by David Safier
I'm an agnostic hanger-on to the election integrity movement here in Tucson. I follow what's going on closely but don't attend meetings. When things happen that merit national attention, I'm often the one who puts the information on BradBlog, the most widely read national blog on election integrity. (I
wrote a post there a few weeks ago detailing the latest happenings in court, which gives background for what went on over the last few days.) And I attend the court hearings when I can.
But I have no idea whether or not there has been election fraud in Pima County that has led to falsified election results. No idea. All I know is that the vote counting process we use here is deeply flawed and prone to manipulation by people who might want to rig an election. It's even worse in other places, and we're at the forefront of creating secure and transparent elections, but there are still security holes here big enough to drive a truck through.
The latest battles are over the 2006 RTA election. Put simply, the Pima County Democratic and Libertarian parties want the ballots saved and counted to see if the election was fair or rigged. The Republicans seem like they're ready to come aboard with those who want the ballots counted. The Pima County Supes? It's hard to know what they want.
The apparent upshot of what has happened over the past week and what happened in court today is that Attorney General Terry Goddard plans to take possession of the ballots. Right now they're in the custody of Beth Ford, the Pima County Treasurer. The assumption is, Goddard wants to ship them up to Phoenix.
This is a combination of possible good news and possible very bad news. The possible good news is, Goddard is probably the only person in the state who can order the ballots to be counted, and he's been reluctant to jump in and do something. If this is a first step in the direction of a fair counting of the ballots, this whole mess could be resolved. The possible very bad news is that the delicate chain of custody of the ballots may be broken, which could make their value as evidence, or even their integrity, come into question. If Goddard's intentions are less than honorable and/or the transfer process is sloppy, this move could mean we will be further away from an honest, transparent ballot counting process. The other possible bad news is, the Democratic Party wants to view the poll tapes,which are in the sealed boxes with the ballots. The party is currently in court to get the tapes. Goddard's move may stymie those efforts.
I attended today's hearing and hung around while Bill Risner, the Pima Dem's lawyer, spoke with KOLD News. Here are some reasonably accurate quotes of Risner's comments during the interview:
"The Attorney General is preventing us from continuing our investigation by moving the ballots to Maricopa. It means we won't get to see the poll tapes. . . . The Attorney General has frustrated our investigation at every turn." [Risner believes the poll tapes, which are in the sealed boxes with the ballots, will reveal information that will point to manipulation of the numbers during the vote counting process.]
"There is a considerable effort to keep us from finding out if there has been a crime." [Obviously, election fraud is a very serious crime.]
"Everyone agrees the software used in Pima County elections makes it easy to cheat. We found out that the County used procedures that indicate the possibility that the counting [of the RTA votes] was fixed. . . . Everything we've looked at confirms the possibility that the election was rigged. [Counting] the ballots is the only definitive answer to the question.
Randy Graf, a Republican who ran for House of Representatives against Gabrielle Giffords when she first won the seat, is also involved in the election integrity effort, working together with Democrats and Libertarians. Here are a few comments he made during his interview with KOLD:
"I was working with Republicans a year ago to get the party to be more aggressive on this issue."
"Let's get to the bottom of this so we can ensure that future elections are conducted fairly."
"You've got computers spitting out [election] results, and a stack of ballots. Let's compare the two."
We have a very unusual situation where the three political parties are in substantive agreement that the ballots should be counted, and even the Pima County Supes seem to be in favor of having them counted (when they're not for having the ballots destroyed,anyway). The ball has moved down the field today. The question is, has it moved forward or backward?
Recent Comments