Guest columnist

Voter alliance is still working toward fair elections

Kindra Muntz

Kindra Muntz is president of Sarasota Alliance for Fair Elections.
_____

Gov. Charlie Crist's recommendation to eliminate most Direct Recording Electronic touchscreen voting machines in Florida is a bold step forward, but does not go far enough. It should call for eliminating all DREs, which are expensive and vulnerable to failure and hacking, and press the secretary of state to approve various ballot-marking devices for the disabled and for language minorities, so all voters can have a voter-verified paper ballot and all counties can have a choice of certified equipment that meets their needs.

Most important, it must include mandatory random audits of paper ballots against machine tallies, without which paper ballots are meaningless.

The governor's recommendations must be implemented by the Florida Legislature to become law. The Legislature will most likely follow the recommendations of Secretary of State Kurt Browning.

Now is the time for voters all over Florida to press Browning and our legislators to adopt the key measures needed for electronic-voting-machine reform in the 2007 legislative session. We must work fast. The session only runs from March 6 to May 4. Call your elected officials and meet with them now.

Reach Browning and the Florida House and Senate Ethics and Elections Committee members first. You can locate them at www.dos.state.fl.us, www.myfloridahouse.gov and www.flsenate.gov.

The language you use is important. These are the top three issues:

1)Make durable voter-verified paper ballots, machine-readable and hand marked by the voter, the official ballot record.

2)Mandate random, statistically significant, manual (hand-to-eye) audits of paper ballots after every election to verify machine results.

3)Rewrite Florida Statute 102.166 to redefine manual recounts to include all ballots instead of only overvotes and undervotes. Expand the events that trigger manual recounts to include discrepancies greater than 1 percent or that place the outcome of the election in doubt, official malfeasance, statistical anomalies and voting system failures.

The Sarasota Alliance for Fair Elections is part of a growing statewide Florida Voters Coalition. Visit our Web site, www.safevote.org, to find out more and to contribute to our ongoing effort. The Sarasota County charter amendment is still being challenged by the secretary of state, Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections Kathy Dent and the county commissioners. Isn't that a wake-up call?

As Thomas Jefferson is believed to have said, "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance." We are back under fire: We must raise funds immediately for our legal defense, even though Sarasota County voters overwhelmingly voted for paper ballots and mandatory audits in November, and even though Gov. Crist has taken a stand in favor of paper ballots.

The Florida Voters Coalition 2007 Position Paper says it well: "It is time for Florida officials to return elections to their rightful owners -- the voters -- in 2007. Currently, Florida's elections are unreasonably controlled by private, corporate interests and conducted by secret, unverifiable means.

The governor, Legislature and Department of State all have roles in reversing this unwholesome trend by returning the conduct of Florida elections to transparent, citizen-run, local affairs in the most fundamental traditions of 230 years of American democracy. Florida voters demand that their officials once again actively advocate for them -- not vendors, not political parties -- but Florida's voters."

Last modified: February 07. 2007 6:52AM