Mugging Democracy

Examiner
William Heuisler
Mugging Democracy

How? Hiring unprincipled techs, using undependable computer systems and buying unlawful software to fabricate votes. (See A-G below: from Ford v. etc. 2008).

A) Pima County uses the Diebold “GEMS” (Global Election Management System). Computer testing company, iBeta, told Attorney General Goddard, ”During testing (Diebold) software exhibits fundamental security flaws that make definitive validation of data impossible due to ease of data and log manipulation.” (Diebold, 2011) (iBeta, 2011)

B) Arizona Secretary of State’s Election Director, Joseph Kanefield, referenced iBeta’s report: “This is no secret. These issues have been known by, not only our office, but election offices all over the country.”

C) Pima County Attorney, Chris Straub’s court testimony admits: “Because (Diebold) can be easily manipulated, the bottom line is we’re only going to catch stupid people… because one could also alter the (computer) audit logs and one could do anything.”

D) Dr. David Jefferson, computer adviser to six California Secretaries of State testified: “(Diebold) security mechanisms are…inadequate to prevent manipulation of ballot records or vote totals by anyone with even a very short period of access to the system.”

E) California’s Diebold review summary: “Our analysis shows technological controls in the Diebold software do not provide sufficient security to guarantee a trustworthy election. The software contains serious design flaws that have led directly to specific vulnerabilities that attackers could exploit to affect election outcomes.”

F) Election computer experts are unanimous on one method to cover up vote falsification: A Diebold audit log can be copied and altered off-line (at office or home) by election personnel and re-inserted through a process called “forking.” (Computer tech, Bryan Crane, testified he regularly took mail-in/absentee vote-result-log copies home on CDs.)

G) Diebold precinct memory cards can be programmed by “Crop Scanner” software to produce false results. Pima County Elections Director, Brad Nelson, testified he had authorized computer tech, Bryan Crane, to purchase a Crop Scanner. Crane testified he had practiced using Pima County’s Crop Scanner” to alter memory cards so optical scanners would print false poll tapes of the votes he programmed – and not actual votes. Crane said, “Any person with computer knowledge wouldn’t have a problem with it.” Databases after elections would show false results “confirmed” by forged poll tapes.

Above, A through G: (Ford v. etc. 2008) #C-20085016, in re: 2006 RTA election.
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In 2007, Garry Duffy, of the Tucson Citizen reported: “No one seems to know what happened to a computer tape record of the May 16, 2006 (RTA) election… The county elections director (Brad Nelson) made the revelation in his testimony Wednesday in a Pima County Superior Court trial... The case goes to the heart of the democratic process – the security of voting and vote counting…” (Duffy, 2007)

Elections are, ”…the heart of the democratic process.” But, in spite of court-testified wrongdoings and admitted crimes in a Pima County election:

1) The Pima County Attorney says she has “no jurisdiction” over county elections.

2) County Superior Court Judge, Harrington, ruled his court had “no jurisdiction” over the 2006 RTA election – whether there was massive vote-theft or not.

3) Secretary of State claims “no jurisdiction” to examine election computer databases.

4) Attorney General Goddard refused to examine RTA ballots and ignored the crimes admitted in Harrington’s civil trial (Ford v. etc. 2008)

5) Attorney General Horne will not examine RTA ballots or computer databases.

6) The United States Attorney will not answer inquiries.

And our next so-called, “democratic election” is only eighteen months away…

Diebold. (2011). Diebold Elections systems. GEMS Global Election Management Systems. http://www.diebold.com/solutions/election/GEMS.htm

Duffy, G. (2007. Tucson Citizen. Record of votes in ’06 RTA election missing.

http://tucsoncitizen.com/morgue/2007/12/06/70793-record-of-votes-in-06-rta-election-missing/

Ford v. Democratic Party of Pima County (2008). C-20085016, Judge Charles v. Harrington. Pima County Superior Court. http://law.justia.com/cases/arizona/court-of-appeals-division-two-unpublished/2010/cv20100001memo.html

iBeta Quality Assurance. (2011). One of the first federal Voting System Testing Laboratories to be accredited by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to test voting systems throughout the US. http://www.ibeta.com/gov_voting_system.html

Is Jan Brewer's Election a Failure of Arizona's Media?

All of Arizona's mainstream news outlets refused to remind the public about the lack of election transparency in its two largest counties, expose those involved with election shenanigans and point out the crucial effect SB 1070 has on the voter turnout of legal immigrants. Would the Arizona governor's race have had a different outcome if the press did its job?

The prevailing explanation for Brewer's victory places great emphasis on the national notoriety and polarizing effect of Arizona's SB 1070. Jan Brewer suddenly became the galvanizing centerpiece for racist, hysterical tea-baggers across the country and was met with equal resistance by those outraged by the discrimination sanctioned in the new law. Mainstream media fell for this puppet show hook, line and sinker. The only reporter who seems to understand the motivation behind this bill was Greg Palast, who presented the likely purpose of SB 1070 as a means of disenfranchising Arizona's growing legal Hispanic population. Palast was watching Brewer very closely, because he reported her purging 100,000 Hispanics from the Arizona voter rolls in 2005 when she served as Arizona's Secretary of State.

He states, "What moved GOP Governor Jan Brewer to sign the Soviet-style show-me-your-papers law is the exploding number of legal Hispanics, U.S. citizens one and all, who are daring to vote—and daring to vote Democratic by more than two to one."

Palast is no stranger to voter disenfranchisement, because he discovered the game-changing numbers of citizens thrown off of the voter rolls through a fraudulent, inaccurate list of convicted felons in Florida's 2000 election debacle. Despite his expertise, Arizona's press ignored him and, instead, covered the obvious hoopla surrounding their new controversial law.

Long before SB 1070, the Arizona's Democratic political machine was in the process of grooming their next candidate for governor. Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard was presented as the candidate to defeat Jan Brewer, the so-called "accidental governor" appointed as a result of Janet Napolitano's ascension to Secretary of Homeland Security when Barack Obama was elected president. Whatever the monied interests behind the Democratic political machine had in mind, selecting Terry Goddard for this task will prove to be a horrific blunder for the state of Arizona.

Like Jan Brewer, Terry Goddard failed with his most important duty before the Governor's race and, like Jan Brewer, this failure involved a responsibility to ensure the integrity of elections. After repeated requests by those who discovered evidence of illegal activity in the Pima County Elections department, AZ Attorney General Terry Goddard conducted an investigation into the election of a two billion dollar bond measure for the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) in Pima County. Citizens discovered that the current elections division in Pima County manipulated the electronic database files for that May 2006 election. A successful three-year lawsuit by the Pima County Democratic Party against Pima County reaffirmed that electronic database files were public records and collected a mountain of evidence suggesting that the 2006 RTA election was rigged.

As early as the summer of 2007, it became excruciatingly clear that Terry Goddard's investigation was an exercise in public relations designed to falsely reassure the public about the reliability of the Pima County's Elections Division and the 2006 RTA election itself. It was also evident that, in coordination with local corporate press, a campaign was initiated to undermine the efforts of the election integrity movement and confuse the public about the issues surrounding this case.

At the height of Goddard's "dog and pony show", both ballots and poll tapes were snatched by his staff and moved up to Maricopa county for an audit that was proven to be woefully inadequate. The poll tapes provide signed precinct totals that serve as a valuable auditing function when checking the ballots. Attorney General Terry Goddard's decision to take the ballots and poll tapes appears to have been made after it became clear to him that the Democratic Party was close to obtaining the poll tapes and that their expert could detect foul play by examining them.

Goddard's behavior was consistent with somebody wishing to prevent the discovery of foul play through the poll tapes. Not only did he refuse to examine the poll tapes, he also prevented the Democratic party from gaining access to these same poll tapes for a year.

Still the peculiar response of Arizona's media and the Democratic Party's political leadership was silence, even when citizens finally gained access to the poll tapes only to discover that thirty percent of them were missing.

Meanwhile, in Maricopa, the largest county in Arizona, the same election integrity activists sued the Maricopa Elections Department for a number of legal violations. Enough violations to undermine the integrity of this year's elections. Ironically, if any police activity was used to enforce SB 1070 on election day (against Hispanics who haven't already moved out of Arizona), it would be through Maricopa County's Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a willing participant in Maricopa's election audit process.

Arizona's press was all but absent when it came to reporting about Maricopa County conducting a hand count audit before disclosing the figures to be audited. They also failed to report how Maricopa allowed overnight storage of pre-audit ballots in Sheriff Joe Arpaio's warehouse without video cameras, refused to allow precincts to post their totals immediately after the polls closed, blocked observers from seeing the central tabulator's monitors and provided little or no transparency when transporting election materials.

The reason why election integrity was not a bedrock issue in Arizona's gubernatorial race was because both major candidates have compromised election integrity in their careers and the press refused to challenge either candidate on that issue.

What could have happened if the press did its job? Let's assume there was adequate reporting of the RTA debacle in Pima County. Imagine a press that scrutinized Terry Goddard's behavior from the beginning of his investigation. Such coverage would have included asking the right questions at the press conferences and providing and placing reasonable emphasis on all aspects of the RTA election. Would Terry Goddard have been replaced by the Democratic Party machine or challenged in the primary? If so, with a vigilant press and accompanying public pressure, Terry Goddard's replacement would likely support meaningful involvement of citizens in the election process.

Let's fantasize more about the press. Let's assume the press was also analyzing the effect that SB 1070 would have on legal Hispanics daring to vote. In this fantasy, Maricopa's court case was not only reported in an electronic blog in Phoenix, but garnered well deserved attention with coverage throughout the state.

Let's go way overboard and assume this fantasy candidate can form complete sentences and is willing to engage Jan Brewer, whose strategy in the last election was to avoid any interaction or debate until the polls closed.

Could the press have played a role in the outcome of this race? Here's a direct quote from Jimmy Boegle, the editor of the Tucson Weekly: "the election-integrity issue didn't even rate as an issue in the minds of anyone in the statewide race."

This begs the question, "Who's fault is that?"

Election Integrity Pursuit Abandoned by Democrats Wins Appeal

PDF of Ruling

The Libertarian party, the last group continuing the pursuit of prospective relief from rigged elections in the Arizona courts won a major legal victory last Thursday. The Court of Appeals reversed Judge Charles Harrington's dismissal and remanded the case for further proceedings.

The Democratic party backed out of this RTA court case when Judge Charles Harrington denied those who were seeking prospective relief in the courts to improve election integrity. The rationale provided by the Democratic party to abandon the case was concern of the costs for litigation. Election integrity activists believe that the Goddard political machine wanted as little attention possible over his handling of the RTA investigation.

Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard demonstrated how the executive branch failed to provide adequate remedy when he investigated the 2006 RTA election. Goddard refused to perform elementary auditing procedures including a check of the ballots' figures against the poll tapes from that same election. After a year of litigation, the public learned that thirty percent of the poll tapes were missing.

In Arizona, election challenges can only take place within the first five days after the election is held. Five days proves to be an impossible time frame given the complexities involved with obtaining and examining electronic data and relevant records. Barring a change in statutory law, the legislative branch fails to provide sufficient remedy in an extremely suspicious election.

For the citizens of Arizona, the courts were the last hope in providing some measure to ensure that future elections are not rigged. Unfortunately, Judge Harrington threw this case out by accepting the county's argument that criminal activity cannot be discovered in a civil case trial. Despite the absurdity of this argument, the Democratic Party dropped out of the case after Harrington's decision. However, the Libertarian party was on board from the beginning and elected to continue pursing the matter in appeal.

Below is a clip that set the tone in the previous trial with Judge Harrington admonishing Bill Risner, the attorney for the Democratic party, for suggesting to the court that it "can't just wash it's hands of this matter". This, of course, took place just before Judge Harrington washed his hands of the matter and let it go to appeal.

Huckelberry Uses Affidavits from Those Accused in an Attempt to Discredit Robbie Evan's Testimony

In a bizarre turn of events involving recent exchanges between election integrity activists and Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry, Kathryn E. Cuvelier, the Town Clerk of Oro Valley, Arizona, constructed a recent affidavit (two days ago) reiterating her deposition testimony that she did not recall her exchange with Pima County Elections worker Robbie Evans:

"I was also asked, 'Do you recall on one occasion when Mr. Evans refused to print a tally report for you and you went to Brad Nelson to complain to him that Robbie wouldn't print the report for you?' my answer was 'No, I don't recall that.'"

On the very same day, Chuck Huckelberry obtained another affidavit from his employee, Brad Nelson, the Elections Director, in which Nelson declares that, "no vote tallies were released prior to 8 Pm on election night, May 21, 2002."

"It's difficult to get people to admit to felonies, especially election officials," says Bill Risner, the attorney for the Democratic Party who recently revealed that 30% of the poll tapes in the 2006 RTA election are missing. Risner compares the people who are creating affidavits now to Robbie Evans, the election worker for Pima County who provided testimony in the electronic records trial. Robbie Evans distinguishes himself by having a clear recollection of this incident in his deposition and in the trial. "Cuvelier's testimony is that she doesn't recall the specific incident." Her affidavit also comes with a blanket declaration that she has never received summary reports before 8:01 in the evening. According to Risner, Evans has no axe to grind and puts his position at risk by providing such testimony at trial.

Huckelberry's characterization of Evans' statements as "completely inaccurate" is also a misleading stretch of the truth. If that were the case, you would think those County lawyers would have raked him over the coals at trial. That didn't happen.

This raises another question. If Evan's testimony is false, why were there no repercussions or challenges of Evan's account?

So who are we supposed to believe? Two people who have been prompted or pressured to sign affidavits in which they deny that they have committed felonies, or an elections worker who provided his recollection of an incident, despite potential risks to his employment?

And what about Brad Nelson? Who would accuse an elections director of lying, especially about summary reports? Oh yeah, Attorney Bill Risner would - and to his face:





Here is Robbie Evan's testimony:




Huckelberry complains about how such recollections of the past affect the credibility of the elections department. He shouldn't rely on the bliss of ignorance to allay suspicion. That's the sort of support he has come to expect at the Tucson Weekly and the Arizona Daily Star. Not here.

Pima County Is not the Only County Known for Breaking Election Laws

Chuck Huckelberry:

"I can continue to factually debunk unfounded accusations that cast any doubt on the integrity of County election processes as I believe it is very important that voters have the highest level of confidence in election integrity and election results. Continual misrepresentation of facts without a response from the County damages election integrity and credibility."

John Brakey:

"Well, lets start with Robbie Evan's testimony about Oro Valley Town Clerk Kathy Cuvelier being shown summary reports before the polls closed. This time, providing typical bureaucratic lip service just ain't gonna work. Everyone should expect more, especially when so many legal indiscretions start to pile up. Chuck Huckelberry is so slick he can't get a grip on himself. The only folks damaging election integrity and credibility are those who are still running the Pima Elections Department despite their past violations of the law."

AUDIT AZ has now turned its attention to Maricopa County, the largest county in Arizona responsible for 56% of the total votes in Arizona. Here is their announcement of the lawsuit:

EMERGENCY LAWSUIT FILED TO FORCE MARICOPA COUNTY ELECTIONS DEPARTMENT TO FOLLOW THE LAW TO PROTECT UPCOMING ELECTION RESULTS FROM ELECTION FRAUD

Pre-election research over the last three weeks (based on the work of AUDIT AZ since 2006) discovered flagrant ILLEGAL violations of Arizona Election Laws. The interlocking pattern of deliberate violations of these security measures indicated below makes manipulation of vote counting easy, leaving elections vulnerable to fraud that is very difficult to detect in a timely fashion:

1) Arizona Election Law requires poll workers to sign poll tapes at the conclusion of the ballot count. Maricopa Elections has removed the signature line and changed the pollworker manual to remove instructions for poll workers to sign the poll tapes printed by the precinct electronic voting machines.

2) Maricopa Elections Dept. has prevented properly credentialed party observers from observing the central tabulator systems.

3) Maricopa Elections Dept. has been connecting to and distributing election data over the Internet, in violation of Arizona law.

4) Maricopa Elections Dept uses uncertified software on the certified voting systems. These are listed in AZ law specifically as felonies.

5) Maricopa County blocks the public from knowing the vote totals at the precinct, instructing poll workers to withhold results and prevents any observers from photographing the machine totals. This is in open violation of Arizona law. Pinal County, just south of Maricopa, posts their vote totals (or result totals) on the outside of the polling house door. Why does Maricopa hide these results?

6) Maricopa County ordered their poll workers for all recent elections not to place the poll tapes produced by the electronic voting machines (“results tapes” that should, by law, be signed) into the sealed “official returns envelope”. This sealed envelope is to be preserved in case of a challenge.

7) Maricopa Elections Dept. orders their poll workers to return critical ballot materials (the “memory cartridge” electronic ballot boxes) from the polling places at the end of election day with one person only. Arizona law requires two persons to be assigned this task, one from each party.

8) Maricopa Elections Dept reports election results, combining mail-in, precinct and provisional votes. It is easier to tamper with election results either by the precinct or mail-in votes. Tampering with both to make them more or less equivalent in terms of the percentage of fraud is difficult. If a candidate or issue wins a large majority in one type of voting and loses in the other, it’s a strong indicator of election tampering. Maricopa County combines all distinguished parts of the data into one total to avoid detection of these disparities.

These problems “interlock” to form a net aggregate that ultimately effects the outcome of the election. This scheme allows for one or two discrepancies to be found, with the follow up excuse, "Yes, this was wrong, but it didn't effect the outcome of the election." If observers aren’t allowed to see the precinct data on election night (5) or afterwards (8), and are blocked from seeing what goes on at the central tabulator (2) when it gets there on systems connected to the internet (3) on unknown, untested and illegal software (4) and the one reliable record available of precinct results isn’t signed (1) or put in a sealed bag for later review (6), then it’s not a credible election. In our opinion, all of this activity is illegal and we will make that argument in court.

The state of Arizona is the most difficult state in which a recount can occur. Recounts are automatically generated only when there is a one tenth of one percent or smaller difference in election totals. Florida is the only other state comes close to this standard, and Florida recounts are still easier to obtain. In Arizona, a candidate challenge is impossible, even if the candidate pays for it. This is a recipe for un-auditable election fraud.

A pattern is emerging in Arizona elections. In the case of Maricopa Legislative District 20 (Sept 2004), Elections Director Karen Osborn testified that an 18% error rate on optical scanning machines was within the accepted error rate for those machines. This same election fiasco resulted in ballots being confiscated by the FBI. Unfortunately, the FBI refused to properly investigate this case. Regarding the Pima County legal battle over the disputed RTA Election, a court ordered examination of the stored poll tapes from the RTA election of May 2006 showed that a third of the poll tapes were missing.

Maricopa County Elections is responsible for counting 56% of the total votes of the state of Arizona and could easily swing election results for the statewide election. We are a group of concerned citizens from five Arizona counties, who have requested (as individuals) an emergency hearing to ask the court provide remedy for these violations of the law before the upcoming election on the 24th of August. This Special Action Relief request asks for an expedited hearing to ensure that the upcoming election will follow election law with accurate results in this upcoming election and all future elections in the state of Arizona.


Contacts:
John R Brakey
520-578-5678
cell 520-339-2696
AUDITAZ@cox.net

Jim March
916-370-0347
1.Jim.March@gmail.com

AUDIT AZ: Say "No" to Early Ballot Counting by Pima County in Upcoming General Election

Background:

Oro Valley Town Clerk Kathy Cuvelier was shown summary reports on a past Election Day before the polls closed. This activity is in direct violation of state law A.R.S. Sec. 16-621 (a), where it states: “there shall be no preferential counting of ballots for the purpose of projecting the outcome of the election”. Despite this illegal activity, the same people are in charge of the Pima County Elections Division, which is under the direct control of Chuck Huckelberry, who remains the county administrator.

AUDIT AZ Released this Statement:

Pima County wants to start counting Early Ballots August 18th! That is 7 days before the election. This a very bad idea. From the litigation and their own records we learned that they have a long tradition of peeking into the "who's winning and losing" by illegally printing the election results report. Of the data before every election from 2004 to 2006 (when we busted them) based on their own system's audit logs. They were doing it before then based on eyewitness testimony in court, but the log system didn't track it back then.

This data is incredibly valuable, both politically and financially. It can be used as a "Zogby poll from hell", far more accurate and detailed than any big-bucks polling system and therefore also very useful if you need to know how much fraud to do before each election.

Tell your member of the Pima Board of Supervisors that you reject this plan to facilitate fraud in an agency known for fraud in this area.

Your supervisors are here: http://www.pima.gov/bos/bos1.html

Here is the proof. The testimony of Mr. Robbie Evans Pima County Election Integrity Trial Arizona in December 2007

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3065842076090526996#

The plaintiff case seeks to illustrate for the judge that the elections division is unworthy of public trust, is marked by maladministration, persistent errors of judgment, and flaws and neglect in their security procedures. The purpose of Robbie Evans testimony is to give the judge specific reasons why the public interest would be better served by public scrutiny of those records that would allow confirmation of the integrity of the election process than by keeping those records confidential. One consistent theme in the testimony is that summary reports, which contain current vote totals, were frequently printed before elections were closed and handled somewhat casually. Another consistent theme was Bryan Crane's practice of taking home computer data backups for the remarkably consistent purpose of protecting the data should the building burn down. This in spite the presence of the fire-proof safe in the computer room.

Speak up, folks Elections matter!

John Brakey, co-founder of AUDIT-AZ (Americans United for Democracy, Integrity, and Transparency in Elections, Arizona) http://www.audit-az.blogspot.com/

EDA & AUDIT-AZ’s Mission: to restore public ownership and oversight of elections, work to ensure the fundamental right of every American citizen to vote, and to have each vote counted as intended in a secure, transparent, impartial, and independently audited election process.

More Details Emerge About Missing RTA Poll Tapes

Note: Read AUDIT AZ's Statement about early ballot counting here.

Not only did Pima County employees have access to the RTA ballot boxes, it appears that the Democratic party was mislead by Pima County about the records being protected. In the Democratic Party's most recent Motion for Deposition of Iron Mountain Company, Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckleberry is quoted as follows:

In addition, we need to protect, secure and seal any information related to Division of Elections actions regarding not only the November 2006 election, but also the May 2006 RTA election. Even thought the ballots/returns for the RTA election are eleigible for destruction puruant to A.R.S. 16.-624, please ensure that all ballot and election returns for this election now stored at our contract records management facility are retained, with specific instructions not to destroy these documents. Further, since the allegations are against an official of the Division of Elections, it would be appropriate to ensure that there are very specific instructions approved by the County Attorney to the contract records management firm that Division of Elections personnel, including you as the Director, and myself as your immediate supervisor, are not granted any independent access to said records without independent oversight and supervision. This will ensure that County Administration and the Division of Elections cannot be accused of having independent access to the ballots and altering same.

Mr. Huckleberry concluded:

We need to take action to ensure that all documentation, ballots, electronic files and other information sources are secured so they cannot be altered, tampered with or destroyed as I am sure an accurate and independent review of this material will verify that the allegations are made by Mr. Risner are absolutely untrue.

As Bill Risner puts it:

In spite of Pima county's strong statement that "all documentation" and "other information sources" would be secured and Iron Mountain would be so instructed based upon "specific instructions approved by the County Attorney" the Iron Mountain manager testified that such instructions were never made.

At the moment that Terry Goddard and his men took possession of the ballots and poll tapes, workers at the Iron Mountain facility could have been asked about who had access to the boxes containing the RTA election materials. What they would have learned at this moment should have been enough to inform them of the need to forensically check the ballots to determine if they are genuine.

AZ Attorney General Terry Goddard's actions surrounding the poll tapes involves Bill Risner's letter to Terry Goddard informing him of the Democratic Party's pending agreement to obtain the poll tapes from the RTA election. In this letter, Bill Risner informed Terry Goddard that the poll tapes would be inspected by an expert who can easily detect a specific type of foul play. This form of cheating involves the reprogramming of flash memory cards. Each precinct recorded their specific result onto their own flash memory card. The Pima County Elections Division is suspected of reprogramming a portion of the cards to create results that reflect something different than actual results of their corresponding precinct's vote totals. When this form of cheating is successful, poll workers would simply print out the corresponding poll tape and sign the tape for verification without suspecting any foul play. An expert with a hand lens, however, can detect imperfections attributable to a reprogrammed flash memory card. Once the poll workers have finished, the flash memory card is then delivered to the main elections office for the central tabulator. At this point, it's important to note that even when the flash card reprogramming is unsuccessful, end of day poll tapes would still be generated at the precincts.

Remember, the Pima County Elections division is suspected of reprogramming these flash memory cards for three main reasons (out of at least 20):

1. Electronic data won by the records lawsuit indicate that many flash memory cards had to be re-uploaded numerous times at the central tabulator's office. Reprogramming a flash memory card can be difficult and the typical errors that occur involve problems in uploading to the central tabulator. It is estimated that up to 140 cards had to be re-uploaded to the central tabulator and a large portion were re-uploaded repeatedly. These problems are symptomatic of poorly programmed flash memory cards and provide stark contrast to 2004's election in which only 4 cards were re-uploaded. When such a massive number of failures occurred in the 2006 RTA election, the Pima County Elections Division chose not to inform their vendor of these issues.

2. During the 2006 RTA election, Pima County was found to be in possession of the precise, obscure tool used to reprogram the very type of flash memory cards used in Pima County's election machines. The excuse by the County for having such contraband was that the computer technician wanted to find out whether such reprogramming of flash memory cards was possible with that specific device. This explanation contradicts Pima County's contention that security threats can only come from outside of the elections division.

3. A whistleblower has come forward with a sworn affidavit testifying that Bryan Crane told him privately while at the Boondocks Lounge that he had “fixed” the RTA election under direction from his bosses. Two additional people signed affidavits placing Bryan Crane at the Boondocks Lounge at the time of this confession, despite Crane telling the Arizona Daily Star that he'd never heard of the Boondocks Lounge.

Attorney General Terry Goddard's decision to take the poll tapes with the ballots appears to have been made after it became clear to him that the Democratic Party was close to obtaining the poll tapes and that an expert could detect foul play by looking at those poll tapes. This is logical behavior for somebody wishing to prevent the discovery of foul play through the poll tapes.

Another new piece to this puzzle is evidence that Terry Goddard's office was made aware of the legal struggle that the Democratic Party would be forced to endure if the Attorney General's office did not inspect the poll tapes and/or made them inaccessible again by putting the poll tapes back in the ballot boxes. Terry Goddard had the specific choice to examine the poll tapes or to participate with the Democratic Party and allow their experts to inspect the poll tapes. His choice was to keep interested parties from inspecting the poll tapes, to prevent access to the poll tapes, and to saddle the Democratic Party with another year of litigation to obtain access to the poll tapes. Again, this is logical behavior for somebody wishing to prevent the discovery of foul play through the poll tapes.

There is very strong circumstantial evidence that Terry Goddard is an accessory to the crimes likely committed by Pima County's elections division during the 2006 RTA election. Terry Goddard clearly had a choice to follow the straight and narrow in his investigation and examine all of the evidence. Instead, he opted to perform an exercise in public relations by presenting the illusion of an investigation. Why else would a seasoned white collar crime investigator go to the trouble of counting ballots behind glass and announcing his "findings" to the public yet leave so many stones left unturned?

Goddard Cohort in RTA Debacle Appointed Senior Advisor at the U.S. Attorney's Office

Ironically, Evan's Appointment Became Official Days After Missing Poll Tape Story Broke

As John Brakey, founder of Audit AZ puts it, "What are we going to do? Have John Evans investigate John Evans? He worked for Goddard during the first cover up and the second one, too."

It's been suggested by those protecting Gubernatorial Candidate Terry Goddard that critics of the RTA election debacle should file a complaint with the U.S. Attorney for Arizona. Election Integrity Activists believe this position is naive and those seeking remedy in this matter should have a grasp of the thorny roadblocks presented in bringing to justice individuals who are high up on the state's power structure. The U.S. Attorney for Arizona is Dennis K. Burke, whose senior adviser is now John Evans. Evan's previous job was Assistant to Arizona's Attorney General Terry Goddard and he was a key player in the questionable RTA investigation.

Burke is quoted in his press release:

"'John Evans has had a distinguished career as a prosecutor and as a key member of the law enforcement community,' said Burke. 'He brings a wealth of legal and trial experience to the office and he will play a critical role in Southwest border issues and strategies. I look forward to working with him to address the border problems and their complexities.' "

The press release further states:

"Evans will work closely with U.S. Attorney, Dennis K. Burke, and will advise him on a variety issues, including crimes occurring on Arizona’s border with Mexico such as alien smuggling and drug related crime, violent crime, financial and fraud crimes, weapons offenses, civil rights, and public corruption."

Election integrity groups are concerned about the potential influence Evans may have should further action need to be taken over Terry Goddard, since the U.S. Attorney for Arizona is the next step in seeking justice in this matter.

The following excerpt of a letter from Bill Risner to Terry Goddard demonstrates Evan's peculiar behavior when it came to investigating the RTA election debacle:

Dear Mr. Goddard:

I sent you a short letter on July 9th, 2008, together with Mr. Zbigniew Osmolski’s Affidavit. I will be out of the County from July 15 through the end of the month. Accompanying this letter are various materials that may help you to better understand the nature of the allegations and more fully understand the past investigation by your office staff.

At the beginning of the database lawsuit, the Pima County Democratic Party, and I personally, had confidence in your Office’s integrity. Additionally, I was sensitive to political currents. That is why I informally told Jim Walsh what we were finding out in our lawsuit against the Pima County Board of Supervisors. It was a “heads up” conversation relating to him that we were acquiring evidence suggestive of criminal activity but not enough in my opinion at that point for your office to open an investigation and none was requested.

Later, attorneys for the Board of Supervisors forcefully suggested that I was obligated to make a criminal complaint if I believed crimes had occurred. At that point, I made an appointment with John Evans of your Office who agreed to open an investigation. The “suspects” were listed on your office form as the “Pima County Election Division.”

The Pima County Democratic Party offered technical expertise. Your office chose not to accept our technical expertise and we did not complain then nor do we complain now about that decision as your office can investigate in the manner that you choose.

I subsequently had a conversation with Mr. Evans in which I asked him what our role was in the investigation. He said it was a “one way street in which he could not give me information but he could receive information from us.” I then gave him the names of two witnesses including Robbie Evans, Jr., who for four years was the computer assistant to Bryan Crane. I explained that Mr. Evans, Jr. would testify that Mr. Crane regularly printed unofficial tallies or summary reports of actual votes before election day. Your Office investigators chose not to interview that witness, even though they knew his testimony would contradict Mr. Cranes’ prior testimony. Instead your investigators accepted Mr. Crane’s fourth different under oath story without comparison with the prior explanations nor did they question any contradictory witnesses.

During a subsequent conversation with Mr. Evans, I learned that your offices’ report from iBeta would be provided to the suspects, but a copy would not be provided to the Democratic Party, although Mr. Evans concluded the report would be a public record, he said he would require us to retain a copy from the County suspects. I have attached several of the letters that I subsequently sent to John Evans.

I am sure you are now aware that your office joined with the suspects in a joint study, permitted the suspects to direct the investigation and gave them a copy of the investigative report before conducting any interviews. Before commenting on the iBeta report, I would like to review the background of the decision to proceed in that manner. Mr. Evans had initially contacted Michael Shamos, a nationally known voting systems expert at Carnegie Mellon University. Mr. Evans and Mr. Shamos’ e-mails are attached. Mr. Shamos immediately recommended the ballots themselves be examined as he said: “Ultimately the proof of the pudding is in the ballots.” “My
suggestion would be to re-tabulate from the original records.8 This should tell us very quickly whether the GEMS results were fudged. What is the difficulty with this approach?” Indeed!
Mr. Evans response was:

“As for the white wash, I would agree with you but the
party to the civil law suit that discovered this problem
is very much on board. They want the data base to be
looked at and they have approved the scope of the project.
The most vocal local naysayers have bought into this process.”

Mr. Evans was completely wrong. We had not “bought into this process.” He insisted on this process. Nevertheless, Michael Duniho, on behalf of the Democratic Party, strongly suggested that the ballots he examined. Mr. Duniho recalls a heated exchange with Mr. Evans.

Our deference to your office’s integrity at that point should not be characterized as being “on board” Mr. Evans’ flawed process.

Mr. Evans’ e-mail also contained this important reference to the “issue to be investigated.”

“Regarding your questions, the initial issue is about the
absentee ballots that were run before the joint summary
report. The next question is whether after the summary
report there was a flip of the fields. So the accuracy of
the absentee ballots is questioned and the accuracy of
the subsequent ballots may be an issue.”

The evidence to resolve that key question was already available to the Attorney General. A.R.S. § 16-445 required Pima County to send “at least ten days before the date of the “RTA election” a copy of the ballot layout. In other words, the position of how the computer would read “yes” and “no” votes was on file. If the computer had later been instructed to read those votes reversed or “flipped” so that “no” votes would count as “yes” votes the computer data could easily have been compared with the data on file with the Secretary of State.

In other words, the entire purpose of that data was for it to be examined in a fraud investigation by the Attorney General. Your office did conduct a fraud investigation where that evidence would have provided the answer, but it was neither used nor requested by your office.

Furthermore, your office actively attempted to obstruct the Democratic Party’s attempt to find that evidence, when the Democratic Party scheduled a deposition of the Secretary of State’s office. Your office filed a Motion for a Protective Order asking the trial court judge to prevent us from learning the whereabouts of that evidence. We ultimately prevailed over your office’s objection and learned it had been mailed back to Pima County where Brad Nelson personally handed the critical evidence to Bryan Crane, and it has not been seen since. The Arizona State Election Director, Joseph Kanefield, testified that the Secretary of State’s office was aware of the criminal investigation having been informed by your office.

The full letter with footnotes is available here.