Election Integrity Tucson: strange day at the courthouse

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by David Safier

I'm an agnostic hanger-on to the election integrity movement here in Tucson. I follow what's going on closely but don't attend meetings. When things happen that merit national attention, I'm often the one who puts the information on BradBlog, the most widely read national blog on election integrity. (I wrote a post there a few weeks ago detailing the latest happenings in court, which gives background for what went on over the last few days.) And I attend the court hearings when I can.

But I have no idea whether or not there has been election fraud in Pima County that has led to falsified election results. No idea. All I know is that the vote counting process we use here is deeply flawed and prone to manipulation by people who might want to rig an election. It's even worse in other places, and we're at the forefront of creating secure and transparent elections, but there are still security holes here big enough to drive a truck through.

The latest battles are over the 2006 RTA election. Put simply, the Pima County Democratic and Libertarian parties want the ballots saved and counted to see if the election was fair or rigged. The Republicans seem like they're ready to come aboard with those who want the ballots counted. The Pima County Supes? It's hard to know what they want.

The apparent upshot of what has happened over the past week and what happened in court today is that Attorney General Terry Goddard plans to take possession of the ballots. Right now they're in the custody of Beth Ford, the Pima County Treasurer. The assumption is, Goddard wants to ship them up to Phoenix.

This is a combination of possible good news and possible very bad news. The possible good news is, Goddard is probably the only person in the state who can order the ballots to be counted, and he's been reluctant to jump in and do something. If this is a first step in the direction of a fair counting of the ballots, this whole mess could be resolved. The possible very bad news is that the delicate chain of custody of the ballots may be broken, which could make their value as evidence, or even their integrity, come into question. If Goddard's intentions are less than honorable and/or the transfer process is sloppy, this move could mean we will be further away from an honest, transparent ballot counting process. The other possible bad news is, the Democratic Party wants to view the poll tapes,which are in the sealed boxes with the ballots. The party is currently in court to get the tapes. Goddard's move may stymie those efforts.

I attended today's hearing and hung around while Bill Risner, the Pima Dem's lawyer, spoke with KOLD News. Here are some reasonably accurate quotes of Risner's comments during the interview:

"The Attorney General is preventing us from continuing our investigation by moving the ballots to Maricopa. It means we won't get to see the poll tapes. . . . The Attorney General has frustrated our investigation at every turn." [Risner believes the poll tapes, which are in the sealed boxes with the ballots, will reveal information that will point to manipulation of the numbers during the vote counting process.]

"There is a considerable effort to keep us from finding out if there has been a crime." [Obviously, election fraud is a very serious crime.]

"Everyone agrees the software used in Pima County elections makes it easy to cheat. We found out that the County used procedures that indicate the possibility that the counting [of the RTA votes] was fixed. . . . Everything we've looked at confirms the possibility that the election was rigged. [Counting] the ballots is the only definitive answer to the question.

Randy Graf, a Republican who ran for House of Representatives against Gabrielle Giffords when she first won the seat, is also involved in the election integrity effort, working together with Democrats and Libertarians. Here are a few comments he made during his interview with KOLD:

"I was working with Republicans a year ago to get the party to be more aggressive on this issue."

"Let's get to the bottom of this so we can ensure that future elections are conducted fairly."

"You've got computers spitting out [election] results, and a stack of ballots. Let's compare the two."

We have a very unusual situation where the three political parties are in substantive agreement that the ballots should be counted, and even the Pima County Supes seem to be in favor of having them counted (when they're not for having the ballots destroyed,anyway). The ball has moved down the field today. The question is, has it moved forward or backward?

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9 thoughts on “Election Integrity Tucson: strange day at the courthouse”

  1. I hope you are right that the AG has seen the light and is conducting an honest investigation. If so, I hope to see the results of the grand jury investigation very soon. I hope it is an impartial group of citizens reviewing the evidence. However, according to what I have read from Bill Risner, the AG handling of the election databases was less than stellar. He let John Moffatt who works for Pima County determine many of the tests done when the county had pushed for the RTA initiative. Further, the investigation has been dragging on since January of 2007 when the Pima County Democratic party first asked for the election databases as public record. So why has it taken Terry Goddard so long to investigate this potentially criminal case?

    So once Terry Goddard has completed the criminal investigation, the public has a right to know and observe the counting of these ballots and Pima County hand count auditors have already been trained. The chain of custody needs to be maintained and observed by impartial observers or political observers from all three or four parties having ballot status. The political parties are charged with confirming the integrity of the elections process, and Mr. Risner asked for prospective relief from the court. The court refused, indicating that we had a legal method to do this–the 5-day contest period after the election results are certified. I find that ironic. Somehow, we expect the political parties or an average citizen or candidate to get it together in 5 days to determine to contest an election but the AG has years to determine if a criminal act occurred.

    Call for the state legislature or the citizens’ initiative process to require that Arizona State law keep up with the times of the electronic recording of votes. You cannot even contest a state legislative race–they exempted themselves. The recount trigger for a statewide candidate or initiative is a ludicrous 200 votes–not even one tenth of one percent–maybe it is 1/1000 of one percent or less depending on turnout. What are the machine tolerances for correctly counting the votes? Are they 100% perfect?

    The election laws must be revamped to keep up with potential problems of election tampering. No one has the political will to do this or are willing to pay what it costs for a verifiable election or be patient to obtain election results. So we are left to wonder if the election results are the true reflection of the electorate, not just for the RTA election but for every election in Arizona and in every county. Remember the LD20 primary race and machine recount in 2004 and that happened in Maricopa County. Andrew Thomas called in the FBI to check it out. The FBI report was inadequate and no observer or member of the public ever saw a ballot again from the Legislative District 20 2004 primary race. There can be no Minnesota recount here. Our law does not allow it.

  2. AZ BlueMeanie, this is the first time you kept to the facts and your argument was well written and factual. Maybe you should try this more often…

  5. Election Integrity advocates need to take a deep breath. Stop accusing Terry Goddard of everything from obstruction of justice to plotting to destroy the ballots. You are making yourselves look foolish.

    There are some tantalizing clues in today’s published news reports. The Arizona Daily Star reports http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/281480 that:

    “A Maricopa County Superior Court judge granted the permission, though the details have been sealed, including whether the move came in a subpoena, a court order or some other form, said Anne Hilby, spokeswoman for Attorney General Terry Goddard.”

    “‘We will take control of the ballots as evidence in the ongoing criminal investigation by our office for the purposes of analysis,’ Hilby said.”

    “‘Strict security measures will be taken to ensure the integrity of the ballots and the investigative process,’ Goddard said in a news release.”

    I read these tea leaves to mean that there is or may soon be a grand jury to determine whether or not criminal charges should be filed in this matter. This would occur in Maricopa County because the potential suspects are all employees or officers of Pima County. The contents of the ballot boxes would be evidence in any grand jury proceeding. A sealed order from the Maricopa County Superior Court may indicate that a criminal proceeding is already under way. A simple subpoena for the ballots from the AG would not be required to be under seal.

    In any event, the AG has said clearly that this move is in fact pursuant to a “criminal investigation” and that the evidentiary chain of custody will be preserved to maintain the “integrity of the ballots” (a prerequisite to admissibility in evidence in any subsequent criminal proceeding).

    The AG is the top law enforcement officer of the state and an officer of the Court, for godssake. I take him at his word. It would be professional and political suicide for him to do otherwise.

    As I recall, a criminal proceeding is what Election Integrity advocates have been demanding all along. If there is credible evidence to support the allegation of a “rigged” election, there will be criminal charges filed.

    But there is also the possiblity that there is no credible evidence to support the allegation of a “rigged” election, so that no charges would be filed. And I suspect that some advocates will never accept this result, regardless of what the evidence shows.

  6. Mr. Brakey,
    What position will you take if the ballots are counted, as the result of a criminal investigation, and they match the canvass? What are your goals?

  7. To make things worse, we learned that the AG office wants to take the ballots to Maricopa Election Department. We say: NO WAY! We already know all about their operations. It’s as bad as or worse than Pima County. Jim March and I have done two election cycles with Maricopa Election Department.

    Maricopa and Pima have ‘Ballot on Demand’ complete ballot printing “solution” called “Sentio”: HOW TO BUILD A BALLOT DUPLICATING STATION THAT FITS IN A CLOSET. By Jim March: Maricopa and Pima County contracts with a company called Runbeck Election Services for ballot printing and processing. One of Runbeck’s services is the rental of a complete ballot printing “solution” called “Sentio”: http://runbeck.net/?v=sentio

    Goddard needs to keep the Ballots in Pima county and count them here.

  8. Not sure if this is good news or not, with Goddard taking possession of these ballots.
    He’s our Attorney General, a licensed attorney, and supposedly elected to enforce our Arizona laws. Time will tell if he actually does a re-count of that May 2006 RTA election.

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