Michael Bryan

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The testimony of Brad Nelson, the Director of Pima County’s election department, is important as much for what he doesn’t know and refuses to say as for what he says and what he knows. The plaintiffs purpose is to paint for the judge a portrait of a manager out of touch with the fundamental work of his organization, ignorant of even the rudiments of computer technology, who fails to keep abreast of current information regarding election security, and relies entirely on the competence, judgment, and probity of his employees, even when they demonstrably should not enjoy his confidence. Such a manager can easily fail to take necessary steps to protect the integrity of the people’s elections without someone providing oversight over the inner workings of his organization, which he manifestly doesn’t understand and thus cannot be trusted to oversee himself.

Keep in mind that the improvements to security and integrity bruited by Nelson before the court, and later by the Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckleberry, came primarily not from the bureaucracy charged with the task of securing our elections, but from the very same committed activists working through the Democratic Party who are behind this suit.

Both Nelson and Huckleberry plant their flag on hand count audits as the best way to assure integrity, not oversight of the database; yet Dr. Ryan, the mind behind the hand count audit laws, is on the other side of this controversy saying unequivocally that the audit alone is not enough. The very same physical and procedural security measures the insiders now say are sufficient to prevent intrusion into their computer systems were suggested to them by Mickey Duniho, who says that now 100% of the threat is from the inside, and must be guarded against.

Nelson’s testimony strongly indicates that he was not only ignorant of security vulnerabilities in the GEMS system his organization uses, but seems to have actively avoided learning about them at times. When given opportunities to adjust practices to enhance integrity, such as a voluntary hand count audit prior to the 2006 passage of that law, he declined, and mischaracterized the capabilities of the systems he oversees to justify his refusal.

Nelson seems to have been woefully ignorant of deficiencies in basic security procedures in his own office such as handling of data backups and vote totals in summary reports, and even claimed ignorance as to the existence of a fire-proof safe in the office. He remains unwilling to look behind the statements of his employees, regardless of their self-contradictions or credibility. He has not conducted an internal investigation of a single allegation of wrong-doing. This is likely unacceptable behavior in a manager of a McDonalds. not to mention one charged with managing a task that requires the utmost public confidence and the highest standards of integrity.

When questioned about a box of tapes containing election databases from prior elections, Nelson became highly evasive. He claimed he had no knowledge of whether a particular tape containing RTA election database, which the Secretary of State’s office affirmed they did send, was ever received, even suggesting that it was never sent. Frankly, I would say that the County Attorney actively assisted the
witness in trying to muddy the waters on this point, giving their imprimatur to the
idea that the tape was never sent during cross exam. I was frankly disappointed to see such a amateurish ploy in a bench trial by a county attorney. Such antics might impress juries on occassion, but never a judge. Perhaps the presence of camera got the better of him, after all. This cavalier handing of the very data that is requested by the plaintiffs is a severe indictment of the seriousness with which Nelson’s organization actually regards the data that it now claims is too sensitive to release to the political parties.

Blake Moorlock and Garry Duffy produced an excellent piece in the Citizen on the issue of the missing RTA backup tape.

In a notable departure from his customary disinterest in security matters, Nelson claimed that he authorized the purchase of a crop scanner (a device used for reading and writing solid state memory cards, which can then be used to hack election scanners) after reading of an exploit on BlackBoxVoting.org. He authorized Bryan Crane to use the device to test the exploit, and finding security concerns, changed some procedures.

As a special bonus for those who are paying close attention, no, Nelson is never asked directly to confirm or deny a non-platonic relationship with Mary Martinson by either party.

Video footage of Brad Nelson’s testimony:

After the flip is a summary of Brad Nelson’s testimony. Thanks to Dave Safier, without whom this project would be impracticable. Please recall that this is not a transcript but a summary and condensation of testimony…

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…

Please see the Election Integrity Homepage for complete coverage and the latest news. Judge Miller has been very good about allowing access to the courtroom by our cameras. We didn’t get everything we wanted (some angles are not available due to the placement of the camera) but he gave us access for the rest of … Read more

Please see the Election Integrity Homepage for complete coverage and the latest news. There are generally just a few real take-away nuggets of information from an witness’ testimony that can be summed up fairly succinctly. In the case of Dr. Ryan, I think the most important nuggets of information are these: Dr. Ryan can conceive … Read more