As a follow up to progress made by the local court hearings concerning fair elections, Bill Risner wrote out an eye-opening 14 page proposal concerning election integrity in the state of Arizona.
As many of you know by now, the Pima County Democratic Party, flush with party worshipers in their last two meetings, elected to abandon the most important judicial pursuit in the election integrity legal battle. This pursuit (helmed by Bill Risner, pictured in the center between Jim March and John Brakey) was to determine once and for all whether the courts can act as the 'checks and balances' to provide prospective relief for election fraud when the other two branches of government fail.
The reasons for dropping the appeal? First was cost, but that was removed from the table almost immediately as activists turned their pockets inside out. Email correspondence with those justifying their decision to back out kept alluding to the importance that "Terry Goddard become governor". Another failed rationale was "better our crook than their crook"(in the words of an anonymous participant). There were also the discontented rumblings of other lawyers in the Democratic party that the case was unwinnable. Here again, the importance of determining one way or another exactly what the courts' powers are when it comes to election integrity is lost. The lack of interest in pursuing this matter to its conclusion is perhaps more damning than the arguments about costs or Terry Goddard.
Still, the elephant in the room is the "protect Terry Goddard" argument. Terry Goddard should not be relevant to what is discovered with a proper audit/examination of the ballots and poll tapes. If Goddard had done his job properly in the first place, there wouldn't be a need to abandon any part of this case out of concern for tarnishing Goddard. The party's protectiveness is an admission that Goddard's hands are somewhat less than clean.
It seems that there was plenty of time to come up with a suitable Democratic candidate for governor back in late spring of 2007. It was at this time that Goddard allowed the suspects in this case to shape the investigation, which later became the IBeta report. These shenanigans were already sufficient to disqualify Goddard as a viable candidate for governor. Put another way, a lack of planning on the part of the Democratic Party should not mean that everyone suffers with this lack of resolution.
Fortunately, the Libertarian Party joined the case and will continue this pursuit while all concerned with this issue will help offset their legal costs.
Here is the eye-opening proposal in pdf format by Attorney Bill Risner to the Democratic Party for pursuing election integrity. Many will be very interested in the response.
The case was unwinnable?! What is there to win, I thought that was the whole point of the case, simply to get the courts to clarify why they cannot intercede on behalf of citizens who were denied their rights in election issues. I'm sure there is a more legally correct way to say that, but wasn't the point simply to make the court officially clarify its position that it already effectively used in a prior case? What's to win?
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