RTA Polltape Trial Monday March 22 To Enforce Transparent Release of Pima County Public Election Records

Stand STRONG for Transparency!

ATTEND COURT TRIAL

Monday March 22

1:30-4:30pm

Pima County Democratic Party v. Ford

Re: Public records request for poll tapes and election records from May 2006 RTA election

Judge Ted Borek's Courtroom

Fifth Floor, Room 583

Hear Ye, Hear Ye Election Integrity Supporters,

This is a wake-up call..... Please Join Us Whenever You Can During the Trial....It's That Important!.....

.......Make a Strong Statement.....Be There.....

While we've all been working on issues and candidates, feeling battle scarred from fighting desperate battles in the state legislature to keep our schools afloat, our children healthy and secure, while worrying about being fleeced by the banksters and foreclosed upon, stressed out by fear of losing our jobs and how to pay for spiraling cost of health care, the request for poll tapes and public records for the RTA election filed over a year ago now has until now been hidden below the radar, stymied in court, buried by other pressing issues. Judge Ted Borek, on Thursday, May 18, set a trial for Monday March 22, that is expected to lead to a court-ordered transparent process for copying these vital records.

The truth is Pima County has used every available legal tactic to mount a determined and expensive campaign to stomp on our rights, to stall. deny and escalate costs on what started out as a straightforward agreement to set a time and a fair procedure for following the law by allowing copying of public records. This time, Pima County has spent over $150,000 and counting to hire two private law firms to handle this case. This is on top of the million dollars Pima County spent to deny release of electronic election databases. Enough already! We won't quit.

This stall tactic is an attempt to deny the public the right to obtain copies of the records of a public election, a right enshrined in Arizona law. As citizens, we must fight to exercise this right because it is the only way we can find out if our votes really count. As you know, transparency and open government is the foundation of democracy. The right of the public to know is a check against erosion of our democracy by the same powerful interests that work to undermine the public interest in Congress, in the courts, in our legislatures, in the media and in local government.

Poll tapes and Ballot Certification sheets are integral to the audit of all future elections.

The database pointed us to the need to inspect poll tapes. From an examination of the databases for the 2006 special election, we learned that 85 separate precinct memory cards were at least loaded once to as many as 6 times starting at 10:15 pm election night. No backup of the database was made election night Tuesday as always had been done. In fact no backup was made until Friday at 5:01 pm. Why you may ask? Well, that is simple; they didn’t want to leave any evidence of wrongdoing. To have a flip, then you have to have a flop, no backup made, no evidence of misdeeds, except the database shows the time when the reloads were done and how many times it was done.

Bill Risner in his court filing of March 18th states:

“… We can be reasonably sure that the defendants haven’t spent $150,000 and counting on attorneys fees because of a dispute over a couple of hundred dollars in copy charges. The court needs to understand that the plaintiff has made a public allegation that the poll tapes may reveal that they were fraudulently programmed by the county’s computer operators. This court will never be asked to determine whether that allegation is true. On the other hand, the defendants are asking this court to issue an order permitting the suspect to take the evidence out of the boxes and back to the privacy of their office. That request is central to their case and central to the plaintiff’s objection. Since the court will frame its own order the wisdom of the most secure procedure is important”

“In the era of governmental frugality the expense of the defendants’ resistance to an examination and copying of records they acknowledge are public records is mind boggling. Within the past month, three individual citizens copied all of the poll tapes and yellow sheets from the recent November 3, 2009 Pima county election for a total charge of $14.50. The examination of the poll tapes is a routine matter.

Bryan Crane’s testimony is a fact that defendant Beth Ford does not dispute. The ownership by Pima County of a “cropscanner” machine, an infamous hack tool that can be used to fraudulently program precinct optical scan memory cards is a fact. Pima County purchased the machine. Bryan Crane practiced with the machine immediately upon learning that it could be used to rig elections. Those are facts that are not in dispute.

The plaintiff is not attempting to “re-visit” issues addressed by the Attorney General or Judge Harrington. The Attorney General did not look at any poll tapes nor did his office express an opinion on any poll tapes. Judge Harrington simply refused to accept jurisdiction. The documents attached to Beth Ford’s objection do not mention the poll tapes.

The Democratic Party has chosen to examine the poll tapes. That choice is a permissible choice. Since we have a legal right to examine the original and to obtain copies, we wan tthe process to be one that ensures that the tapes are original tapes.

The Democratic Party is not aware of any other election department in the country that owns a “cropscanner election rigging tool.” Such ownership and possession is a very big deal. That infamous and undeniable fact is not the sole reason that the plaintiff wants copies of the poll tapes.

Those poll tapes are very valuable and, indeed invaluable in understanding the electronic database and the canvas. For example, plaintiff’s examination of the poll tapes from the most recent [City] election has revealed serious violations of state and federal law that the Democratic Party is now addressing. Those violations deeply affect the integrity of our local elections and were uncovered only because copies were obtained of the poll tapes and the yellow sheets.

“Plaintiff has previously noted that John Moffatt, the person who Beth Ford has identified in her case disclosure as the person who developed the plan to remove the poll tapes from Iron Mountain, directly violated a prior court order and personally took the Democratic Party’s electronic database out of the Clerk of the Superior Court’s vault. He, therefore, has a specific track record of violating specific court ordered security. His past conduct alerts us and should alert the court to the risk of permitting the original public records to leave the custody of Iron Mountain where they are under court protection.”

"The court should take judicial notice of the prior sworn testimony by plaintiff as permitted by Arizona case law that previously cited and has not been challenged by defendant.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED this day 18th day of March, 2010" RISNER & GRAHAM"

Below are hyperlinks to motions filed in this case no. C20088876.

The two newest motions came in later Friday the 19th and I call them the Huckelberry’s Hail Mary passes.

03/19/10 New Defendant PIMA REPUBLICAN PARTY Notice of Objection to Request for Access to Ballot Containers .pdf

03/19/10 New Defendant RTA ATTORNEY Notice of Limited Appearance and Request to Appear .pdf
03/18/10 Plaintiff Reply To Objection to Request for Judicial Notice .pdf
03/17/10 Defendants Objection to Request for Judicial Notice .pdf
03/16/10 Plaintiff Response to Motion to Quash Subpoena .pdf
03/12/10 Plaintiff Request for Judicial Notice Part A .pdf

03/12/10 Plaintiff Request for Judicial Notice Part B Day 3 of Bench Trial of Dec 6, 2007.pdf

02/23/10 Defendant Pima Co Reply to Plaintiff Statement of Issues of Public Records .pdf

02/08/10 Plaintiff Statement of Issues Concerning Retrieval & Copying Public Records .pdf

Other links:

01/27/10 Press Release Bill Risner, AZ Democratic Party Pass Resolution on Solutions .pdf

01/23/10 Risner Resolution to ADP State Meeting – Electronic Voting- Problems and Solutions .pdf

10/09/09 Significant Discrepancies in Comparison of RTA hand count Results by AZ AG. Pdf

07/04/09 The PEW Report Names AZ No 1 in the use of Provisional Ballots .pdf

Fatally Flawed to Play at Crossroads Theatres, Tucson

In 2006, "Hacking Democracy" demonstrated how an election outcome can be altered. What happens in a community when its citizens discover their election was stolen? Fatally Flawed is a true detective story about a two billion dollar bond transportation measure passed under suspicious circumstances in Pima County, Arizona.
An encore screening of "Fatally Flawed" will take place in Tucson's

CROSSROADS 6 GRAND CINEMAS
Monday, November 16th
4811 E. Grant Road
7:00 PM Admission $3.00

More Huckelberry Propaganda

Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry said on Arizona Illustrated Friday Roundtable newsmaker:

“Our point is enough is enough. We recounted this election um…basically innumerable times electronically, physically and recounted it once by the Attorney General, the answer is the same…”

Well, if we take the man's word: “we recounted this election um… basically innumerable times electronically, physically” We’re only aware of 1 time the RTA election was recounted legally; and that was done in a completely nontransparent investigation by the attorney general office.

How many times is “ innumerable times”? “Electronically”? “Physically”?

Run time: 02:10 - 9/25/09

"FATALLY FLAWED" PREMIERE SHOWING AND DISCUSSIONS

We had a Great Showing / Attendance for "Fatally Flawed" at the Loft Cinema in Tucson on Wednesday, September 16th, 2009 and below are video link of discussions following premiere.

Attorney Bill Risner Is Presented A Surprise Award For His Work For Election Integrity.

Jody Gibbs, from Voices of Opposition, join by Pima County Democrat Donna Branch-Gilby in presenting a plaque provided by the election integrity groups in Pima County, Arizona.

Video of Full Discussion after Tucson Premiere Showing of "Fatally Flawed"

Attending the Q&A session after the movie were Attorney Bill Risner, John Brakey, Jim March, Mickey Duniho and director J.T. Waldron.

Also the day of the Tucson Premiere Showing of "Fatally Flawed" Ellen Theisen of VotersUnited.org released a Preliminary report on Pima County Election, May 16, 2006: Regional Transportation Authority Question 2.

Tilted: Significant Discrepancies Between the County's Canvass and the Attorney General's Hand Count Require Futher Investigation.
For the complete report: Click Here

Bill Risner Discusses Judge Harrington's Decision on the John C. Scott Show

John C. Scott interviews Bill Risner after Judge Harrington's decision that courts cannot offer prospective relief when an election is rigged. The rational is that the executive and legislative branches offer adequate remedy- even if the elections placing candidates in the executive and legislative positions are rigged.

Jim March Interview on KFNX news in Phoenix 9/3/09

Good recap of Pima County Elections for the Phoenix audience.

Clarifying some facts Jim mentioned, here's some additional information from the Attorney General (AG) hand count of the RTA ballots.

Looking at the numbers in the AG Excel spread sheet we can see that:

• 4 precincts are missing. Was this a mistake, or were the numbers so messy they needed burying forever? Why didn't the AG's report these facts?

• 285 out of 409 precincts are out of balance; this comes to 69.68% with the RTA official Canvas report.

• Under Federal Guide lines the accuracy is expected to be 1 mark in 10 million.

However we didn’t expect to see an error rate of:

• 159 precincts are missing 1541 ballots
• 126 precincts have 389 ballots to many
• 1,152 ballots are missing

The AG press conference (Video) April 21, 2008 and their PowerPoint presentation, last page states:

“Pima County official canvass ballot count: 120,821”

“Ballots counted in examination: 120,888”

“Difference: 67”

How is it possible to have 67 extra ballots when you're at least missing 1,152 ballots in the precincts count?

Vote by Mail "Early Ballots" are clearly marked "Early Ballots on each ballot.

Additionally, there are unresolved questions about why would one box hold 1,200 ballots and another exact same size box hold as much as 1,600 ballots. Are there two types of ballot thicknesses?

Do to the error rate being so high, wouldn’t it have been prudent to use the poll tapes and also check the ballots forensically to verify that these were the original RTA ballots?

From Tuesday, September 1, 2009, see what else the AG is up to: “Evidence that Attorney General Goddard Ignored and Why the RTA Case Still Matters"

More information coming soon.

Evidence that Attorney General Goddard Ignored, and Why the RTA Case Still Matters

By Dan Ashby, Director, Election Defense Alliance and John Brakey, Co-Coordinator Investigation for Election Defense Alliance

September 1, 2009

http://electiondefensealliance.org/prospective-relief-hearing-Pima-RTA

In its completely nontransparent investigation into the RTA election -- which included a hand-recount of what are purported to have been the actual RTA ballots, but under conditions precluding meaningful public observation -- the Arizona attorney general’s office declined to examine the poll tapes and certification evidence.

The attorney general's investigation also removed the poll tapes and certifications beyond the reach of election integrity investigators, who were pursuing those records in court when the attorney general intervened.

Legal action to get access to those records will continue, but at present, the RTA poll tapes and certification reports are boxed along with the RTA ballots and are at risk for destruction, depending on Judge Herrington's decision.

Poll tapes are records of the precinct election results printed out by the voting machines at the close of polls and signed by the pollworkers. End-of-day certification reports are statements also signed by the pollworkers attesting that the poll tape vote totals reconciled with the number of voters who cast ballots in the precinct.

Reconciling ballots with the signed poll tapes is standard auditing procedure that helps verify that votes being recounted are the same that were cast on election day. Conducting a "recount" without reconciling ballots, poll tapes, and certification reports, is a rubberstamping endorsement of unverified election results.

The suspect Pima County Elections Department owns a ballot printing machine. It is known as the “ballot on demand” system. That machine can immediately print any ballot for any precinct in the RTA election, or in last fall's primary or general election, or in any other recent election. It can do so because the “GEMS” election computer database retains the printing instructions known as “ballot definition files.”

The original ballots were printed on an offset press by the Runbeck Company in Glendale, Arizona.

The unused RTA ballots were reportedly destroyed by Runbeck in June of 2006. If Pima County wanted to print new ballots, they could most easily print them using their own ballot printing machine. Pima County's machine uses a laser printer. That printer is simply a computer with GEMS instructions connected to an Okidata laser printer.

In a personal experiment, Jim March used a microscope and noted that the offset printed ballots from Runbeck had “clean” margins on the printed material while laser-printed material had observable “toner spray” on the margins. He showed, therefore, that by simply putting a ballot under a microscope one can determine if it was printed on an offset press or a laser printer.

Jim March photographed samples of each type of printed ballot and sent copies of the photographs to the attorney general's office with a description of what to look for. He requested that they look at the ballots as he had demonstrated. Jim brought a microscope with him to Phoenix and kept it available for such an examination in the observation room on the other side of the glass window to the counting area.

Bill Risner, attorney for the Democratic Party, also sent a written request asking the attorney general's investigators to either conduct a forensic examination of the ballots themselves, or permit the citizen observers to do so.

In a highly unusual and significant vote, the entire executive committee of the Pima County Democratic Party requested the attorney general's office to conduct such an examination, or permit citizen observers to inspect the ballots under a microscope.

These requests were all denied by the attorney general's officers in charge of the recount.

Was the attorney general's recount a cover-up of insider election fraud? That question can only be answered through direct public access to the actual RTA ballots, poll tapes, and certification reports.

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