Election Reform Coalition of Pinellas County FL

By Vince Robertiello

"Make Every Vote Count, Count Every Vote" is the mantra guiding the actions of the newly formed Election Reform Coalition (ERC), an astute group that addresses stolen elections, rigged machines, and other allegations coming out of past elections. "If people are disillusioned with the election process, they won't vote at all," said ERC member Michael Gilson, and Chairman of the Libertarian Party of Pinellas County.

"Allowing allegations to go unaddressed would erode voter participation, and people not voting would truly weaken the democratic process," he continued. To counter this situation, ERC recently held two forums summoning enough people to fill an entire auditorium at the Pinellas Park Public library and St. Petersburg's Sanderlin Center.

"Nobody said they don't know what we are talking about," said Gilson. "It was like one big focus group." Arlin Briley, an ERC organizer along with Gilson and also vice chairman of the Pinellas County Democratic Executive Committee, added, "The electronic voting machine is a big issue in terms of voter confidence." The Coalition says the County should create a "paper trail" in its voting system in case workers need to double check vote totals, a precaution that presently does not exist since the County switched to computerized touch-screen voting machines that tally totals electronically.

"Even if votes are being counted correctly and people don't believe it, we have a problem," said Mark Kamleiter, co-chairman of the Pinellas County Greens and a contact person for the ERC. Other testimony from Pinellas voters included being told their provisional ballots probably wouldn't count; the Supervisor of Elections office running out of spare voting machines to replace all that failed to work on the November 2 election day; the mother of a Marine had frustrations trying to get an absentee ballot for her son; some precincts seldom had delays while others had voters standing in queues for hours; language on the ballot approved by the court looked like gobbledygook to the common man.

People came out of the booth wondering, "Did I vote to keep the bullet train or to do away with it? A former felon, whose right to vote had been restored 15 years earlier in his home state, claimed this is his fourth year trying to get the right to vote in Florida. "It was bizarre," said Gilson. "Some people voted for Candidate A and Candidate B showed up on the ballot. In the 1800s, people were happy just to be voting. Now, with the more sophisticated voter, we don't want mistakes. If most people vote without trouble, that is not good enough until everyone's vote counts."

Additional irritation resulted from the Superintendent of Elections and Canvass Board representative not showing up at the forums after specific notification from the group. "The ERC is a long-term process, but at least we have a dialogue going now," said Gilson, whose objective for the Coalition is not to have another government program but one that engages the citizen. "We want less government," he said. In addition to Democrats, Greens, and Libertarians, the group's supporters include the NAACP, NOW, Citizens for Fair Campaign Practices of Pinellas County, and the Pinellas Progressives.

They also support the creation of an advisory board for the SOE to field complaints and suggest voting system changes. The public can learn more from the ERC website, www.ERCPinellas.org.

www.StPetePost.com   Volume-1 Issue-12 (July 1-15, 2005) 

(NOTE: Incorrect information has been corrected in this web article that differs from the original print article)