Candidate Comparison

1) Maintaining voters belief in the multi-layered checks and balances of our voting systems. 2) Follow the law in regard to elections. I have had my turn at making the laws and now I want to continue serving the public and follow the law...literally. This of course involves fighting for efficiencies while maintaining transparency and integrity and voter engagement. 3) With a proven track record as a State Senator, I have always prioritized transparency, accountability and efficiency in my work. Now, I aim to bring these qualities and principles to ensure that our government is working for the people, by the people. To that end, I will enhance the published public notices on real estate transactions, minutes of the meetings of the board of supervisors and the public information items to keep the public informed. (Note: I have regularly voted against suggested elimination of "paper" public notices in the legislature, this is an important tool for citizens who may not have ready access to "electronic" notices and I am proud to protect that access).

The people I've heard from want to know their elections are accurate, and their taxes are being spent wisely. The auditor's office should communicate transparently via the website, which will get a dashboard of the live data. The auditor should address election quality using statistical process control and budgets using return on investment analysis.

The Linn County Auditor is responsible for the vital functions of County operations such as accounts receivable/payroll for the entire county, real estate ownership/transfer records and the most well-known responsibility, elections. Most importantly, I will continue to work diligently to keep our voting systems safe and secure. I pledge to keep all parties involved in our process to ensure the faith in the system we have and which we must maintain. I will do this though increased outreach into the community through public forums and school visits, and making myself available to meet to the public in numerous ways. I will maximize any electronic means and/or in person visits or through publications illustrating our county's commitment to our voting system. I will strive to increase new and young voter involvement, particularly with voter registration initiatives such as high school government and social studies classes. In short, this is so vitally important to our democracy, I will meet most anyone, anywhere.

Lead the team through mission and values to continuously improve election quality and budgets return on investment. Results will be live on a new dashboard on the auditor website.

I will continue the tradition already established and increase awareness of the new voter laws and the need to be informed about the new laws. The legislature has made so many changes to the laws in recent years relative to the time frames from voting by mail to the other "access" issues, I will strive to keep the public informed of the changes from the legislature.

I would enhance continuous improvement of the office's benchmarks. And I would measure the needs for space and information technology.

I will open dialogue to hear from all sides, or any interested persons regarding increased transparency. Then, I will initiate collaboration from all interested parties. I will promote transparency in publishing all required notices to the public in such a way as to reach diverse individuals and interested groups. This alone should help inform the public for those with easy internet access and those without. The financial integrity of the office of Linn County Auditor is important for keeping the public trust in the office. We have this now, but I will work toward improving it through regular access to the press and an open door policy to grant access to decisions made throughout my first term. I will work to increase the awareness of the work of the auditor's office. As stated above, I will keep the public informed of our county's actions in paper form, electronic form and through the use of public meetings, press releases, post card mailings and print ads in local publications and other direct mail as needed. These actions can only enhance transparency in the office of Linn County Auditor and I will make it a priority.

Transparency through honesty and integrity. Honesty to the truth no matter where and integrity to communicate it to the public.

In the legislature, I have served on the Appropriations and State Government committees. These important committees are where all the state spending decisions are made, accounted for and where all our voting laws are written. This direct experience, over many years, makes me well prepared to be the next Linn County Auditor. I have had a leadership role the development of our states' budget. This skillset will transfer well in making the office of Linn County Auditor reflective of the needs of transparency, toward efficiency and engagement in the public trust of our election system. Furthermore, the proving ground of the qualification process for getting on the ballot, being available at public forums and many other campaign events, expanding a wide range of support from all parties, year over year, have acquainted me well with the necessary skillset to be an effective County Auditor for all the people.

I’m uniquely qualified at creating capable systems. For election services, I’ll apply a quality tool used in manufacturing processes and supply chains to measure and control variation. Called statistical process control (SPC), critical characteristics are identified and measured, the variation is calculated, and then you know how capable the process is. One example is the first ever electronic cruise control we designed for Ford, manufactured 12,000 good ones per day, and the quality was so good that Toyota copied it. Quality tools are already used by the Linn County Auditors office, and SPCs will result in continuous improvements. I’m good at budgets, and the auditor’s office is budget central for all government entities. At home, we follow Dave Ramsey’s program. In business, my customers have saved millions doing ROIs with me. Here’s how it works: ask the best questions and listen to gather costs, calculate benefits of the new (process or technology), total the cost of ownership, and calculate the return time, which usually average a 12-month payback. Saving money and creating efficiency. I’ll work closely with the Board of Supervisors and provide ROI services to all the Linn County departments.