Election Integrity Issues Spark a Republican Civil War in Pima County

For someone who claims "I don’t speak for the Republican Party" Benny White sure has a lot to say about election integrity. Benny is the political wife of Republican Party chairwoman Judy White (herself given to unilateral pronouncements as to what is legitimate or illegitimate subjects for political discourse). Benny was appointed to the Pima County Logic and Accuracy Committee, which oversees the pre-election testing of voting equipment, and he has an opinion as to how elections should be administered in Pima County, and how they should not be.

There have been some recent murmurings about the Board of Supervisors yanking the Elections Division away from direct supervision by County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry and placing it under the direct supervision of the Board of Supervisors, or even giving it to the Recorder’s office. After the raft of embarrassing and troubling revelations about the Elections Divisions’ operation in the recent trial and on-going legal tussle, I can certainly understand if some Supervisors have lost confidence in CHuckelberry’s supervision of the division.

In response to some of those murmurings, Benny felt the need to speak his mind via email to all and sundry on the subject, and to critique any such plan as potentially making the situation far worse by making elections a direct report to a partisan body (especially one not controlled by his own party, presumably…).

I think Benny’s got some excellent points. Maybe, as he suggests, the County Registrar is the natural home of the Election Division, since their functions are so closely coordinated, and that is the way Maricopa County has structured their elections system bureaucracy (though, of course, the argument "that’s what Maricopa does" carries much less weight with me than it apparently does with Benny).

Unfortunately, Benny stomped on one particular toe by making a disparaging allegation as to one of our County Supervisor’s responsiveness to him on this issue.

Benny opined:

"I was opposed to the release of the database and requested that the Board of Supervisors appeal the legally flawed order from Judge Miller. The Board of Supervisors chose to ignore me. As a matter of fact, Ray Carroll would not even return phone calls to discuss the issue. Well, I am still waiting for the benefits the Democrats promised Judge Miller they would provide." [emphasis added]

Well, that didn’t sit too well with Sugar Ray, as it simply wasn’t true, according to him. He also didn’t much appreciate Benny, who is not a licensed attorney in Arizona, let alone an expert on Arizona elections law (other than perhaps in his own mind), criticizing a well-respected judge like Michael Miller, even if Benny claims he doesn’t speak for the Republican Party.

Ray invited Benny to keep the Carroll name out of his damn mouth, thank you very much. He made it very clear that he didn’t appreciate being talked about in such a manner, nor that Benny should presume to have any authority to speak for the Republican Party on this matter, despite his rather disingenuous disclaimer to the contrary.

I don’t know if the source of Ray’s annoyance is just Benny’s casual smear on Ray’s reputation, or if Ray also doesn’t appreciate any challenge for leadership on election integrity within the Pima Republican Party that some might imagine Chairperson White’s wife speaking up on the issue implies. In either case, Ray made it very clear that he’s more than willing to take the case to the grassroots and let the PCs decide who should be leading the Pima County party, if the Whites don’t step off.

Them’s fightin’ words, as they say. Ray is clearly sending a shot across Benny’s, and by extension his husband Judy’s bow. If Judy and Benny don’t trim their sails, Ray seems quite ready to un-mast them, or put one below the waterline.

Asked if he had anything nice to say about the Whites, Ray deadpanned, "They’re not the Clintons."