Courts & Law

‘Flipped’ votes in Pima County? Will voting machines or voters determine 2012 election? (video)

by

by Pamela Powers Hannley

Since the 2006 Pima County election, which created the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA), there have been ongoing gquestions about election integrity, the ease in which local vote-scanning machines can be hacked, and accusations of slip-shod procedures in the county's election division.

Last Friday, a group of local citizens– Democrats, Republicans, Greens, Libertarians, and Independents– filed a lawsuit to force Pima County to comply with election laws in the way it handles ballots and ballot machines in this election. This action will be heard in Pima Superior Court tomorrow– Nov. 1– at 2 p.m.

In a Wake Up Tucson radio interview, Bill Beard (who is running against long-time Pima County Recorder F. Ann Rodriguez) and attorney Brad Roach said that the current court action alleges no past wrong doing by the county; it simply asks judge to order the county to comply with state law in handling the elections. 

"Pima County has short-circuited some of the laws of the state of Arizona," Beard claims in the radio interview.

In the past, the Pima County Board of Supervisors has been less than cooperative with election integrity investigations– hence the move to encourge the courts to force the county's hand. The plaintiffs want the judge to instruct the county to:

1- Have poll workers include in every Official Return Envelope a copy of the signed "tally lists" or results tape. (This is a record of the total number of votes a machine has on board before it leaves the precinct polling place and is taken to the elections department. When the machine reaches the county, these totals can be rechecked.)

2- Separate the vote by mail ballots by precinct (thus simplifying random sample rechecks of votes).

3- Conduct sufficient randomly selected hand count audits of the vote by mail ballots– including county races.

4- Pay plaintiffs' attorneys' fees and the costs of expert witnesses and "reasonable" costs for any analysis and testing to verify results.

Why does a group of citizens have to file a lawsuit against the Pima County Board of Supervisors to force them to protect our votes? Videos and more informaiton after the jump. 

Update: Pima County Election Integrity case set for hearing on Thursday

by

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Update to Pima County Election Integrity activists seek accurate audit of ballots. Attorney Brad Roach, representing electors from all the major political parties in Pima County, filed a special action for mandamus and injunctive relief in Pima County Superior Court. You can read the pleadings here. Special Action for Mandamus and Injunctive Relief (.pdf) … Read more

McSally forces use SEO to hide from questions in Blog for Arizona story

by

Everything is on the Internet– including stories “they” don’t want you to find. I researched my Martha McSally story over a few days before I posted this– Martha McSally: Warrior woman hides from questions, constituents, inconsistencies — on Sunday. Consequently, I know what search results you get when you Google her name different ways, since I … Read more

Martha McSally: Warrior woman hides from questions, constituents, inconsistencies

by

If there were a race between Senator Jon Kyl and former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who would you vote for?

The CD2 race is just that. Former Kyl employee Martha McSally is running against former Giffords employee Ron Barber.

Whose legacy would better serve Southern Arizona? That of a right-wing, anti-woman, every-man-for-himself, war-monger who never ventured south of his Tucson Foothills office or that of a reasoned, pro-choice, pro-public health Blue Dog who wasn’t afraid to meet constituents?

As a long-time resident of Giffords’ district, my experiences yesterday made up my mind. Yesterday, I thought I was going to meet the Warrior Woman who hopes to take the CD2 seat– you know, the one who says she “resemble[s] Gabby Giffords more than the man who worked for her”– but she was a no show.

McSally is no Gabby Giffords

Giffords was not afraid to face constituents and answer tough questions. McSally apparently doesn’t have the nerve to answer questions that are not softballs from right-wing commentators. (Sounds like something Jon Kyl would do, huh?)

I had a scheduled interview with McSally to discuss women’s issues (since she now claims to fight for women’s rights, while being anti-choice); the multiple inconsistencies in her platform (believing in the “sanctity of life”, while flying 325+ hours as a bomber) pilot; and rumors circulating about her two-year marriage to Donald Henry in 1997 (what’s up with that annulment in Santa Cruz County, when you were married and lived in Pima County).

When I showed up at her office, video gear in tow, I was given mush-mouth excuses from her press secretary and campaign manager. “Gosh, she’s so busy.” (My guess is they Googled me and said, Yikes– we’re not talking with her!)

Not surprised that McSally bailed on a video interview with a feminist who wanted to ask about women’s issues, I went to her constituent event at Nimbus, down the street. I waited with about 30 old white folks on the Nimbus patio for 45 minutes. Eventually, McSally staffers said, “Gosh… she’s so busy. She doesn’t have time to come and talk with you all today. Scheduling conflicts, you know… blah, blah, blah.” Since when does a politician in a tight race not have time for a meeting with rich, old white folks?   (Was it something I tweeted?)

More unanswered questions about Martha McSally after the jump.

Read more

Pima County Election Integrity activists seek accurate audit of ballots

by

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Two election integrity events occured in Pima County on Friday.

First, the Pima County Election Integrity Commission held an emergency meeting on Friday at the request of one of its members, Mickey Duniho, a retired National Security Agency computer programmer, over concerns he had about a paper published by Francois Choquette (Aerospace Engineer, Statistics, California) and James Johnson (Senior Quantitative Financial Analyst, California), which outlined anomalies found throughout the United States in the Republican Presidential Primary that always favored Mitt Romney. The favoritism correlated strongly with precinct size, and did not correlate with any other logical choices (such as population density, income levels, race, etc).

The paper asked readers to confirm their analysis and report on their findings. Mickey Duniho analyzed the 2012 Presidential Preference Primary in Pima County and confirmed the analysis. Pima commission to discuss chance of election fraud in larger precincts:

[Duniho] was replicating earlier studies done by California researchers Francois Choquette and James Johnson, an aerospace engineer and a financial analyst. The researchers argue that their analysis of the recent Republican primary shows Mitt Romney making strange vote gains in most states' large precincts.

Duniho – formerly a Republican election observer in Maryland, a supporter of Democrat-backed lawsuits against Pima County's Elections Department and now a registered independent – said that his results seem to parallel those of Choquette and Johnson, who tried to account for their findings using demographics.

He is now collecting demographic data by precinct to try to explain his results with other factors, such as whether a precinct is rural or the affluence of the precinct's residents.

Duniho suspects that the patterns he found show a 10 percent flip of votes in favor of the Republican candidate in the 2010 race between Raúl Grijalva and Ruth McClung and the race between Gabrielle Giffords and Jesse Kelly the same year, as well as votes switched to benefit Romney in the Republican primary.

"The problem is figuring out what the statistical evidence does mean," Duniho said. "The computer is a black box. It is very easy for the guy who wrote the program to do just about anything."

At the emergency meeting on Friday, the Pima County Election Integrity Commission voted unanimously in favor of Mickey Duniho's recommendations to the Pima County Board of Supervisors, which must still act on the Commission recommendations.