Mauro to run for Secretary of State

IN THE NEWS...

Courtesy: Atlantic News Telegraph - April 4, 2006

By Jennifer Nichols, Atlantic News Telegraph

With Chet Culver in the running for governor, his position, Secretary of State, will be open, and Democratic Candidate Michael A. Mauro is vying to fill that post.

Mauro was in Atlantic on Friday, as part of his tour around the state Mauro was touring the state, talking about the importance of the Secretary of State position.

The Secretary of State is in charge of three different items: business and corporation filing, legislative record keeping and state elections. Mauro, who has been the Polk County Auditor since 1996 and the Director of Elections in Polk County from 1983-1997, said he gets the most questions concerning the election side of things. If he is elected to the position, he wants to make voting as simple as possible.

"I want to make it easy to vote, easy to register and use the technology available to help do so," Mauro said on Friday.

According to a press release, Mauro secured "state of the art voting machines" and he was "one of the first election officers in the nation to use the Internet to promote voter registration and absentee ballot requests." In 2003, he received the distinguished Certified Election/Registration Administrator (CERA) title from a field of more than 21,000 election officials. This is the highest recognition in the field of election administration.

Mauro also stressed how he wants "safe, secure elections," and said, if elected, he would make sure individuals had some form of "voter verified paper trail" to double check in case there was a question in any election.

According to the release, Mauro has also been a small business owner.

"I have first hand experience understanding of the difficulties small businesses face," Mauro said in the release. "Too often, bureaucratic red tape gets in the way of common sense. As Secretary of State, I will work to cut through the red tape and make the office more user-friendly."

Mauro's family includes his wife Dorothy Fischer, and three sons: Steve 30, Nick 28, and Michael 13.