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.
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.
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."
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:
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.
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.
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."
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:
"The day we see truth and do not speak is the day we begin to die"
- Martin Luther King
Pima County officials/employees tapped to support
Yes! 1 and 2 RTA initiative in 2006
Well the status quo in Pima County wants this case - and the truth - to die. The case in question is “We the People” attempt at court-ordered reforms seeking “prospective relief” so they cannot cheat in the future. Facts are, Pima County election process – a process involving election software the county has already admitted and situated in early cases (we won) as “fatally flawed” in a county that produced one of the most visibly hacked elections the country has ever seen.
“The goal of this lawsuit is to protect the “purity of elections” in the future, starting with the 2012 elections. Years of public records suits have shown us what's wrong with this county's elections process, computer systems and managers… …The most important legal and factual building block of this lawsuit is the agreed upon fact that it is very easy to cheat with our election computer software. The ease of cheating may be counterintuitive, especially among those least familiar with computers, but it is a fact. The ease of cheating may be a surprise even to those who are familiar with computers but whose familiarity was derived from securely developed programs. Our election computer system has quite simply been built to cheat and, at least for that goal, it has succeeded.” - Attorney Bill Risner, excerpt from statement of facts filed 1/12/12.
From the perspective of election transparency, here are the facts:
1) Pima County Agrees It Is Easy To Cheat: page 7;
2) The Arizona Attorney General Agrees It Is Easy To Cheat: page 8;
3) The Arizona Secretary of State Agrees It Is Easy To Cheat and State Law Prohibits The SOS From Checking County Computers To Find Out If Counties Are Cheating: page 9;
4) Multiple Expert Examinations Confirm The Irredeemable Flaws In Our Election Computer Software: page 12”;
Since 2006 we’ve won 3 major cases so far revealing how the process in Pima County works despite the county spending over a million dollars to block public records access alone. We filed this case several years ago to actually fix the problems found in that public records trial. In 2009 Pima County judge Harrington threw the “reform case” out but both the state appellate and supreme courts said otherwise – that we have a right to prove that the election process in Pima County is broken and ask the court for mandated reforms even if they are above and beyond state law – because under the AZ Constitution we have a civil right to fair elections and if state law is inadequate to achieve that, the courts can step in.
Before any court orders affecting election procedures are issued, the hearing needs to complete the fundamental tasks ignored by Attorney General Terry Goddard. The court must allow for the actual audit of the ballots 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 what are they afraid of?Why is Pima County the primary obstacle to this investigation?
We marvel at this remarkable moment in time. The inescapably simple resolution that Pima County avoids leaves everyone endowed with basic cognitive skills with the uncomfortable realization that Pima County has been caught cheating and they are staving off the inevitable with taxpayer's dollars. You may hear complaints by Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry about the costs of litigation and the time it is taking to resolve this issue, but responsibility for the costs of litigation rests squarely with him. Under his supervision, Pima County spent at least 1.3 million dollars in litigation in their failed attempt at resisting disclosure of public records. They even presented legal arguments trying to block a court order protecting the ballots while at Iron Mountain's storage facility (once it was discovered that those ballots had no real protection since 2006). It's important to keep in mind that Huckelberry is merely the figurehead working on behalf of the corporate interests while preserving the tertiary image of public service. His departure would ultimately bear little significance if the overarching structure of Pima County remains in tact.
We fail to see the logic behind Pima County's refusal to resolve this issue in an expedient and efficient manner. Regardless of the severity of the crime, it's time to clean up the elections department. Pima County reserves for itself the privilege to cheat in elections and those who dare to call for sufficient election transparency are punished. Pima County is solely responsible for all the legal foot-dragging, but the courts whose budgets are overseen by Chuck Huckelberry still make the plaintiff (who where victors in the last three rulings) pay for the storage costs of the ballots at Iron Mountain's facility.
Bill Risner was stiffed court fees despite finally obtaining access to the poll tapes after Pima County dragged their feet in a year's worth of litigation. This war of cost and attrition hurts election integrity, but it is Pima County that's looking desperate regardless of the size of their public relations team.
Spreading the Pain Around
After prevailing in both AZ Court of Appeals and Supreme Court by late 2011, we were assigned a second local judge (Kyle Bryson) following those wins, but he threw us out on the same basis as the Harrington in 2009 decision by claiming he didn't have the ability to create the reforms we were asking for...in complete and highly unusual rebellion against three appellate court judges and five state supreme court judges. After judges allow for a little tarnish to their reputations on behalf of the growth industry, they pass the buck to another fresh, less-tainted judge. In this case, Judge Kyle Bryson is being very generous to his fellow judges by the extent to which he allows his reputation to be trashed fighting this constitutional issue involving elections.
This is now turned into an outrage. ‘We the people’ have a right to our day in court and fair elections, and a corrupt county is blocking those rights at all branches of government.
Sadly, it’s what we expected from a court system that works to protect the status quo in Pima County because that court system is Pima County.
[1] Attorney Bill Risner, initial disclosure statement which is a mind blowing comprehensive statement of facts collected over many years of investigations and litigation of Pima County:http://tinyurl.com/LPFiling
[1]Pima County’s Manger “Chuck Huckelberry” created a monster PR Staff, AZ Daily Star: Josh Brodesky: County's new PR force: Good use of tax funds? Sunday, October 9, 2011:http://tinyurl.com/6p5qhtl
This week Pima County administrator Chuck Huckleberry claimed that a law forward by State Representative Terry Proud and signed by the Governor, HB2408, was retaliatory. The law calls for an audit of the Pima County Bonding disbursements. Huckleberry and an editorial in the newspaper, the Arizona Daily Star, argued that if Proud wanted the information, all she had to do was ask for it.
However, for over 4 years, various interests have asked Huckleberry for information regarding the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) election on May 16, 2006. At the time of the election, questions arose regarding the election results almost immediately. They persist in the form of a lawsuit in Arizona Superior Court.
The stated goal of a lawsuit filed in Arizona Superior Court by Tucson attorney Bill Risner on behalf of the Libertarian Party is “to protect the “purity of elections” in the future, starting with the 2012 elections. The lawsuit is based on two facts; “At the present time it is easy to cheat using our election computers and impossible to challenge a rigged election.”
The lawsuit alleges that “Pima County, through the direction and control of its county administrator C.H. “Chuck” Huckelberry, has systematically subverted critical controls required to protect the purity of elections. The elimination of those controls has permitted county management to take advantage of the ability to cheat presented by defects in our computerized election system.”
The central allegation in the suit is that “county management fraudulently rigged the Regional Transportation Authority election.”
The Pima County Democratic Party had previously taken on the issue. It was through the Discovery process in that effort, that the current suit bases its allegations. In papers filed with the court, lawyers claim that from “three other lawsuits involving the Pima County Democratic Party and Pima County,” a path was provided “for future discovery that must be followed in this lawsuit.”
The Libertarian Party argues that “The ease of cheating when matched with the impossibility of challenging any specific election requires court intervention in order to protect the purity of elections and ensure that we will have free elections.” They cite three Arizona Constitution sections as the basis of their claim, including Arizona Constitution Art. 2 § 21, which requires all elections to be “free and equal
Lawsuit highlights:
It Is Easy To Cheat With Pima County’s Computerized Election System
The most important legal and factual building block of this lawsuit is the agreed upon fact that it is very easy to cheat with our election computer software. The ease of cheating may be counterintuitive, especially among those least familiar with computers, but it is a fact. The ease of cheating may be a surprise even to those who are familiar with computers but whose familiarity was derived from securely developed programs. Our election computer system has quite simply been built to cheat and, at least for that goal, it has succeeded.
Editor's Note: This crucial court case is currently experiencing a media blackout among local Tucson press. This includes the Arizona Daily Star and the Tucson Weekly. This case is a textbook example of a battle waged by the growth lobby against the will of the population. The reason why the county is using such extreme measures to stop this trial is that the plaintiff, the Libertarian Party, may conduct discovery which includes a forensic exam of the RTA ballots to demonstrate to the courts that the 2006 RTA election calling for a two billion dollar twenty-year sales tax hike was rigged. This is the prerequisite for the courts to grant prospective relief for rigged elections.
If they felt they would be exonerated, Pima County would welcome the scrutiny. Instead, it appears that Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry is pushing his attorneys to use all conceivable tactics to delay and obstruct the procedure, which would ultimately benefit the nation as a precedent-setting court case aimed at improving election integrity.
THE INITIAL DISCLOSURE STATEMENT FILED BY PLAINTIFF ON 1/12/12 IS A GREAT COMPREHENSIVE STATEMENT OF FACTS: http://tinyurl.com/LPFiling
PROTECTING THE PURITY OF ELECTIONS
IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
THE STATE OF ARIZONA IN AND FOR
THE COUNTY OF PIMA
CASE NO. C20085016
HEARING ON JAN 30, 2012 2:30 PM
COURT ROOM OF THE HON. KYLE BRYSON
RAW FOOTAGE RUNS 37 MIN
Defendant Pima County's Attorney Ronna Fickbohm, files and gets "emergency hearing" based on false certification to request the court to stop deposition of Pima Co’s Election Director Brad Nelson. UPDATE: DEPOSITIONS GET GREEN LIGHT FROM JUDGE TO GO FORWARD.
Plaintiff's attorneys, Bill Risner and Ralph E. Ellinwood file Motion to Strike and Sanction Pima County for misleading the Court, filed:1.27.12: http://tinyurl.com/7krbr4c
Plaintiff also filed a motion in response to Defendant Motion for Protective Order filed 1.30.12: http://tinyurl.com/83qk3mq
Pima County is doing everything possible to stop this case from going forward including filing motion based on deception. http://tinyurl.com/7krbr4c
The case is as fundamental as it gets. What we're seeking "prospective relief" so they cannot cheat in the future. ANDREA WITTE "THE CONNECT THE DOTS LADY" has connected the dots into a 10-Point Quick Summary of The Fact pattern in this gripping saga of power and deceit. And we propose a remedy that is easy, inexpensive and doable. Link to Flyer: http://tinyurl.com/7amy6ff
Since our saga began over five years ago, more and more people across America are becoming aware of the serious security flaws in computerized voting systems. They are systems designed to cheat, and they are everywhere. As the political scene heats up with the Presidential election, all eyes will be on Tucson as ground zero for exposing these flaws in open court and proposing reasonable checks and balances in the system. We must protect the purity of elections and public confidence in election results — a cornerstone of our democracy. That's what this case is ultimately about. http://fatallyflawedelections.blogspot.com/
BACKGROUND: AUDIT-AZ, the Pima County Libertarian Party and other interested citizens of multiple parties for years have been investigating election processes in Pima County. In previous actions, the Democratic Party took the lead in winning public records lawsuits and revealing the extent of the problems, including poor security practices on "designed to cheat" systems, election results that consistently did not add up, missing or falsified paper, and election officials and staff who continuously flout the law.
AUDIT-AZ will be running the pool camera and if you can't make it to court you can watch the proceeding on our AUDITAZ's Channel on YouTube the next day: http://www.youtube.com/user/AUDITAZ/featured
Whether they are denying statements made in a hearing four days ago or they are claiming that the Libertarian party's motivation for prospective relief is to "make a movie", Pima County appears to be in a state of panic. After the Arizona Libertarian Party won their appeal for prospective relief for rigged elections, last week's initial hearings were prolonged by the county's absurd arguments against rudimentary measures to protect evidence and to learn how evidence was previously handled.
The evidence in question rests in cardboard boxes at an Iron Mountain storage facility, which is holding poll tapes, summary reports, ballots and other paperwork involving the 2006 Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) election.
Pima County's private attorney Ronna Fickbohm claimed last Friday, "Pima County has never said, 'we object to simply asking Beth Ford to get a certified statement from Iron Mountain listing who's accessed the records since the day they came to them and show it to you.'" Fickbohm contradicts her own testimony from the previous Monday. Bill Risner, an attorney working with the Libertarian party, promptly reminded Judge Kyle Bryson last Friday, "At the last hearing, where we were talking about deposing Iron Mountain and Ronna Fickbohm was arguing, Pima County was arguing against that. Her argument talked about how 'in front of Judge Borek, she was successfully able on behalf of Pima County to prevent us from obtaining information about what happened to those boxes. '"
Pima County's other private lawyer assigned to represent Treasurer Beth Ford, John Richardson, introduced a procedure making Beth Ford an inextricable part of the process designed to protect the ballots. Rather than making ballot custody an impartial process by removing all parties and leaving any orders to the judge, both Richardson and Fickbohm presented arguments about how such a court order could potentially implicate Beth Ford by suggesting there is good cause to protect the ballots.
As Bill Risner states last Friday, "The good cause is that it's important evidence that needs to be protected. That's the good cause...it was stunning what was done with this court's vault, which simply heightens the need for it to be clear to Iron Mountain...much better than a complicated order that relies on Ford's communication ... They repeatedly say that 'Gee, Ford's done this really great job', but if she did such a great job, how come Iron Mountain says 'No one ever told us'."
On May 18th, 2007, Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry (who sets the county treasurer's budget) issued a memorandum instructing his legal team about the need to secure all evidence involving the 2006 RTA election. Later testimony confirmed, however, that no actual action or enforcement was implemented. According to testimony by an Iron Mountain employee, no specific instructions concerning the handling of the ballots were delivered to Iron Mountain. Pima County's private attorney Ronna Fickbohm goes to great lengths to dispute Bill Risner's reference to the memo as a press release. She says, "It wasn't a press release. It wasn't directed to Mr. Risner somehow Mr. Risner got a hold of it. It doesn't matter. It wasn't a big secret."
Fickbohm is correct in stating that it wasn't a big secret because that 'memo' was released to the local press at the end of the day. Reading the memo, the public's last impression comes from the final sentence, "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 independent review of this material will verify that the allegations made by Mr. Risner are absolutely untrue." This document can formally be labelled a memo, but it was clearly an exercise in public relations.
Initially, Pima County's refusal to disclose electronic public records for the RTA election sparked a lawsuit by the Democratic party. Pima County spent over one million dollars in their failed attempt to prevent public disclosure of election data, which eventually was released to the Democratic party.
This release, however, was marred by Pima County employee John Moffatt's violation of the court order requesting the transfer of the data to both parties at the same time. Moffatt managed to gain possession of the data from the county vault prior to the Democratic party finding out about the order. This acquisition occurred with no signature or paper trail.
In the following trial for prospective relief, Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard grabbed the boxes of ballots the moment it was established that the Democratic party would gain access to the poll tapes that are included in the boxes. The Democratic party had experts ready to examine them for fraud. In addition to grabbing the poll tapes, Goddard's apparent purpose was to count the ballots in an attempt to vindicate Pima County. At this point, the Democratic Party abandoned their legal pursuit of prospective relief, but continued to fight for access to the poll tapes.
The Libertarian Party remained and succeeded in obtaining a precedent-setting ruling on behalf of prospective relief for elections so the court can intervene once there is a failure of existing laws and law enforcement (Goddard's investigation) to protect election integrity.
In the previous records case, Pima County admitted that software security is so bad, altering the outcome of an election is easy. In fact, the county is estopped from arguing otherwise in this current case for prospective relief. The county may eventually find itself in a similar position if they continue to make statements inferring that the RTA election was not rigged.
The Libertarian party intends to get a forensic examination of the RTA ballots to determine whether the cardboard boxes have been 'stuffed' with ballots generated by an ink-jet ballot-on-demand printer owned by Pima County. Terry Goddard refused such an examination despite the fact he was aware of the incident with John Moffatt and the Pima County vault. Another peculiar omission in Goddard's very public recount of the ballots behind glass was his refusal to incorporate basic auditing procedures. No sufficient audit took place because there was no comparison of the ballot totals to the precinct totals or poll tapes.
The Democratic party battled on for another year of litigation to gain access to the poll tapes. Over one third of the tapes were missing. Another 10% of the the poll tapes do not match the precincts they were supposed to match. The missing and errant poll tapes correspond to the precincts that had problems with memory card uploads. Problems with memory card uploads indicate attempts to reprogram the cards using an industrial farmer's crop scanner, a device that the Pima County Elections Division possessed during the RTA election.
"What this is really about, Judge, is the creation of new film footage for their commercial enterprise." said Ronna Fickbohm to Judge Bryson last Friday, "If you go online and Google fatallyflawedthemovie.com you will see a documentary that Mr. Brakey had asked you to film today put together starring Mr. Risner that was commercially available over the internet for twenty bucks a pop and it was even screened at the Loft."
John Brakey of CARE and AUDITAZ was operating the camera for the press pool footage of last Friday's hearing embedded at the end of this article.
Edited together with no narration or talking head interviews, the completed documentary, "Fatally Flawed" enables its audience to relive the experience of those who cared about the integrity of elections in Pima County. It has proven to be an important tool for the public interest to help educate viewers about what transpired between Pima County and election integrity advocates in pursuit of election transparency. It also contains important video evidence, like the footage of John Moffatt's county court shenanigans. This type of documentation makes the revision of past events much more difficult.
In addition to what's in the movie, there is footage of an array of tables behind glass at Goddard's recount.
Continuous running footage of one table's entire process of counting the RTA ballots shows identically sized cardboard boxes filled to the top edge with approximately 1600 ballots. Additional footage shows another table's complete count filling the same-sized box to the same level with approximately 1000 ballots. One of the crucial specifications in any print job is the paper thickness, especially when ballots are involved. This could be a troublesome dilemma for any last minute attempts at 'correcting the situation' by accessing the boxes a second time and replacing ballots for the purpose of passing a forensic exam. A successful switch would require ballots of the same quantity of different sizes to fit in the same number of equal sized boxes in exactly the same way they were filmed during Goddard's recount.
Referring to the boxes of evidence, Bill Risner tells Judge Bryson, "Whatever's in them needs to be protected. We certainly can't trust Pima County. The games in terms of that sort of stuff need to stop... It's hard to have faith, really, in any storage in view of what Pima County did to the vault of this court. That is out of my comprehension that someone can simply walk in and walk out, but they did it and that was a demonstration of incredible authority and power within the system. Demonstration of who's in control. Phenomenal. "
Pima County's desperate measures will not distract from the Libertarian party's primary goal behind this litigation - to ensure fair transparent elections for the future and prevent cheating by Pima County in upcoming elections. This case for prospective relief through the courts is a major milestone that could help with election transparency across the nation. Hopefully, Pima County will abandon or exhaust all delaying tactics and approach a timely outcome within this election year. There is far too much at stake.
1) Neither the Arizona Daily Star nor local TV news has demanded to know who is responsible for the hundred million dollars missing from “Rio Nuevo” projects.
2) Neither the Arizona Daily Star nor local TV news has mentioned Superior Court case # C 20085016 where Pima County admitted under oath to wrongdoing and security lapses in the two billion dollar Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) election.
3) No media outlet has bothered to mention how Brian Crane, chief computer tech for Pima County Elections, admitted buying “election flipping” software, called Crop Scanner, prior to the largest, most expensive bond election in Pima County History.
4) No one reported when Pima County affirmed in testimony that the RTA election was a, "discrete incident of past wrongdoing” (Ford v. Dem. etc, 2010).
5) No one questioned Attorney General Goddard who first had “sufficient cause to investigate” but changed his mind a week later. Not one reporter wants to know why Attorney General Horne, “…declines to initiate another (?) investigation”.
Our Constitution protects press freedom. Shield laws in 30 states protect journalists from compelled production of confidential/unpublished information. The press is protected. What about the press’s duty to protect the public with information?
And newspapers knew about the corruption back in 2007. Garry Duffy, reported for the Tucson Citizen: “No one seems to know what happened to a computer tape record of the May 16, 2006 (RTA) election… The county elections director 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)
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1) Neither the Arizona Daily Star nor local TV news has demanded to know who is responsible for the hundred million dollars missing from “Rio Nuevo” projects.
2) Neither the Arizona Daily Star nor local TV news has mentioned Superior Court case # C 20085016 where Pima County admitted under oath to wrongdoing and security lapses in the two billion dollar Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) election.
3) No media outlet has bothered to mention how Brian Crane, chief computer tech for Pima County Elections, admitted buying “election flipping” software, called Crop Scanner, prior to the largest, most expensive bond election in Pima County History.
4) No one reported when Pima County affirmed in testimony that the RTA election was a, "discrete incident of past wrongdoing” (Ford v. Dem. etc, 2010).
5) No one questioned Attorney General Goddard who first had “sufficient cause to investigate” but changed his mind a week later. Not one reporter wants to know why Attorney General Horne, “…declines to initiate another (?) investigation”.
Our Constitution protects press freedom. Shield laws in 30 states protect journalists from compelled production of confidential/unpublished information. The press is protected. What about the press’s duty to protect the public with information?
Garry Duffy, the Citizen reporter who
actually did report about the missing data
tape at Pima Elections.
And newspapers knew about the corruption back in 2007. Garry Duffy, reported for the Tucson Citizen: “No one seems to know what happened to a computer tape record of the May 16, 2006 (RTA) election… The county elections director 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)
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The Citizen is gone. The “heart of democratic process” story is forgotten. Not a printed peep now about an ongoing civil suit and Pima County’s admissions of “wrongdoing”. Nothing is reported about a two billion dollar fraud on the taxpayers of Pima County.
Two billion is how much from each county taxpayer?
Do local TV and newspapers have a duty to inform their public when millions and billions of tax dollars are lost, or when official corruption occurs? Are the news media in Tucson malingerers? Are they willfully blind, or have they just taken sides against taxpayers?
Duffy, G. (2007. Tucson Citizen. Record of votes in ’06 RTA election missing.
According to Attorney Bill Risner, the Arizona Supreme Court issued its order today denying Pima County's Petition for Review of the decision of the Court of Appeals. As a result, the Libertarian Party has completed the second half of its legal victory in obtaining prospective relief against rigged elections through the courts. In Arizona, the courts are the last available means to prevent election fraud from reoccurring in the future; the legislative and executive branches have failed to provide adequate remedies. The Court of Appeals reversed Judge Charles Harrington's previous dismissal of the case and remanded the case for further proceedings.
Pima County oversees the elections for that county and enjoined itself in a lawsuit originally designed to determine the predicament of the 2006 RTA ballots, currently in the possession of the County Treasurer's office. The ballots have been preserved because of previous litigation that ultimately uncovered a significant amount of evidence suggesting that the two billion dollar bond transportation measure was rigged.
Originally, Pima County attorneys advised County Treasurer Beth Ford to sue the political parties (those charged with monitoring elections in Arizona) to "get a decision on what to do with the RTA ballots". The original idea was to provide an opportunity for Pima County to destroy the ballots now, before true auditing or forensic examination of the ballots could take place. This idea backfired, however, because two parties in the suit, the Democratic party and the Libertarian party, argued for prospective relief from the courts after then-Attorney General Terry Goddard's woefully inadequate audit of the ballots. In addition to prospective relief, they wanted to see the poll tapes, which are vital auditing tallies at each of the precincts on the night of the RTA election. Terry Goddard had refused to examine them, but saw fit to confiscate them along with the ballots. He then locked them up again with Pima County, causing the other two parties to spend a year in litigation before gaining access. Once they finally got to see the poll tapes, over one-third were missing.
The past body of evidence demonstrating the harm committed by Pima County to the credibility and integrity of its elections was not so easily dismissed by the Supreme Court.
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 to provide cover for Terry Goddard's ill-fated gubernatorial campaign. However, the Libertarian party was on board from the beginning and elected to continue pursuing 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.
Elections integrity activists who are actually doing something or members of 9/11 Truth movement have more than the wrath of Cass Sunstein to deal with in Tucson. It's the puerile "Get Out of Town" smack talk by the pseudo-hip, paper-and-ink info gatekeepers.
I am the person Tucson Weekly editor Jim Boegle describes as one of the "more annoying and illogical members of the election integrity crowd". He tries to denigrate those who believe the RTA Election was rigged by referring to the fact that I think 9/11 was an inside job.
Recent developments like the missing poll tapes and other newly discovered security breaches seriously undermine Goddard's recount:
but the Weekly took an early position about the RTA Election that is proving to be wrong. To justify their position, they keep referring to Goddard's recount and the poll commissioned by Zimmerman and Associates (or Yes 1 and 2, the pro RTA political machine). The problem with the poll is that our inside sources know that, days before the election, the pro RTA political machine was warning the person in charge of packaging the money for the campaign that they were behind in the RTA race or that it was too close to call. It seems even those who paid for the poll didn't have much faith in it. The Weekly is aware of this and could have investigated this story but chose to push this poll's results instead. The "official" results of the RTA election, incidentally, are similar to that one set of polls.
As more developments surface, the Weekly tends to ignore them. This behavior has already affected the paper's credibility on a number of different stories, particularly with those who are close to and understand the subjects it covers. For example, they are remarkably dense about the sale of the Coronado Hotel, the conduct of Glen Lyons and the D.D.C., and the generally offensive moves that rich developers make against the poor and middle class. The Tucson Weekly's coverage is so bad that they are now placing more emphasis on covering light entertainment stories than it's attempts at investigative journalism.
Concerning 9/11, Boegle held up as his "straw man" my reference to a video I made a while back called '9/11 Prestige' about a dubious photograph of WTC7 used by Popular Mechanics showing much more damage than other photographs show after both towers collapsed. Here is the video:
Citizen photographs and videos contradict what's shown in the NIST photo, for example, Aman Zafar's pic, which is used in the following analysis:
While there was some damage on the south side of WTC7, the picture used in "Inside Edition" appears to have been altered to exaggerate the size of the damage, especially when compared to the video footage that was found and used in "Fabled Enemies" with a roving camera both outside and inside the south side of the building after the towers were demolished. Recent FOIA acquisitions prove to be even more embarrassing, especially with the footage of NYC Corporation Counsel Michael Hess screaming from the seventh floor window. He was trapped in WTC7 when an initial set of explosions destroyed floors below his level. Neither of the twin towers had fallen at that time.
We understand that the altered picture is a red herring issue because it means nothing compared to the way WTC7 was demolished. Real journalists would interview those experts qualified to speak about the evidence of controlled demolitions on 9/11. These experts are members of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, Firefighters for 9/11 Truth and Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice.
Ultimately, when Jim Boegle states that Popular Mechanics provided a "thorough, definitive debunking of WTC7-related conspiracy theories", he embarrasses himself and creates a permanent record of how out of touch he really is nine years later in December of 2010.
This type of attack comes from an editor of a newspaper that not only makes the laughable claim of being the alternative paper for Tucson, but actually prints around fifty thousand copies of this facade to leave them strewn throughout the city. One act that we know is not beneath the likes of Jim Boegle is the use of his power as an editor of a paper to ridicule those he disagrees with. His recent move, however, is so clumsy and so ill-conceived that many are beginning to wonder if it isn't time for Jimmy to pick up his chips and find a new game.
Suspects had access to ballots three years before recount.
Recently, the Libertarian Party earned a victory for election integrity activists when it won an appeal to reverse a previous judge's ruling. Now the Libertarian Party is able to proceed with the case for prospective relief against rigged elections through the courts. In Arizona, the courts are the last available means to prevent election fraud from reoccurring in the future since the legislative and executive branches have failed to provide adequate remedies. As customary, Pima County, the losing team, was granted the opportunity to make a "Motion to Reconsider". Pima County's position in this matter has been whittled down to desperate measures as their legal team attempts to denigrate the severe nature of election fraud.
Pima County oversees the elections for that county and enjoined itself in a lawsuit originally designed to determine the predicament of the 2006 RTA ballots, currently in the possession of the County Treasurer's office. The ballots have been preserved because of previous litigation that ultimately uncovered a significant amount of evidence suggesting that the two billion dollar bond transportation measure was rigged.
Originally, Pima County attorneys advised County Treasurer Beth Ford to sue the political parties (those charged with monitoring elections in Arizona) to "get a decision on what to do with the RTA ballots". The original idea was to provide an opportunity for Pima County to destroy the ballots now, before true auditing or forensic examination of the ballots could take place. This idea backfired because two parties in the suit, the Democratic party and the Libertarian party, argued for prospective relief from the courts in a trial that was interrupted with then-Attorney General Terry Goddard's woefully inadequate audit of the ballots. In addition to prospective relief, they wanted to see the poll tapes, which are vital auditing tallies at each of the precincts on the night of the RTA election. Terry Goddard had refused to examine them but saw fit to confiscate them along with the ballots. He then locked them up again with Pima County, causing the other two parties to spend a year in litigation before gaining access. Once they finally got to see the poll tapes, over one third were missing.
As we have stated, Pima County decided to make a "Motion for Reconsideration" of the appellate court's decision in the case. With this pleading, Pima County's reasoning has crossed over into a surreal realm. The document is truly bizarre. The first sign of a bad argument is the run-on sentence, favored by legal desperadoes everywhere, and such occurs at the outset of this twelve page motion. Amidst the tap dancing and sleight-of-hand involved with this lush document of legal yoga (replete with mispellings) is one gem to behold: the unashamed and dismissive reference to the rigging of a two-billion dollar bond measure. Pima County sidestepped the use of their own attorneys in favor of Ronna Fickbohm, a pricey private lawyer tapping taxpayer's funds to help taxpayers lose their representation at the polls. She attempts to accomplish this feat by boring the judiciary senseless and wrangling the english language into unnatural positions, all while keeping a straight face. She describes the rigging of the RTA election in this diminutive way:
"To the extent this Court disagrees with the trial court's interpretation and liberally construes Appellant's pleading as setting forth a claim for injunctive relief, the question is easy: has Appellant alleged anything more than a discrete incident of past wrongdoing and its desire to maybe have the trial court enjoin a repeat of that?..."
She is not only presenting to the court the idea that such an offense is a "discrete incident", she continues to try to convince the court that because it only happened one time in the past, there's no evidence that it could happen again.
"[Appellant] nowhere even attempted to argue that the alleged single incident of believed historic wrongdoing presented a current and ongoing harm or risk of harm such that a trial court's order enjoining ongoing conduct is required."
Bill Risner, an attorney who has been assisting the Libertarian Party since the Democratic Party pulled out of this case, had an amusing rebuttal:
"Let's see. Same County Manager supervising the Election Director. Check. Same Election Director. Check. Same computer operator. Check. Same computer system. Check. Same cropscanner. Check. Same hand's off County Supervisors. Check. etc. Yep. Nothing to worry about."
He continues: "As for the Libertarian Party, she is correct that they have a 'desire to maybe have the trial court enjoin a repeat of that?' Actually many of us have such a desire. Some are even offended by the rigging of any election."
We don't believe the court will be that impressed with this motion, but what of the ballots, now? We have come to learn through previous testimony by an employee at the Iron Mountain facility that no specific instructions concerning the handling of the ballots were delivered to the Iron Mountain staff by Pima County. Back then, a lot of posturing took place with a stern memo presented by County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry about the need to secure the ballots and ensure their security while litigation over this election proceeded, but later testimony confirmed that no actual action or enforcement was implemented to protect the ballots. It appeared to have mattered more to Huckelberry that the public got to read the stern memo and forget about whether anything was actually done about it. After all, the memo was a stern one. Does anyone truly believe that what follows from a written directive is a mere crap shoot with no certainty over its enforcement? How would anything get done in Pima County?
There have been recent calls by those involved with the Libertarian Party's legal team requesting that Pima County Treasurer Beth Ford finally make the ballots secure, but how will they know for sure? How do they know that some other Huckelberry flunky like John Moffatt won't be caught again with his scaly hand in the evidence cookie jar. After all, that is precisely what happened last time with the electronic evidence from that same election in the Pima County vault.
Meanwhile, we watch the Libertarian Party in their epic struggle to get prospective relief from the courts. Despite Ronna Fickbohm's supercilious and silly characterization of the harm committed by Pima County as a mere "discrete incident of past wrongdoing", we see it for what it is: a vicious affront to the public's right to election integrity.
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.
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."
Fatally Flawed: The Pursuit of Justice in a Suspicious Election
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