Please see the Election Integrity Homepage for complete coverage and the latest news.

This group of plaintiff’s witnesses seeks to illustrate for the judge that the elections division is unworthy of public trust, is marked by maladministration, persistent errors of judgment, and flaws and neglect in their security procedures. The purpose of this testimony is to give the judge specific reasons why the public interest would be better served by public scrutiny of those records that would allow confirmation of the integrity of the election process than by keeping those records confidential.

One consistent theme in the testimony is that summary reports, which contain current vote totals, were frequently printed before elections were closed and handled somewhat casually.

Sharing of vote totals with persons outside the elections department, if done with the intent to affect the outcome of an election, could constitute a crime. I don’t think the plaintiffs had any intent to demonstrate that such a crime was committed, merely to show that security procedures around this sensitive information were sufficiently lax that committing such a crime could have been accomplished fairly easily given the handling of this sensitive information. 

Indeed, handling of summary reports was reformed in response to the concerns of the Democratic party; the elections division now uses the ‘cards cast’ report recommended by the GEMS operations manual instead, which does not contain vote totals. Some of the details of this testimony, such as the stamp kept in the computer room to mark summary reports, belie the thrust of Bryan Crane’s claims regarding these reports in his testimony, which will be published tomorrow as court adjourned today right before his cross examination.

Another consistent theme was Bryan Crane’s practice of taking home computer data backups for the remarkably consistent purpose of protecting the data should the building burn down. This despite the presence of the fire-proof safe in the computer room.

The County maintains that Crane was only transporting data backups of the administrative computers, not of the separate elections system. However, it seems well established that the administrative computers used a tape backup system and the elections computer used a CD for backups. A number of times witnesses indicated that they saw, or Crane displayed, CDs and referred to them as backups. Mr. Evan’s testimony indicated that the data Crane was taking home was certainly election data on a CD, and as Crane’s assistant, it would seem likely that he would know the difference.

Again, there is no evidence presented that taking such backups home constituted malfeasance, only that it is a rather too trusting approach to handling such sensitive elections data, especially when there seems to be adequate provision in the form of a fire-proof safe. Be that as it may, it is another example of flawed operational planning.

The following is my summary of the thrust of these witnesses testimony. For a fuller appreciation of the nuances of their testimony, you should read the full summaries presented after the flip.

Isabel Ariza is an administrative specialist in the elections division of Pima County. Her testimony established that almost $600K worth of ballots were purchased in violation of procurement regulations, and that a crop scanner (which could be used to program memory cards to hack an election, as well as to test for vulnerability to said hack) was also purchased in a manner inconsistent with the normal procurement practices. She confirmed the Bryan Crane printed summary reports (which contain actual current vote totals) prior to the election’s closing, and that he also took home data backups over the weekends “in case the building burns down,” despite the existence of a fire-proof safe in the computer room. She also testified that it was common knowledge around the office that Mary Martison and Brad Nelson were having a close personal relationship and were teasingly called “the Nelsons” and “Ozzie and Harriet” by officemates. It was general sentiment in the office that Mary Martinson was given preferential treatment by Mr. Nelson.

Robert Evans, Jr. is the supervisor of the elections warehouse and was the assistant to Bryan Crane at the time of the RTA election of 2006 and was trained in use of the central tabulation computer. He testified that Bryan Crane (the head elections programmer) would regularly print summary reports showing current vote totals during elections before the elections were closed. Crane regularly printed and requested such reports and took them out of the computer room. He testified that Bryan Crane took home backups of specifically election data on CDs regularly “in case the building burns down.” He personally saw the town clerk of Oro Valley given summary reports by Bryan Crane before an mail-only election was closed.

Chester Martin Crowley was employed at the elections warehouse. He saw summary reports in Bryan Crane’s office often. Also saw the town clerk of Oro Valley given summary reports. He also saw Bryan Crane taking home backup discs “in case the building burns down.”

Romi Romero is an administrative assistant in the elections department handling public liason and supervision of the provisional board. During the 2006 RTA election she participated in going through ballot bags at a polling place looking for write-in ballots with elections office manager Mary Martinson with no party observers present.

Mary Martinson is the office manager for the elections department. Given some of the earlier testimony, many were prepared for a bombshell of testimony, but disappointed when Martinson presented as a pleasant and unassuming figure whose testimony was fairly unremarkable. Her account was mainly just consistent with other testimony, though she did contest the characterization of some procurement practices as irregular, though the Board of Supervisors held hearings on the incident.

For full summaries read on…

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