(C) Florida Phoenix This story was originally published by Florida Phoenix and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . ‘Voter Confidence Tour’ of Florida supervisor of elections offices kicks off in St. Petersburg [1] ['Mitch Perry', 'More From Author', '- October'] Date: 2022-10-25 Following unprecedented levels of misinformation about election security during the country’s 2020 election, Florida Democrats and Republicans alike have formed to build voter confidence in 2022 elections systems, starting Tuesday with a tour of supervisors of elections offices in Central Florida. The Florida Resiliency and Fair Elections Network Voter Confidence Tour kicked off its first event at the Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections office. It’s the first of five designated stops by the group that was formed from an initiative from The Carter Center in Atlanta and Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy in Houston. “The goal is we’re taking misinformation back,” said Jennifer Webb, a former Democratic Florida House member from Pinellas who is coordinating the tour with former Ocala Republican state House Rep. Kurt Kelly. “People have their own social networks that they can tap into. But people who are on the ground are the best folks to actually help get accurate information about our election processes out, which instills confidence in our election process and combats mis and disinformation that starts circulating the closer we get to Election Day,” Webb said. About a dozen members of the public — both Democrats and GOP members — were part of the tour of the Pinellas County SOE’s office. The Pinellas office was buzzing with activity, with early voting now underway and mail-in ballots arriving daily at the center. Florida election officials have been inundated with demands for audits from conservative voting rights groups since the 2020 election, though the state had one of the cleanest elections in the country two years ago, when Donald Trump defeated Joe Biden. In response to those calls for audits, Marion County Elections Supervisor Wesley Wilcox, then the president of the Florida Supervisors of Elections, wrote a letter last fall backed by the other 66 supervisors of elections in the state that referred to the “misinformation, disinformation and malinformation” that has flourished since the 2020 election. “We are dedicated to the cause of election integrity, ensuring that every eligible voter’s ballot is counted accurately and that no fraud takes place,” the letter read. “But false claims of fraud do not strengthen our elections. Instead, they degrade confidence in the institutions, and discourage citizen participation in our democracy.” Wilcox added that many local supervisors of elections in Florida had been threatened “by our fellow citizens who have been led astray by these deceptions.” Since 2020, the GOP-led Legislature has enacted voting restrictions in 2021 and in the 2022 session and established the Office of Election Crimes and Security to investigate election law violations. But, “This is the people’s process,” said Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections Julie Marcus in welcoming visitors to the nearly hour-long tour. “This is a very transparent process. We want folks to be educated about it. We want folks to see this up front and personal.” The tour was scheduled to go to Orange County later Tuesday, and it will visit the supervisor of elections offices in Lake, Marion and Hillsborough counties in the coming week. [END] --- [1] Url: https://floridaphoenix.com/2022/10/25/voter-confidence-tour-of-florida-supervisor-of-elections-offices-kicks-off-in-st-petersburg/ Published and (C) by Florida Phoenix Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/floridaphoenix/