Publication:                   Venice Gondolier May 20, 2007
Section: Front; 
Page Number: 2 


Muntz receives justice award for vote efforts

STAFF REPORT
  The Social Justice Award, one of the most prestigious awards of the Unitarian Universalist Association’s Florida District, was presented to Kindra Muntz of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Venice at the district’s recent annual assembly in Clearwater.

  Muntz formed the nonpartisan Sarasota Alliance for Fair Elections in January, 2006, after two years of research on the problems of electronic voting. As president of SAFE, she spearheaded the successful citizens’ petition initiative in Sarasota County that resulted in a decisive win at the polls in November 2006 for voter-verified paper ballots and mandatory audits of election results.

  That amendment is currently being challenged by Secretary of State Kurt Browning in an effort to keep all election rules and laws in state control, and prevent home rule charter counties from adding protections for voters.

  Muntz is now part of the statewide Florida Voters Coalition formed to ensure that state rules and laws are correctly written and passed for the benefit of all voters.

  In 2004, 2005 and 2006, Muntz was a volunteer Florida state representative to Washington with VerifiedVoting.org on behalf of the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act. She became a member of VoteTrustUSA Leaders in 2005.

  She worked in manufacturing management at General Electric Co.’s Aircraft Engine Group in Lynn, Mass., for 18 years, and received its Managerial Award in 1990. She was a retail broker at Merrill Lynch for five years before retiring and moving to Venice, where she is active in the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Venice and its regional and statewide efforts, and as secretary of the board of the Island Village Montessori School, a charter school.

  She is a graduate of Harvard University and secretary of her class of 1965.