Arizona Election Fraud: Is Arizona's Secretary of State Feigning Ignorance Over Terry Goddard's RTA Investigation?

J.T. Waldron

Arizona's Secretary of State's office has issued a surprising answer to Supervisor Ramon Valadez's request for ballot scanning.  Contrary to what has been publicly revealed and analyzed in Arizona Attorney General's public recount of the 2006 RTA election, Arizona's Secretary of State's office issued a memo citing the "accuracy" of Goddard's recount as a reason to forego graphic scanning of ballots.

The key quote in the document is as follows:

"The Secretary of State's office has viewed the idea of ballot scanning as a way to further audit our elections process. However, recent events (the Prop. 112 recount, Attorney General Goddard's evaluation of the RTA election, and the 2012 hand count results) have once again demonstrated that our election machines are incredibly accurate and reliable. Therefore, at this time, I don't believe that it is prudent to spend resources on creating an audit for a process that is already audited."

Perhaps they aren't aware of the chimpanzee hacking the very same GEM's elections system, but we do know that it's incredibly naive to suggest that the need for election audits could only be defined by the potential accuracy and reliability of the machines - not the people running the machines.

So why would the Secretary of State choose to mislead the public with a letter alluding to "accuracy" in Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard's RTA investigation?

It was Goddard's ill-faited recount of the 2006 RTA election that became part of the legal argument for prospective relief in rigged elections which won an appellate court decision in 2010.   

There were so many problems with Terry Goddard's investigation that election integrity groups AUDITAZ and Voters Unite! issued a twelve page report outlining significant discrepancies between the County's canvass and Goddard's hand count. By what measure does the Secretary of State cite Goddard's hand count as sufficiently accurate to forego meaningful audits? We know that federal guidelines require accuracy within a tolerance of 1 in 500,000. Goddard's recount had:

159 precincts missing 1,541 ballots
126 precincts that had 389 ballots too many
1,152 total ballots missing.

Goddard proclaimed in his press conference that they did such a good job, they found 63 additional ballots. Evidently, this was supposed to distract the public from the fact their count was missing four precinct's worth of ballots.

Goddard's investigation was so bad it garnered national attention on the Mike Malloy show once it was discovered that over a third of the poll tapes (that Goddard refused to inspect) were missing.

The missing poll tapes strongly correspond with electronic records of the RTA election showing memory card re-uploads characteristic of an attempt to pre-program memory cards.

From the perspective of a statistical analysis, one only has to consider the odds of the same precincts experiencing the same re-upload errors correlating to the same missing poll tapes.

Goddard had also refused to perform a forensic exam of the ballots, despite a previous move by the county to compromise court evidence. On the day of his press conference, Goddard acknowledged to the public on the John C. Scott show that he was aware of Pima County violating a court order by compromising evidence in the county vault.

Adding to the need for a forensic exam, court testimony indicated that no adequate protection of the stored RTA ballots took place until a court order was issued in 2011.

Attorney General Terry Goddard clearly moved beyond what is considered 'executive discretion' and served in some capacity to ensure Pima County's right to commit election fraud.

When the Secretary of State's office cites Goddard's work as cause to forego graphic scans as a safeguard against election fraud, they are placing themselves in the same camp, especially when Pima County is now the main obstacle to a forensic exam of the RTA ballots.

John Moffatt's name is all over the I-Beta report.
Moffatt represents the suspect in this investigation.

Terry Goddard's investigation into the RTA election showed early signs of compromise as the suspects in the investigation (Pima County) were given the opportunity to shape the investigation. This took place through Pima County employee John Moffatt, who was afforded the opportunity to make himself an inextricable part of the report created by the independent data firm, I-Beta. Moffatt was also named in the I-Beta report providing many ineffectual tests that were certain to be meaningless in the first half of Goddard's investigation. Since Goddard stated in public that he was aware of Moffatt being caught with his hand in the 'evidence cookie jar',the decision to include Moffatt in this process demonstrates highly questionable judgment. By this time, it was clear that John Moffatt, working directly under Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry, was responsible for the convoluted logic that ultimately cost Pima County over one million dollars in legal fees resisting disclosure of public records.

Goddard continued coddling the suspects as he refused to provide the results of the I-Beta report to those who filed the initial complaint, but let the suspect (Pima County) receive a copy and subsequently instructed the suspect not to provide a copy to those who filed the initial complaint.

These conflicts of interest were so widely publicized it would be difficult for the Secretary of State's office to make a credible claim of ignorance.

The Secretary of State's office should direct its attention to the money being wasted by Pima County as they use every legal measure permissible to stave off a forensic exam of the RTA ballots.

Pima County's Superior court judges have been ruling in defiance of the 2010 appellate court decision granting jurisdiction for prospective relief in rigged elections.

Before any court orders affecting election procedures are issued, the hearing for prospective relief needs to complete the fundamental tasks ignored by Attorney General Terry Goddard. The court must allow for the actual audit of the ballots (comparing, for the first time, one set of numbers to another set of numbers) and a forensic examination of the ballots. In fact, if the audit and forensic exam do not turn up evidence of foul play, the court does not have sufficient cause to issue orders for prospective relief. That outcome would end the case.

So why is Pima County the primary obstacle to this investigation?

All local media outlets fail to articulate this inescapably simple resolution that Pima County avoids. Everyone endowed with basic cognitive skills is left with the uncomfortable realization that Pima County has been caught cheating and they are staving off the inevitable with taxpayer's dollars.

If the Secretary of State's office is so confident in Terry Goddard's investigation of the 2006 RTA Ballots, they should encourage Pima County to stop wasting taxpayers dollars and to stop obstructing the appellate court ruling for prospective relief.  That way, the Secretary of State's office could demonstrate leadership in state elections instead of what appears to be an elections 'circle jerk'.

Arizona Election Fraud: Supervisors Accept County Shenanigans, Reject a Proper Audit

J.T. Waldron

The Pima County Board of Supervisors refused to conduct a proper hand-count audit of the 2012 general election ballots. This decision was made despite seasoned statisticians and computer experts in its own Election Integrity Commission indicating that the county's elections are not verifiable in their current state.

The primary reason? Timing. Pima County's use of this rationale is ironic because it appears that the county was in complete control its timing. As EIC member Mickey Duniho states in reference to Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry:

"Mr. Huckelberry unilaterally postponed the recommendation without consulting or informing the Election Integrity Commission. This violated the Commission’s right to advise the Board of Supervisors without interference, and it also violated basic rules of courtesy."

This postponement plays a role in solidifying the board's argument that 'it's too late'.

Huckelberry's recent memo, which is rife with distortions and errors, states that it's impossible to do a hand count audit. Such hyperbole was thoroughly eviscerated by Mickey Duniho's point by point response to the erroneous memo. Duniho provided his rebuttal in writing to each member of the board of supervisors.

"Your elections are being run by a sociopath," said EIC member Jim March. Elections Director Brad Nelson was held under a burning magnifying glass in the most recent Board of Supervisors meeting as March leveled a series of new charges against Nelson. First, March states that Nelson had his county-issued credit card yanked for fraud, yet he still keeps his job.

Other charges had to do with Nelson's management style with his employers. According to March, employees are willing to recall how they were retained because it was easy for Nelson to "make them cry" and "that's something he needed to do on occasion". Finally, March accused Nelson of breaking the law as he states that Nelson would ask temporary staff and poll workers to switch their party allegiance so that he can continue to retain these employees for future tasks.

Jim March's history of careful, meticulous analysis  before calling any one person's reputation into question adds significant weight to these charges.  We can only hope that an independent investigation into Brad Nelson's activities will take place. 

The only Supervisor concerned about having verifiable elections for this elections cycle was Ray Carroll, a Republican who has consistently moved to transcend party affiliation and improve transparency.

Arizona solidifies its national reputation as the 'meth lab of democracy' because those who can intervene refuse to make direct, immediate, substantive changes to the elections process.

Pima County Judge Refuses Citizen's Request that Pima County Elections Follow the Law

J.T. Waldron

Pima County Judge James E. Marner denied every request by citizens concerned about election integrity in Pima County.  Parroting the previous Pima County judges' claims about the lack of jurisdiction, Marner has paved the way for Pima County to continue subverting efforts to improve election integrity.   Key auditing functions like the simple placement of election returns receipts in election returns envelops (A.R.S. §16-615), incorporating sufficient quantities for hand count audits and the separation of early ballots by precinct will fall outside of any meaningful law enforcement.  One of the main obstacles to improving elections in Pima County is the county's choice to simply adhere to what is legally permissible instead of what truly achieves election transparency.

The appellate court, which looms just above Pima County's insular legal structure, ruled in favor of the court's jurisdiction to intervene when the legislative branch and the executive branch fail to provide an adequate remedy in a constitutional crisis. As Brad Roach stated in his closing arguments in last Thursday's hearing, "To say you don't have the authority because there already been some rules that passed, it fails. It has to fail, because that's what court systems do is make sure state executives and state legislatures follow the state law."

In his analysis, Judge Marner refers to Judge Kyle Bryson's previous ruling over jurisdiction. He attempts to clarify the previous judge's ruling against what the appellate courts ruled:

"Judge Bryson's order does not find that he lacked jurisdiction to hear challenge and, as evidenced by his detailed analysis of the arguments before him, he obviously accepted jurisdiction to hear the contest. However, as indicated below, the nature of the requested relief by the Plaintiff does not raise a question of where this court's jurisdiction ends."

Citizens concerned about rigged elections know that jurisdiction "ends" once elections are truly verifiable and transparent. Local citizens have introduced very finite measures for this outcome.

The only hope for citizens to restore the integrity of elections within the system is to once again appeal to a higher legal authority. The previous case heard by Judge Kyle Bryson is currently back in the appeals court and will be one of few options for straightening out elections within Pima County.

Closing arguments in last Thursday's hearing (Pardon the dirty tape heads):






Various figures of Pima County's legal establishment helping the county preserve their right to cheat in elections. Includes the five judges (Borek, Miller, Marner, Harrington and Bryson) that have juggled the hot potato of election integrity.  Can anybody guess what the green monster represents?

Related:

Pima County Circumvents It's Own Election Integrity Commission to Get a Waiver that Removes Proper Audit of County Election


Arizona Citizens Sue Pima County to Enforce Existing Election Laws

Virginia voter fraud case expands to focus on GOP firm

Washington Post
Carol D. Leonnig
Tom Hamburger

Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office - Colin Small, a former employee of
Strategic Allied Consulting, a contractor for the
Republican Party of Virginia, had been scheduled to appear
 last Tuesday before a grand jury after he was charged with
tossing completed registration forms into a recycling bin.

The investigation into the arrest of a man on charges of dumping voter registration forms last month in Harrisonburg, Va., has widened, with state officials probing whether a company tied to top Republican leaders had engaged in voter registration fraud in the key battleground state, according to two persons close to the case.

A former employee of Strategic Allied Consulting, a contractor for the Republican Party of Virginia, had been scheduled to appear last Tuesday before a grand jury after he was charged with tossing completed registration forms into a recycling bin. But state prosecutors canceled Colin Small’s grand jury testimony to gather more information, with their focus expanding to the firm that had employed Small, which is led by longtime GOP operative Nathan Sproul.

State authorities are seeking to learn whether any of Small’s supervisors instructed him or any of his 40 co-workers in Virginia to ask potential voters about their political leanings during registration drives, the two sources said. Asking such questions could be a violation of state election law.

John Holloran, who along with co-counsel Justin Corder represents Small, said ethics rules prevented him from commenting on the probe. Marsha Garst, the commonwealth attorney overseeing the case, said Friday she could not describe the nature of the case, but said, “This is a very important investigation to the state, and we intend to prosecute Mr. Small to the fullest extent.”

Sproul’s firms and political consulting operations have faced questions over the past eight years, including investigations and formal charges of suppressing Democratic votes, destroying voter registrations and other election violations. The charges against Small came a month after voter registration work by a Sproul company prompted a fraud investigation in Florida.

Nine Florida counties reported in September that hundreds of voter registration forms submitted by Sproul’s firm contained irregularities such as suspicious, conflicting signatures and missing information.

A spokesman for Sproul, David Leibowitz, said Sproul and his company are cooperating with election authorities in Florida and Virginia and “will continue to do everything within our power to uncover any unethical or illegal activity.”

After the Florida investigation became public, the Republican National Committee said it was severing ties with Strategic Allied Consulting. At that time, Strategic stopped overseeing registration workers in Virginia and Pinpoint, Strategic’s staffing contractor, began overseeing the work.

Investigators have gathered information showing that Small asserted that he worked for Strategic to voters, according to two persons close to the probe.

Leibowitz emphasized that at the time of the arrest in Virginia, “Small had no connection to Sproul and the company was no longer working in the state.”

He said Sproul is accustomed to hearing complaints about his tactics. “As a political operative you get accused of all kinds of things by all sides. This kind of allegation has been investigated and he (Sproul) has been cleared time and time again.”

Companies created or led by Sproul have received more than $3 million in payments from the Republican party during this election campaign. Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign paid Sproul’s firm $71,000 late last year for “field consulting.”

American Crossroads, the political organization that Republican operative Karl Rove helped found, paid Sproul’s firms $1.5 million in the week before the 2010 midterm elections for get-out-the-vote efforts and voter phone calls, according to a review of election records.

In total, companies led by Sproul have received $21 million from Republican campaign committees for voter outreach work since 2004. Much of the 2012 payments came from the national party to pay for voter registration in the key states of Florida, Colorado, North Carolina and Virginia.

Small, 23, of Phoenixville, Pa., was arrested Oct. 18 and charged with eight felonies and five misdemeanors involving election fraud.

Rob Johnson, the manager of a local discount goods store, said he had seen a man toss a bag into the store’s cardboard recycling bin and then had found that the bag contained registration forms. Johnson said in an interview that he called authorities the next day when he spotted the man’s car, with Pennsylvania plates, parked at the Harrisonburg-Rockingham County Republican Party headquarters.

The commonwealth’s attorney had planned to question Small about his employers and training before a special multi-jurisdiction grand jury based in Stanton, Va., according to the two persons familiar with the probe. But state officials changed course when they realized that Virginia law would give Small immunity from election-law charges if he were questioned about his superiors.

His first formal court date, largely a formality to determine if he understands his rights to counsel, is now scheduled for Monday.

Alice Crites and T.W. Farnam contributed to this report.

Elections Specialist Jim March Testifies About Black Box Vulnerabilities and Election Fraud

Jim March's testimony covers a variety of ways to hack into an electronic elections system. In yesterday's hearing, March also had the opportunity to describe the various indications of fraud that he had discovered in the electronic records from the 2006 two billion dollar bond measure (RTA Election).

Pima County Attorney Daniel Jurkowitz somehow thought is was a good idea to bring up Attorney General Terry Goddard's investigation during his cross examination. This backfires as March responds by reminding the court that Goddard's recount was missing four precincts.

This testimony is key in finally referring to the statistical improbability of having a third of the 368 precincts experience memory card re-uploads followed by the discovery of the corresponding missing poll tapes. After all, experts with DNA analysis provide a statistical probability of there being a match to a suspected murderer. Why does the statistical match not apply here? There is no will to prosecute, of course.

Retired NSA Analyst Mickey Duniho Testifies in Arizona Election Integrity Trial

Mickey Duniho testified in yesterday's election integrity hearing held in Tucson, Arizona.  Duniho is one of thirteen plaintiffs suing Pima County to get them to comply with existing election laws.   He provides an excellent summary of the problems verifying elections counted on electronic voting machines.

Pima County is notorious for fighting measures for election integrity and  have spent millions of taxpayer's dollars to prevent disclosure of public election records. 

The aim of the lawsuit against Pima County is to get the court to:

1. Issue an injunction requiring the Defendants to instruct poll workers to include, in every Official Return Envelope, a copy of the signed “tally lists” or results tape as required by A.R.S. §16-615.

2. Issue an injunction mandating that the Defendants separate the vote by mail ballots by precinct.

3.  Issue and injunction ordering Pima County to conduct sufficient randomly selected hand count audits of the vote by mail ballots, according to the procedure outlined in A.R.S. 16-602.  County races must be included in the audit.

This suit also requests the recovery of legal fees incurred.

A ruling on this case is expected today.

COLORADO SETS THE STAGE FOR A BOGUS ELECTION

BlackBoxVoting

Colorado’s Secretary of State Scott Gessler
and Colorado State Rep. Kathleen Conti
Believe in America
Cheat for the America you believe in.

Bev Harris

Colorado election integrity and transparency is now officially out the window, with a series of corruption protection rules and new laws.

1. Let's begin with the unflappable Donetta Davidson, who collaborated with convicted embezzler Jeffrey Dean(1) to remove voter privacy, through a contract specification that required him to redo his absentee mail software in order to embed a method to tie voted ballots to the voters. This shifty business, which now includes all absentee ballots cast on Hart eSlate machines, has led to a blockade on ALL Colorado election accounting records (see #4, below).

2. Next, in a move that has most of us scratching our heads, Colorado Sec. State Gessler proposed new rules in December 2011 to remove requirements for continuous video surveillance.(2) Though billed as "cost saving," note that most video surveillance nowadays is simply piped into digital files stored on a Web site. Since cameras are already installed, there is no significant cost savings in allowing non-continuous surveillance.

3. Sec. State Gessler also decided to reduce the number of seals on voting machines,(2) to the chagrin of election integrity groups like Voter Action, whose investigations and litigation demonstrated vulnerabilities requiring the seals in the first place. The "cost savings" in this measure can be counted in pennies.

4. A number of protective accounting measures crucial for evaluating election tampering have been taken off the table though a new law to block election-related public records examination.

Donetta Davidson led the lobbying for this law. Davidson had become a commissioner of the U.S. Election Assistence Commission, then took a step down to take over the Colorado Clerks Association. In this capacity she led a fight to block the media and citizens from examining the ballots. And no wonder: She knew that due to changes made under her administration, private companies had marks embedded on the ballots enabling them to harvest data tying votes to voters.

Thanks to a lawsuit by Colorado citizen Marilyn Marks, of The Citizen Center, sponsored and assisted by Black Box Voting, the Colorado Supreme Court affirmed right to examine ballots. Marks was shocked when she discovered that identifying marks on the ballots allowed her to immediately associate every voted ballot with the voter who cast it. Marks, The Citizen Center, (and Black Box Voting) are now involved in litigation to permanently prohibit this harvesting of personal political information. In the interim, Sec. State Gessler has required that the identifiers be removed for November 2012 only.

With ballot examination affirmed to be in the public domain, Davidson's next move was to block ballot examination until after all remedies had expired. Using her clout, she lobbied successfully for the removal of ballots -- AND OTHER CRUCIAL ELECTION RECORDS, SUCH AS POLL LISTS -- from any access by election watchdogs until 45 days after the election.(3)

One telltale sign of election tampering is when thousands more votes than voters show up. But in Colorado, neither the media nor the public will be allowed to examine the poll lists or the list of names for voters said to have voted absentee, until too late to do anything about discrepancies.

5. And then there is the matter of alleged Romney ties to the second-biggest voting machine manufacturer in America. These connections are being minimized by Internet outlets like Snopes, but the straight truth is that Hart Intercivic, the firm that supplies two-thirds of Colorado counties with their voting machines, is now owned by a spin-off of Bain & Company (H.I.G. Capital).(4)

A majority of Hart's directors are now H.I.G. guys, and the directors of H.I.G. are Romney bundlers and donors who don't hedge their bets by donating to any other presidential candidate.

This isn't the first time Romney has had his buddies in charge of crucial election processes this year. Some weeks after the misreported figures in the Iowa caucus, which incorrectly cited Romney as the winner, Black Box Voting uncovered that Romney staffers had been brought in to run the Iowa Caucus, and the Nevada Caucus too. Besides heading Romney campaign functions, these guys were associated with an odious Colorado political firm which narrowly escaped prosecution for maliciously misleading political ads.(5)

And the Romney affiliation with Hart Intercivic doesn't rule out his buddies -- or Obama's buddies -- or George Soros -- or the Chinese, for that matter -- owning the other companies. Election Systems & Software (ES&S) does not reveal who its owners are, and we don't know who owns Dominion either. ES&S directly handles voting machines in three Colorado counties; it co-produces elections on the old Diebold equipment with Dominion, with ES&S supplying technicians in some U.S. locations and Dominion in others. Dominion owns Sequoia Voting Systems (or does it? No one seems to be quite sure...), used in large metro Denver County and in Pueblo.(6) Confused? American elections are now so far removed from the hands of the people that self-governance is just a memory.

6. Romney's business buddies owning Colorado's main voting machine company demonstrates, at the very least, an appearance of impropriety, but it carries with it something more: Actual opportunity to alter results.

Unlike most Diebold voting machine locations, whose county technicians set up each election using voting company software, Hart has its customers send files directly to Texas, where its programmers and technicians have their way with the files, sending them back to the counties to put in their voting machines. This centralized control point does in fact enable tampering with results from a remote location. Paper ballots? Well, not all Colorado counties even have them, but thanks to Donetta Davidson and her cronies, they are off limits for human examination and will be interpreted only by the Hart machines.

Attendance Encouraged at Tomorrow's Hearing to Get Pima County to Comply with Existing Election Laws

Update:  From John Brakey-

PLEASE, be in court with us, and bring lots of friends, we need a big presence to show that this is a critical case and “we the people” are paying attention and we expect the judge to do the same.

 

Thursday, November 01, 2012 @  2 pm
Judge James E Marner’s  Courtroom 668

Pima Superior Court: 110 W. Congress, Tucson, AZ

All we want is “Verifiable Elections”, not more “Election Theater”  Our suit, “It demands that county races be included in the hand-count audit, which is not required by Arizona law. County staff workers and advocates dispute whether it is allowed.” From AZ Star 

Here are the links to what been filed in Pima County Superior Court:
Case No. C2012-6655 Assigned to Hon. Judge E. Marner.

We the People Vs Pima County: 

***Pima County Election Special Action OSC filed 10.25.12 -1 of 2.pdf:  http://tinyurl.com/8ploaky

***Election Special Action OSC filed 10.25.12 -2 of 2.pdf:  http://tinyurl.com/9olo5su

***Plaintiffs Memorandum in Support of Special Action 10.26.12.pdf: http://tinyurl.com/94ffguk

More info go to Face book “Pima County Elections - Trust but Verify” https://www.facebook.com/PimaCountyElections

Post from Last Friday:

Arizona Citizens Sue Pima County to Enforce Existing Election Laws

J.T. Waldron

Attorney Brad Roach represents the plaintiffs in a bid
to enforce existing election laws.

Citizens in Arizona concerned about Pima County voting procedures are part of a lawsuit compelling the county to follow state voting laws before the upcoming general election. A diverse group of plaintiffs registered as Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Greens and Independents are suing Pima County's Board of Supervisors to incorporate tasks specified by Arizona State Law 16-615.  The plaintiffs' stated mission is to restore public oversight to the elections process.  Like the rest of the nation, Arizonans share a growing concern that election computers make elections easy to cheat and impossible to challenge.

Laws in place but not currently followed by Pima County involve having poll workers include in every Official Return Envelope a copy of the signed “tally lists” or results tape.  Although this practice has been ignored or abandoned over time, the procedure is a valuable step in providing a useful auditing tool in the event of a recount or contested election.

In other words, the citizens are asking that the official returns be signed on the back by the poll workers and placed in the clear plastic envelope labelled "Official Returns Envelope" at the end of the night's count.

The recurring theme for any audit is the comparison of one set of numbers to another set of numbers and there are many circumstances that would require the comparison of ballots to the official returns or "poll tapes". To facilitate this process, citizens are also requesting the court issue an injunction mandating that Pima County separate the vote-by-mail ballots by precinct.

Handling of vote-by-mail ballots is another task that the citizens would like to see Pima County perform in compliance with ARS 16-602. To prevent Pima County's continued defiance of the law, plaintiffs are requesting that Pima County conduct sufficient randomly selected hand count audits of the vote-by-mail ballots as outlined in state law.

Attorney Brad Roach is representing the plaintiffs and states in his action: "Pima County has a long and sad history of blocking any attempt to monitor the elections process, verify the integrity of the computer systems, or audit the results."

Roach refers to the two billion dollar Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) Election and Pima County's resistance to public oversight and records requests (Pima County Superior Court cases C2007-2073 and C2008-5016).  "This persistent hindering, at every turn, of electors’ and political parties’ attempts to verify election integrity has cost the County hundreds of thousands of dollars in attorney’s fees and resulted in multiple court ordered releases of election information Pima County sought to hide."

This suit also requests the recovery of legal fees incurred.

Partisan politics are fierce on Arizona's Senate floor, but verifiable elections seem to transcend any political differences among the plaintiffs.  Green Party Candidate Dave Croteau, Republican Candidate Bill Beard, Libertarian Elections Specialist Jim March and Paul Hilts, the chair of the Pima County Democratic Party Elections Committee are among the plaintiffs with an interest in the November 5th, 2012 General Election.

Election integrity advocate John Brakey of AUDITAZ adds his take on a familiar theme,  "It's not about right or left, It's about right or wrong - and then when you look further, it's also about greed and corruption." Brakey is also part of the team that patiently waits for Pima County to step aside and allow for an actual audit and forensic exam of those 2006 RTA Election Ballots stored for a court case aimed at further restoring the integrity of elections in Pima County.

To monitor progress and get information for this 2012 elections lawsuit, visit their new facebook page:

Pima County Elections - Trust but Verify at http://facebook.com/pimacountyelections

Mickey Duniho: Evidence of Vote Counting Fraud in Pima County?

Editor's Note: With the analysis is a full video of the Election Integrity Commission's emergency meeting held on October 26th to hear retired NSA analyst Michael Duniho's explanation of how his study of local elections support nationwide trends found in a paper published by Francois Choquette and James Johnson. Commission member Dr. Tom Ryan has a PhD in computer programming and agrees with what Duniho has discovered.

The video begins with Benny White refusing to participate because of his ardent support for Pima County. He mistakenly assumes that the board meeting is discussing the simple lawsuit that was filed to get Pima County to comply with Arizona State statutes. Arnold Urken is a commission member tied to the county with his role of County Administrator. The chair, Charles Geoffrion, is assigned by Pima County and the meeting itself is also attended by John Moffatt, the Pima County employee previously involved with election data shenanigans.



Mickey Duniho
Analysis in PDF

Former NSA analyst, Michael "Mickey" Duniho

A paper published by Francois Choquette (Aerospace Engineer, Statistics, California) and James Johnson (Senior Quantitative Financial Analyst, California) 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 findings.

I analyzed the 2012 Presidential Preference Primary in Pima County and confirmed their analysis. I also analyzed two 2012 Board of Supervisors Republican primaries and found no apparent anomalies. I analyzed many 2010 races and found anomalies in all statewide races, always apparently favoring Republicans (except for propositions). I found no anomalies in the LD28 State Senate race.

The correlation of Republican (or in the case of the Republican Presidential Primary, with Mitt Romney) strongly suggests vote count fraud, which would occur in larger precincts because it is easier to hide it there.

Pima County has persistently refused my requests to sort early ballots before doing the state-required hand-count audit because they say it is too much trouble. These statistics suggest another reason: they may be hiding vote-counting fraud.

We need to re-examine early ballots for the 2010 election, if they are still available, to confirm the hypothesis of vote-count fraud or to certify that there was none. This would involve removing the ballots from the vault under a court order, sorting them by precinct, and then hand counting some of the larger precincts. It appears from the data that we might discover vote-count fraud in every state-wide race in that election. We need to re-examine the Republican Presidential primary early ballots in the same way, sorting them by precinct and then hand counting some of the larger precincts.

If the contention of vote-counting fraud is correct, we could be victimized by vote-continuing fraud in the November election, affecting not just the Presidential race but also state-wide races and possibly county-wide races. Anomalies in the 2010 general election appeared to show about ten percentage points taken from the Democratic candidate and added to the Republican candidate’s total. This changes the outcome of any race that is closer than 20 percentage points.

Here are some charts showing apparent vote flipping and others confirming no fraud in a race. Each chart shows a different race. Lines that move up from left to right represent votes added through fraud. Lines that move down from left to right represent votes taken away from a victim through fraud.

The first chart shows a race that was clearly not flipped, the LD28 State Senate race. It is not a county-wide race, so there were fewer precincts to analyze. The wiggles on the left of the chart represent small precincts with so few votes as to render statistical analysis less useful.

In the larger precincts, the lines are flat, showing no votes transferred from one candidate to another.

The second chart is another race that apparently had no evidence of fraud. This is the 2012 Pima County Board of Supervisors race between the incumbent Ray Carroll and challenger Sean Collins. This race had even fewer precincts (62) than the LD28 State Senate race (92 precincts), so the lines are not perfectly flat, but they do not show any significant slope, leading me to believe there is no evidence of fraud.

The next chart is another Board of Supervisors primary race (District 1, Republican) that shows no evidence of fraud. The small number of precincts (65) causes what would be flat lines in a larger data set to appear wiggly, but again there is no discernible slope for any candidates.

The next chart is the 2010 Giffords-Kelly race, showing an apparent shift of ten percent of the votes from Giffords to Kelly. Unfortunately for Kelly, Giffords appears to have run more than 20 percent better than Kelly so that even with the shift she still won the election by a small percentage. Making an assumption of fraud, this suggests that it might have been programmed into the computer before the counting begins and could not easily be changed during the election process. [Note: I have been advised by the author of the report I was following that I need to account for relative party registration numbers in this chart, which might lessen the steepness of the slopes if Democrats tend to be found in larger numbers in smaller precincts and Republicans in larger numbers in larger precincts. I am working on getting precinct-level voter registration data for 2010 so that I can recalculate this chart to more accurately reflect the anomaly.]

Arizona Citizens' Election Integrity Lawsuit Explained by Attorney Brad Roach and Republican Candidate Bill Beard

From left to right:  Attorney Brad Roach,  John Brakey,
Bill Beard, Chris DeSimone 

KVOA Wakeup Tucson at 7:00 AM Mountain Time on 1030 AM radio

Stay tuned for the final clip containing Pima County shill Benny White refusing to
participate in the Elections Integrity Board's emergency meeting scheduled to discuss former NSA employee Mickey Duniho's analysis of past elections. White mistakenly assumed that the meeting was going to discuss the pending lawsuit requiring Pima County to follow existing election laws. One can assume he is also mistaken in thinking he can be a co-defendant in that case because he ultimately would be acting against significant members within Pima County's Republican Party who are plaintiffs in the lawsuit.




NSA Analyst Mickey Duniho's presentation to the Pima County's Election Integrity Board will be posted later this evening.

Pima commission to discuss chance of election fraud in larger precincts

Arizona Daily Star
Carli Brosseau

The Pima County Election Integrity Commission is holding a special meeting today to talk about whether one member's statistical analysis of votes in recent elections shows evidence of fraud.

Under the group's bylaws, an emergency meeting can be held if at least five of the nine members call for one.

Michael "Mickey" Duniho
His presentation to the Election Integrity Board
will be posted on The Intercept today.

Mickey Duniho, a retired National Security Agency computer programmer, requested the meeting two days ago after he began plotting cumulative votes by precinct and noticing that outcomes seemed to differ by precinct size.

He 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 today's meeting, Duniho hopes to persuade the county Elections Department to sort early ballots by precinct before doing the hand-count audit required by law.

He has been advocating for that sorting, as well as for upping the percentage of ballots hand-counted, for about six years, arguing that his method boosts the chances of revealing fraud if it were to occur.

By law, Arizona counties must do a hand-count audit of 1 percent of early ballots and 2 percent of precincts in at least one federal and one state race. Pima County already audits more than required - 4 percent of precinct-cast ballots and 1 percent of early ballots. No local races are audited.

Some of the commission's members have argued strongly against holding the meeting and worry that it could unnecesarily increase fears about the vote count.

Benny White providing false testimony
to the Pima County Board of Supervisors.
about John Brakey's arrest while monitoring
elections in the Fall of 2008.

Benny White, a Republican election observer, responded to news of the meeting request with a sharply worded email.

"After reviewing the academic research involved with the links in the message, I conclude that the allegations being made are absolute nonsense," he wrote. "These academics don't take into account the fact that election results are the response by voters to campaigns and candidates. …

"I think there is a greater probability that fluctuations in the electrical voltage of the lines serving the election department have more to do with variations in election results than these alleged anomalies."

The county's technical consultant on election matters, John Moffatt, agrees that the data do not seem to show a vote flip in Pima County, but he does think the California researchers may be on to something with their findings in some other states.

Pima County employee John Moffatt speaks of
"witch hunts" in the past, but is responsible
for the incoherent rationale that required a suit
to obtain electronic public records. 

"It's worth paying attention to, and we took it seriously," he said. "My personal opinion is that it's another witch hunt, but our responsibility is to check this stuff out, not just blow it off."

He adamantly rejects allegations that county elections staff somehow tampered with any results.

The county's elections director, Brad Nelson, will not be at the meeting to approve a change of audit procedures because of family issues, but county workers involved in those processes caution that while it's theoretically possible to make Duniho's suggested change, it would be logistically difficult.

"That's a monumental task," Pima County Recorder F. Ann Rodriguez said. "It's kind of late to be changing the procedures in the middle of a major election."

The sorting machine needed to do the job efficiently would cost at least $125,000, said Chris Roads, deputy recorder and registrar of voters.

To do the sorting by hand would likely take two days, Moffatt said.

The window to challenge a vote count after an election in Arizona is five days after the canvass.

Arizona Citizens Sue Pima County to Enforce Existing Election Laws

Update:  From John Brakey-

PLEASE, be in court with us, and bring lots of friends, we need a big presence to show that this is a critical case and “we the people” are paying attention and we expect the judge to do the same.

 

Thursday, November 01, 2012 @  2 pm
Judge James E Marner’s  Courtroom 668

Pima Superior Court: 110 W. Congress, Tucson, AZ

All we want is “Verifiable Elections”, not more “Election Theater”  Our suit, “It demands that county races be included in the hand-count audit, which is not required by Arizona law. County staff workers and advocates dispute whether it is allowed.” From AZ Star 

Here are the links to what been filed in Pima County Superior Court:
Case No. C2012-6655 Assigned to Hon. Judge E. Marner.

We the People Vs Pima County: 

***Pima County Election Special Action OSC filed 10.25.12 -1 of 2.pdf:  http://tinyurl.com/8ploaky

***Election Special Action OSC filed 10.25.12 -2 of 2.pdf:  http://tinyurl.com/9olo5su

***Plaintiffs Memorandum in Support of Special Action 10.26.12.pdf: http://tinyurl.com/94ffguk

More info go to Face book “Pima County Elections - Trust but Verify” https://www.facebook.com/PimaCountyElections

J.T. Waldron

Attorney Brad Roach represents the plaintiffs in a bid
to enforce existing election laws.

Citizens in Arizona concerned about Pima County voting procedures are part of a lawsuit compelling the county to follow state voting laws before the upcoming general election. A diverse group of plaintiffs registered as Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Greens and Independents are suing Pima County's Board of Supervisors to incorporate tasks specified by Arizona State Law 16-615.  The plaintiffs' stated mission is to restore public oversight to the elections process.  Like the rest of the nation, Arizonans share a growing concern that election computers make elections easy to cheat and impossible to challenge.

Laws in place but not currently followed by Pima County involve having poll workers include in every Official Return Envelope a copy of the signed “tally lists” or results tape.  Although this practice has been ignored or abandoned over time, the procedure is a valuable step in providing a useful auditing tool in the event of a recount or contested election.

In other words, the citizens are asking that the official returns be signed on the back by the poll workers and placed in the clear plastic envelope labelled "Official Returns Envelope" at the end of the night's count.

The recurring theme for any audit is the comparison of one set of numbers to another set of numbers and there are many circumstances that would require the comparison of ballots to the official returns or "poll tapes". To facilitate this process, citizens are also requesting the court issue an injunction mandating that Pima County separate the vote-by-mail ballots by precinct.

Handling of vote-by-mail ballots is another task that the citizens would like to see Pima County perform in compliance with ARS 16-602. To prevent Pima County's continued defiance of the law, plaintiffs are requesting that Pima County conduct sufficient randomly selected hand count audits of the vote-by-mail ballots as outlined in state law.

Attorney Brad Roach is representing the plaintiffs and states in his action: "Pima County has a long and sad history of blocking any attempt to monitor the elections process, verify the integrity of the computer systems, or audit the results."

Roach refers to the two billion dollar Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) Election and Pima County's resistance to public oversight and records requests (Pima County Superior Court cases C2007-2073 and C2008-5016).  "This persistent hindering, at every turn, of electors’ and political parties’ attempts to verify election integrity has cost the County hundreds of thousands of dollars in attorney’s fees and resulted in multiple court ordered releases of election information Pima County sought to hide."

This suit also requests the recovery of legal fees incurred.

Partisan politics are fierce on Arizona's Senate floor, but verifiable elections seem to transcend any political differences among the plaintiffs.  Green Party Candidate Dave Croteau, Republican Candidate Bill Beard, Libertarian Elections Specialist Jim March and Paul Hilts, the chair of the Pima County Democratic Party Elections Committee are among the plaintiffs with an interest in the November 5th, 2012 General Election.

Election integrity advocate John Brakey of AUDITAZ adds his take on a familiar theme,  "It's not about right or left, It's about right or wrong - and then when you look further, it's also about greed and corruption." Brakey is also part of the team that patiently waits for Pima County to step aside and allow for an actual audit and forensic exam of those 2006 RTA Election Ballots stored for a court case aimed at further restoring the integrity of elections in Pima County.

To monitor progress and get information for this 2012 elections lawsuit, visit their new facebook page:

Pima County Elections - Trust but Verify at http://facebook.com/pimacountyelections

Texas attorney general threatens to arrest monitors observing US election

Guardian
Chris McGreat

State attorney general calls international group's plan to watch for fairness at the polls 'legally irrelevant in the United States'

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe has monitored
several previous elections in the US.

The Texas attorney general, Greg Abbott, has threatened to arrest international election monitors invited by liberal groups to observe the conduct of next month's presidential vote in states accused of attempting to disenfranchise minorities.

Abbott has written to the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe warning that its monitors have no right to monitor the vote even though they have observed previous US elections.

"The OSCE's representatives are not authorized by Texas law to enter a polling place. It may be a criminal offence for OSCE's representatives to maintain a presence within 100 feet of a polling place's entrance," he said. "Failure to comply with these requirements could subject the OSCE's representatives to criminal prosecution for violating state law."

The OSCE is sending 44 observers to voting stations across the US at the request of various groups, including the NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union, because of "an unprecedented and sophisticated level of coordination to restrict voting rights in our nation". These include attempts by several states, including Texas, to introduce voter identification laws and other measures blocked by federal courts which have ruled they were motivated by racial discrimination.

In his letter, Abbott glossed over the recent judgements striking down the Texas identification law and pointed to a supreme court ruling in a case involving another state.

"The OSCE may be entitled to its opinions about voter ID laws, but your opinion is legally irrelevant in the United States, where the supreme court has already determined that voter ID laws are constitutional," Abbott said.

The US routinely sends poll watchers to elections in foreign countries, particularly those where there are concerns about the fairness of the vote. In television interviews, Abbott denounced the OSCE as an interfering foreign body even though the US is a founding member and it was invited by President George Bush's administration to monitor the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections in the US.

"If OSCE members want to learn more about our election processes so they can improve their own democratic systems, we welcome the opportunity to discuss the measures Texas has implemented to protect the integrity of elections," Abbott wrote. "However, groups and individuals from outside the United States are not allowed to influence or interfere with the election process in Texas. This state has robust election laws that were carefully crafted to protect the integrity of our election system. All persons – including persons connected with OSCE – are required to comply with these laws."

The OSCE responded later on Wednesday in a letter to the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, calling Abbott's threat "unacceptable" and noting that the organisation's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) has an agreement with the US permitting it to monitor elections.

"The United States, like all countries in the OSCE, has an obligation to invite ODIHR observers to observe its elections," it said. "The threat of criminal sanctions against OSCE/ODIHR observers is unacceptable."

A Florida congressman running for the Senate, Connie Mack, also waded into the debate, saying that reports the United Nations wants to send election monitors was an outrage. The OSCE was founded under the UN charter.

"The very idea that the United Nations - the world body dedicated to diminishing America's role in the world - would be allowed, if not encouraged, to install foreigners sympathetic to the likes of Castro, Chavez, Ahmadinejad, and Putin to oversee our elections is nothing short of disgusting," he told the Orlando Sentinal.

"The United Nations should be kicked off of American soil once and for all. And the American people should demand that the United Nations be stopped from 'monitoring' American elections. The only ones who should ever oversee American elections are Americans."

WILL THEY STEAL THIS ONE, TOO? (An EMERGENCY FORUM in NYC on MONDAY!)

News From Underground
Mark Crispin Miller

“WILL THE 2012 ELECTION BE STOLEN?” An Emergency Forum ~ Mark Crispin Miller (Fooled Again: The Real Case for Electoral Reform) Jill Simpson Attorney/Investigator Lori Grace Election Protection Activist Jim March BlackBoxVoting Bob Fitrakis Attorney/Author Election Reform Activist Harvey Wasserman Author/Environmentalist Election Reform Activist ~ Free & Open to the Public  Monday, Oct. 22 Noon to 2:00 p.m. Open Center  22 E. 30th St. (b/t Madison & Fifth) Excerpt from Upcoming article: MOVEing In The Wrong Direction – Jill Simpson and Jim March …ES&S is partnered with Scytl on MOVE Act compliance software. At this point we need to start looking at the interconnections between these companies, in part by tracking the people involved. What is now Election Systems and Software was founded in 1979 by, among others, Bob and Todd Urosevich. Todd is still with ES&S today and has been employed with them continuously at the VP level. Bob Urosevich is the more interesting brother. He left ES&S in 1997 to found a smaller outfit that was quickly swallowed by Global Election Systems based in Canada (Vancouver BC) – originally started by three convicted felons. A year later Global bought Spectrum Print and Mail of WA state, owned and founded by convicted felon Jeffrey Dean with a convicted coke dealer he found in the WA state prison system as second in command. In other words, the evidence that Global was corrupt is overwhelming just based on staffing issues – and there is much, much more evidence beyond that. Bob U. stayed with Global through the Diebold buyout and transition to Diebold Election Systems Inc. (“DESI” still based in Vancouver BC) and served as president during the early to mid DESI years. In late 2006 he jumped ship to lead the “Scytl USA” pseudo-corporation. That didn't last long, and he jumped back to the “Global/Diebold crew” just around the time that Diebold corporate in Canton OH was getting sick of them and spat them out as “Premier”, first as a different brand name under the Diebold umbrella but then rapidly sold to ES&S in 2009. Bob U. goes to a Premier office in Dallas TX just before (or during?) that buyout process, but then in 2010 the US-DOJ decides the buyout (and merging the two largest voting system vendors) was a bad idea and forces ES&S to sell most of the Diebold/Premier assets. Dominion in Canada turns out to be the buyer however ES&S takes over the Dallas support facility that Bob U. is last tracked to after Scytl, and then Bob goes back to ES&S HQ in Omaha where his brother has been this whole time. (Meanwhile Dominion also swallows Sequoia, the 3rd largest voting system vendor in addition to much (most?) of DESI/Global.) OK. What does all this mean? Well via Bob Urosevich's travels, we see that most of the US voting system vendors are interconnected. We see a cooperative effort underway right now between ES&S and Scytl. We see continuing joint support efforts between ES&S and Global/Diebold/Premier/Dominion/? to support the joint customer base. For that matter, ES&S and Sequoia each bought pieces of a Texas-based outfit called Business Records Corporation (BRC) and still share similarities in their hardware product lines. We also see ties strong enough to support the possibility of joint political efforts... especially since all of these companies have strong ties to the Republican Party or right-wing politics in general. Former GOP operative who worked under Karl Rove recalls several occasions where Rove interacted………………