.   We must never again "trust without verifying" election results and become guinea pigs for a new technology.

If our county charter amendment prevails at the Florida Supreme Court, Sarasota County may pave the way for our state legislature to require meaningful audits for all of Florida.

This is our democracy we are trying to preserve.

Kindra Muntz, President

Sarasota Alliance for Fair Elections (SAFE)

Co-Founder, Florida Voters Coalition

Member, VoteTrustUSA Leaders Group

safevote@comcast.net

www.safevote.org

941.497.1764

www.safevote.org

Kindra Muntz formed the nonpartisan Political Action Committee, Sarasota Alliance for Fair Elections (SAFE) in January, 2006 to preserve freedom and democracy through verified elections, after two years of research on the problems of electronic voting. As President of SAFE, Kindra spearheaded the petition drive for a county charter amendment for voter verified paper ballots and mandatory, random audits of election results, that passed in Sarasota County, Florida, in November, 2006 with 74,000 votes from people of all political parties. After continued opposition by Florida Secretary of State Kurt Browning, Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections Kathy Dent, and the Sarasota County Commissioners, the charter amendment was overturned at the State Appellate Court in October of 2007. SAFE appealed that decision at the Florida Supreme Court in Tallahassee May 7, 2008, and is awaiting their ruling. In addition to the countywide effort for verified elections with paper ballots and mandatory audits of election results, Kindra co-founded the Florida Voters Coalition (FVC) in 2007 with three election reform activists from other Florida counties, to press for a statewide bill for paper ballots that passed in 2007. That bill provided for paper ballots, but failed to provide statistically significant audits, which are critical to verified elections. The FVC pressed unsuccessfully for strengthened statewide audit legislation in 2008, and will continue their efforts in coming years. For Kindra's work she received the 2007 Jim Barrett Social Justice Award of the Florida District Unitarian Universalist Association and the 2008 Nelson Poynter Award for Civil Liberties (along with the other three co-founders of the Florida Voters Coalition) from the ACLU Foundation of Florida. She continues to work with partners statewide and nationwide to effect needed election reforms in Florida and around the country. In 2004, 2005, and 2006, Kindra was a volunteer Florida State Representative to Washington with VerifiedVoting.org on behalf of the "Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act" (HR550), now HR811. She became a member of VoteTrustUSA Leaders in 2006. She has spoken on a voting reform panel in Washington, appeared on CNN and Fox News, and spoken before the Florida Senate Ethics and Elections Committee on the problems of electronic voting. Kindra worked in manufacturing management at General Electric Company's Aircraft Engine Group in Lynn, Massachsetts for 18 years, and received their Managerial Award in 1990. She was a retail broker at Merrill Lynch for five years, before retiring and moving to Venice, where she is active in the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Venice, immediate past President of the Southwest Cluster of UU Congregations, and Secretary of the Board of the public charter Island Village Montessori School. Kindra is a graduate of Harvard University and Secretary of her Class of 1965 at Radcliffe.

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