Today’s Events:

President-Elect Michael Mills presiding

ROTARY THEME 2006-07

We welcome our Visitors:

Sunita Kaul, Gregg Ingersoll, & Irene Sacada    

* * A N N O U N C E M E N T S  * * *

Upcoming meeting dates:

Tuesdays, 6pm @ South Miami Branch Library
February 13 & 20 2007

From Carolyn:

Calling all volunteers, including those who have not yet signed up.  Your show cards for parking for the South Miami Rotary Art Festival will be available at Tuesday's Rotary luncheon.  If you will not be there, please let me know ASAP so that I can send it to you.

Your free parking is in the Hometown Station section of the Metrorail garage, accessible from 70 Street.  You must leave your show card in your windshield while parked.  The garage is patrolled, so you may leave your car there after show hours.
For emergency contact with Festival Headquarters during the festival, please use

305-283-6735, Mike Mills cell phone

Call if at the last minute you are unable to take your shift on either day. 

Ann Fisher will also have her cell phone with her:

786-201-1792

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Street Marking for Booths: 

@ 4:00AM!! YES, 4:00 AM !! 

& YOU ARE INVITED:

A lovely Saturday’s BAR-BE-QUE honoring the GSE team from Italy at the gracious Dan McCrea Hacienda

Everyone wants your barbeque sauce recipe, Dan!

Please join us as
Rotary International District 6990
Welcomes

Rotary International President Bill Boyd
And First Lady Lorna Boyd

Sunday, February 18, 2007
Reception 6:30 PM, Dinner 7:15 PM /  $60 pp

Signature Grand
6900 West State Road 84, Davie, Florida
http://www.rotary6990.org/html/BillBoyd.html

Bring your sweetie to lunch on February 13th
For some sweet treats…

Listen to Miami’s new JAZZ radio station

FM 88.9 Serious Jazz

 they have a fine public service announcement that promotes Rotary

THIS MONTH IS …

World Understanding Month.

An idealistic young World Peace Fellow, a NID volunteer, a Group Study Exchange team member, a 16-year-old from eastern Europe living the life of a Midwestern American high school student…they all have one thing in common. They are building peace through understanding and giving of themselves. It’s something each of us can do, as Rotarians, and as human beings. Reach out. Rotary Shares. 

Please consider making a gift to The Rotary Foundation so that the Foundation can continue its wonderful and very important work. Any amount is greatly appreciated. You can make your gift in less than five minutes online at:

https://riweb.rotaryintl.org/donor_xml/contributionmenu.asp.

It will do a world of good.

Yours in Rotary Service,

JACK MARTIN, District Governor

President Linda:

Host 2 or 3 Fulbright scholars for Dinner, Feb 23rd

Email the MCIV directly if you wish to take advantage of this opportunity to meet first-year foreign Fulbright students who have the opportunity to participate in enrichment seminars throughout the United States .

Approximately 140 Fulbright grantees representing over eighty different countries have been invited to a three-day winter seminar which will take place in Miami from February 23rd to 26th.  As part of this year’s seminar a hosted evening has been organized for Friday, February 23rd, 2007.  If you are interested in hosting a group of students or if you would like to receive additional information on becoming a host please send your inquiries to

fulbrighthosting@ miamiciv.org
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Coral Gables Cycling Celebration

www.cyclingtoservecanadaus.com

BICYCLING THROUGH THE GABLES

BICYCLING THROUGH THE COUNTY
For ROTARIANS:  Meet to cycle at 7:30am
EVERY Saturday
@ Patricia’s (5911 Maynada, Coral Gables)

 Check out Patricia’s website:  www.Watch-Inc.org

To become a cycling fellowship member: 

Go to www.cyclingtoserveuscanada.com

$$$ PRINTER CARTRIDGES FUNDRAISER $$$

Accepting ONLY empty inkjet cartridge – NO longer accepting laser print cartridges

Bring them to the meetings or take a postage-paid plastic envelop home – ask Mike Mills

DID YOU MISS A MEETING?

Visit www.rotary6990.org

So you need to make-up an absence,

do you know what a great opportunity this can be?

Take the opportunity to visit another club, meeting new and interesting members who are business owners and community leaders.  They might be interested in the services that you provide.

For online make-ups:

http://www.rotary.org/newsroom/downloadcenter/pdfs/eclub_list.pdf
Attendance credit for a 30-minute interactive club Web site activity. This offers an alternative to making up a meeting at another club. To earn an attendance credit, Rotarians usually log on to the Web site, read online material on a range of subjects, post comments, and submit a form to the club secretary.

For make-ups anywhere around the world when traveling internationally:

http://rotary.org/support/clubs/index.html

NOTIFY DOREEN REITNAUER, SECRETARY, OF ALL MAKE-UPS:
Doreen_reitnauer@colonialbank.com

Maxene Graham introduced
Dan McCrea
Florida State Coordinator, VoterAction
Is this hand good enough to accurately record our posterity?

Maxene said familiarity usually breeds contempt, but with today’s speaker, familiarity breeds respect.   Our own Dan McCrea discussed the difference between the sole use of electronic voting machines vs. using optical scanners with a paper trail.

The computer software being used is considered intellectual property of the ES&S company in Omaha, NE.  Other than showing the computer code the state, there is currently no sunshine law allowing the public access.  That makes government the gatekeepers to fair elections results.

If something goes wrong, there are no matching numbers of voters to actual votes. The IVOTRONIC generates a report that is just a repeat of the existing information.  It will print out the mistakes.  There is no true audit as there is no way to scrutinize the ballot.

One solution would have voters proofreading their digital choice next to a paper copy.  Only 8% of voters actually follow through on verifying this data.

Paper scanned ballots allow an inventory of spoiled ballots, used ballots, and unused ballots.  # of votes can be synchronized with # of paper ballots starting count and ending count.

Dade County has 7,200 Ivotronic machines
Broward County has 5,000 Ivotronic machines

Voter turnout (even with early elections) is at an all-time low.  This means voter confidence is tanking.

From the Florida Voters Coalition 2007 Position Paper on Voting Systems

http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php
?option=com_content&task=view&id=2234&Itemid=113

Florida Voters Coalition 2007 Position Paper on Voting Systems       
By Florida Voters Coalition    
February 02, 2007 

The Florida Voters Coalition (FVC)1 calls on 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.

These are the top five measures that The Florida Voters Coalition calls on the Executive and Legislative branches to work together to accomplish, at the very least, during the 2007 legislative session. We look forward to working with the State of Florida and other institutions, private and public, toward these and other positive reforms.

1. Make durable voter verified paper ballots, machine-readable and hand marked by the voter or by a certified non-tabulating ballot marking device, the official record of every vote. DREs fitted with printers do not comply with this standard.

2. Mandate random, statistically significant2, manual (hand-to-eye) audits of paper ballots after every election to verify machine results.

3. Rewrite FS §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 the following: discrepancies greater than 1% or that place the outcome of the election in doubt found in manual post-election audits; official malfeasance; statistical anomalies2; and/or voting system failures.

4. Repeal the provision of FS §101.573 requiring precinct-based reporting for Early Voting. This provision adds excessive costs and undue burden on Supervisors of Elections by requiring a multiplicity of ballot styles at every early voting site. This provision makes it virtually impossible for large counties to utilize paper-ballot voting systems. This law was passed by the 2005 legislature against the recommendation of the State Association of Supervisors of Elections.

5. Follow the mandate of FS §101.015(7), to “ensure that new technologies are appropriately certified in a timely manner for all elections” by immediately certifying the AutoMark ballot marking device, which will allow all citizens to vote on paper ballots. The AutoMark is federally approved, certified in 34 states, and in the final stages of Florida certification. In addition, move diligently on behalf of Florida voters to appropriately certify other innovative non-tabulating ballot-marking devices that provide an equal opportunity for language minorities and disabled voters to cast an unaided and private vote.

Kindra Muntz, President, Sarasota Alliance for Fair Elections (SAFE)

Susan Pynchon, Executive Director, Florida Fair Elections Coalition (FFEC)

Dan McCrea, Florida State Coordinator, VoterAction

Pamela Haengel, President, Voting Integrity Alliance of Tampa Bay (VIA Tampa Bay)

Howard Simon, Executive Director, ACLU of Florida

Trevor Harvey, President, Sarasota County Branch, NAACP

Ben Wilcox, Executive Director, Common Cause Florida

1Florida Voters Coalition (FVC) is a group of Florida voters and organizations working together toward common goals of election reform.

2 to be defined 

From today’s national news:

Holt Reintroduces Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act

Bill Would Require Voter-Verified Paper Ballot and Random Audits

 Rep. Rush Holt today reintroduced the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act (HR 811), landmark legislation that would amend the Help America Vote Act to protect the verifiability and accessibility of elections.

"Until we require that voting systems produce a voter-verified paper ballot, the results of our elections will always be uncertain," said Rep. Holt. "All Americans deserve to be confident that their vote will be counted, and it is my hope that the 110th Congress will act soon to pass legislation that will ensure elections are fair, accessible, and auditable."

A President Elect and a Past President pose for the press