SARSOTA FL ELECTION SUP KATHY DENT AIMS TO KILL CHARTER ORDERED ELECTION AUDIT

In case anyone has any doubt that our Supervisor of Elections Kathy Dent broke the law in the March 16th special election by violating our County Charter as upheld by the Florida Supreme Court February 11, 2010, here is a letter I wrote to our County Commissioners today, with copies of letters from our SAFE attorney Thomas Shults in answer to Kathy Dent's attorney, reprinted with Tom's permission. Our SAFE attorney clarified the local law requiring the 5% audit went into effect February 27, 2010. Voters of Sarasota County have been fighting for 4 years for that protection and were finally upheld by the Florida Supreme Court February 11th.

It also appears that the Sarasota County Attorney's office has been working closely with Kathy Dent's attorney and the Florida Secretary of State's office to insert pre-emption language into the current elections bill before the Florida Senate, SB900, to crush our county charter amendment, since they didn't win at the Florida Supreme Court. That's dirty pool, but typical for Florida politics. Like the infamous "voter suppression" bill S956 in 2009, that bill (SB900) should be stopped in this legislative session (March/April 2010.).

Please write letters to newspapers all over Florida to encourage them to oppose Senate bill SB900 in the Florida legislature, and encourage friends in Florida to call their State Senator to oppose SB900, and call their Representative to oppose its companion HB1019 in the Florida House. At the very least, the pre-emption language in each must be removed.

These two bills filed in 2010 would pre-empt all power by the State in election matters, and crush our county charter amendment. They are dangerous bills. The “uniformity” they impose would give all power to the state and prohibit Sarasota County from conducting the common sense spot check audits of voting equipment called for in our Charter.

In addition, it would crush the entire section VI of our County Charter, including limitations on campaign contributions and more. These bills would destroy our home rule right to add protections at the county level, protections that are missing from state law and unlikely ever to be added by the legislature. Voters have to stand up once more for home rule, and demand that our State Senators and Representatives strike the preemption language in S900 and HB1019.


Kindra Muntz
Sarasota Alliance for Fair Elections, www.safevote.org
Unitarian Universalist Legislative Ministry of Florida, www.uulmf.org
kindra_muntz@...

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