The event will include three presentations. John Brakey, director of AUDIT USA, will give the opening introduction, followed by a presentation by Bennie Smith, a Democratic member of the Tennessee State Board of Elections, who will demonstrate the ABE ballot-image auditing tool. The third presenter will be Arizona State Senator Ken Bennett, a Republican and former Arizona Secretary of State, who will explain the ballot-image legislation that he has introduced in the current session of the Arizona legislature.

Lori Grace has been a host for many educational programs on election integrity since 2004. She also brought to light the first system for scanning ballots by Mitch Trachenberg with the help of Elections officer Carolyn Crnich that was originally developed in 2008 in Humboldt County, California to verify their elections. A similar system has now been refined into a system that can be used in any state, starting with Arizona.

“We are calling our ballot-image auditing tool ‘ABE’ after Abe Lincoln,” Brakey said. “Lincoln was a believer in transparency, and we are highlighting his quote, ‘I have faith in the people. They will NOT consent to disunion. The danger is, they are misled. Let them know the truth, and the country is safe.’ Truth equals transparency, so the question then becomes, how can we make sure that the process of verifying our election results is a transparent process that everyone can believe in?”

“We firmly believe that this straightforward verification method will not only bolster voter confidence in election outcomes but also streamline results verification for the public and for election officials through an independent system that operates separately from the EMS (Election Management System),” Smith added.

The three presentations will be followed by questions from the public (those in attendance and online viewers), and a panel discussion with panel members John Brakey, Bennie Smith, Ken Bennett, and Lori Grace, the founder of Sunrise Center and one of the first people in the U.S. to endorse the use of ballot images in the 2013 Humboldt County Election Transparency Project, a citizen-sponsored initiative to confirm election results.

The presenters and panelists will look at the reality that the United States is facing a repeat of profound civil unrest and likely election challenges in November 2024. The basis for much of this unrest is the fact that a large percentage of Americans do not believe the results of an election if their candidate loses. Our new auditing tool should help to increase voter confidence and decrease election challenges because anyone will be able to unofficially check election results for themselves.

We hope you will join us for this groundbreaking new approach to auditing elections and verifying election results!

For those of you who cannot be with us in person, you can participate on Zoom by registering below. Scott Catamas of Global Peace Tribe is a co-host and will be our Zoom facilitator. 

For people who join us in person in Corte Madera, you will have the first chance to ask questions of John about this new system. John is a national leader in the election integrity, election transparency movement. He has been observing and reporting on elections since 2004 and is an expert on voting systems and election procedures. In addition, both John and Lori are glad to talk about empathic ways of talking to election officials that may be helpful. Empathy can create connections even in these difficult times. 

As we look ahead to the 2024 election, John’s work and the work of AUDIT USA are more important than ever. 

Our country faces potentially dangerous times with the erosion of public trust in our elections. John will demonstrate this new and exciting method showing how voters and election officials can use images and cast vote records to verify election results quickly and easily. This revolutionary new method will increase voter confidence by making elections transparent, trackable, and publicly verified.

John has been at the forefront of bringing ballot images into the national conversation. He is a dynamic speaker who is passionate about helping to preserve our democracy by increasing transparency and trust in our elections.

Register Now! By Donation
Please pre-register to attend in-person or on Zoom. In-person drop-in okay.
Zoom link provided in the confirmation email after registration.
Please let us know if you are attending in-person or by Zoom
and how much you are donating.

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John Roberts Brakey is the director and co-founder of AUDIT Elections USA. (AUDIT is an acronym for Americans United for Democracy, Integrity and Transparency), a 501(c)3 NGO that advocates and litigates for public oversight of federal, state, and local elections. AUDIT USA evolved from AUDIT AZ, which Mr. Brakey co-founded in 2004. Mr. Brakey’s signature phrase, “Elections must be transparent, trackable, and publicly verified,” is becoming ingrained in the language of politicians and election integrity advocates across the U.S.

 All the efforts of AUDIT USA revolve around this concept, including the fight for hand-marked paper ballots; opposition to ballot-marking devices (BMDs) for all voters; and the ongoing effort in multiple states to require the retention of ballot images and make those images a public record.  AUDIT USA’s successful litigation in 2016 forced Arizona counties to preserve ballot images and the organization’s current litigation in Arizona will make ballot images a public record. AUDIT USA’s current litigation in Florida will require Florida counties to retain ballot images in accordance with state and federal laws. AUDIT USA has been the primary driving force in the U.S. behind the increasing recognition of ballot images as vitally important, redundant election records that must be retained and must be available to the public.

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Kenneth Roy Bennett is an American businessman and politician who served as president of the Arizona Senate and served as the 19th Secretary of State of Arizona, from 2009 to 2015.

He was a candidate for Governor of Arizona in the 2014 election and 2018 election. He is a member of the Republican Party.

Currently Ken is in the state Senate and chairs the education committee and vice chair of the Senate election committee. Currently, Ken a sponsoring SB1653 which would make ballot images a public record. Link to bill: https://apps.azleg.gov/BillStatus/BillOverview/81219  

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Bennie Smith is a member of the Tennessee State Election Commission. Smith’s research is credited for uncovering an extraordinarily high-risk tampering mechanism (fraction Magic) and provides a new method for analyzing questionable election results. His research was part of a proof of concept he developed with Black Box Voting to examine election system vulnerabilities. He was also profiled in a cover story by Bloomberg Businessweek for discovering election irregularities at a Memphis precinct. Smith’s research has been presented to election officials, elected officials and at security panels around the country. www.benniesmith.com

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Lori Grace, MA, is the founder of the Institute for American Democracy and Election Integrity and is also currently a fellow of the Institute. She started the Institute by awarding Carolyn Crnich (now retired) of Humboldt County for her excellent work  as a registrar supporting election integrity. Lori has been involved in election integrity issues since 2003 and longs for the emergence of a democracy based upon the true will of the American people. She has written recently in issues that came up during the presidential primary. Both Lori and Bob Fitrakis are very oriented towards creating possible solutions to America’s many problems in election integrity and are excited by the increased amount of interest in the American public about this issue.

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Register Now! By Donation
Please pre-register to attend in-person or on Zoom. In-person drop-in okay.
Zoom link provided in the confirmation email after registration.
Please let us know if you are attending in-person or by Zoom
and how much you are donating.

_____________________________________________________

Please note, upon successfully completing your registration, you will receive a confirmation email sent to the address you registered with. If you do not receive a confirmation email, your registration (and payment, if you chose to pay online) is not complete and you will not be marked as paid. If you have questions or need assistance, please call our office M - F, 11 am to 6:30 pm. 415-924-7824. Thanks.

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Click here for Sunrise Center's Cancellation Policy.