Tucson attorney Bill Risner will soon be back in Pima County Superior Court on behalf of those election-integrity-loving Pima County Democrats.
On Monday, Feb. 25 at 3 p.m., Risner goes before Judge Michael Miller to request that the court look at objections Risner filed against Miller’s findings of fact from his Dec. 18 ruling in the Dems’ public records lawsuit against the Pima County Board of Supervisors.
Another topic to be addressed at the hearing: Risner’s request for about $300,000 in attorney’s fees.
Expect Risner to return to court later on another motion he filed Feb. 13 to request a hearing on the disclosure of all election data files going back to when the county began to use its Diebold system in 1997.
“What’s the harm in getting us stuff that’s 10 years old?” Risner asks. “We now have all the 2006 election files and all the RTA files. There’s no security risk.”
Risner says the Dems need the files to compare the 2006 and Regional Transportation Authority election files that the Democrats are analyzing. The group suspects the early files are clean, but could be helpful in comparing the ones they think may stink.
This article appears in Feb 14-20, 2008.
I’ve never seen a color scan of a motion b4 but although to subtly done (part of the motivation of this comment) making the documents linked to words describing them in your entry is a real contribution; but subject to further criticism for omitting much of the litigation selectively.
You could instead fight for the entire file to be hosted publically by the courts website as is done in Maricopa.
The real issue of course is that the party can’t be trusted advocating for the propert remedy when the outcome to the election is claimed to be what they wanted anyway…. and time to intervene is likely long gone.
Yet we all know that there is plenty of support to put the road madness back on the ballot- after all the number of fatalities has probably clicked through several hundred thousand more since we supposedly had the opportunity to vote on business as usual for the protecting the disease of erroneous car consumption.
So few voted the number of votes necessary to reverse this outcome is trivial even as it currently stands.
I wish more people could understand that we are not condemed for decades because a small number of special interest voters managed to show up largely alone and barely tip this one into there coffers while the planet itself might very well be extinguished from less. THAT IS A MYTH.
The fiends who got this passed us didn’t succeed there first attempt. They spent and spent over and over until finally luck, fatigue, or sure a corrupt count (the ballot was corrupt in and of itself as well) has given them years to make us ever more terminal. That we can’t go back to voters JUST ONCE! is obviously a false, absurd, most venal notion.
For new voters the decision is palpable- vote YES FOR THE RTA IF YOU WANT MORE OF YOUR PEERS MAIMED, INCINERATED, OR JUST PART OF THE BIGGEST PROBLEM WE HAVE EVER FACED.
$40k? News to me. It’s about $9k. I would appreciate a retraction.
And yes, I’m *that* Jim March. Please contact Mr. Risner for confirmation of both my identity and the correct dollar amount.
Note to Karl: this lawsuit was never, I repeat NEVER, about the RTA race.
As we dug deeper into the conduct of elections in Pima County, that race in particular started to smell, although it is by no means the only source of odor. The main trigger point of the lawsuit was our finding that this elections office has been routinely printing the “who’s winning and losing” reports (on a precinct detail basis) up to a week or more before election day going back to at least 2004 (primaries) that we know of. They were raiding the mail-in vote data prematurely. This was wildly improper and we caught it because we (in this case the Pima Democratic party aided by this *Libertarian* consultant) were doing our jobs: acting as election observers and monitors.
Once we knew there was “peeking” at the mail-in ballots to predict winners and losers, we suspected there might be more trouble and dug deeper. The county dug in their heels, which triggered the suit.
Karl, what this is REALLY about is election observation. The county has chosen to take elections into the electronic age, but would prefer that observation remain solely a “human eyeball” affair. Without electronic observation of electronic elections, observation mandated by state law becomes a bad joke and we have an open invitation to cheating.
Part of electronic observation is the ability to take apart the raw data files, the “electronic debris”, after the fact.
That’s what this case was about. Questions about the RTA race have always been an unexpected side effect!
Jim March – normally a registered Libertarian, currently registered GOP just to vote for Ron Paul, switching back as soon as I can get back to Ann Rodriquez’s office 🙂
Technical Consultant, Pima County Democratic Party
Member of the Board of Directors, http://blackboxvoting.org
Jim – I thought this amount came from you, but I am more than happy to get a figure to print from Mr. Risner. Re: Karl – Not many people reply back to his rants… sometimes we don’t understand them. And, I believe it’s you, Jim March!
I’m still waiting to find out how many of the ballots counted as “for” actually had yes’s to both q1 and q1. I don’t even know yet if you obtained the image data necessary to answer that fundamental issue. I hope the tool you ultimately distribute will answer it if it can. I expect that more voted other then that way and believe there intent can’t be assumed to be other then against passage. Therefore for that reason alone the authority should be disolved or be required to be affirmed by an election not so Swiss in it’s cheese.
No time would be better then this November of course but that’s not going to happen. The election should however occur on a date that people actually vote. If once every twenty years we can afford at least that!
Thanks to Mari for covering this issue – especially knowing the Tucson Weekly’s position and activities concerning the RTA vote.
As I type this about 24 hours after the new edition is getting read I’m listening to J.T.’s video that is of amazing visual quality but stop and go sound wise for some reason despite having fully loaded apparently.
Last time I had his .tv website crash my FIrefox about a dozen times b4 I was able to close the window in time to recover the many other windows/work so he should apparently be recommending that people only use i.e. to visit it.
I am also amazed that because of the delay in my comment getting ‘released’ it may be that he didn’t see it when he posted, but more importantly I failed to note the typo until recently.
Voters could vote YES twice to support the RTA. They could also oppose it in four different ways.
Not showing up to vote.
Voting NO twice.
Voting NO on the first question only,
or only the second….
WE STILL HAVE NOT BEEN TOLD IF THE LAST TWO WAYS OF OPPOSING THE RTA RESULTED IN IT PASSING!
In other words the people who showed up and voted NO just once, instead of NOT VOTING AT ALL, possibly/probably would of defeated it had they merely abstained.
The question is can we blame them? Did they understand this? Was it there intent? The answer is obvious- IT WAS NOT!
The intent of voters does matter.
Less controversially even that that of the public, or even the mere electorate altogether.
GIving people multiple questions seems to most to be a way of making passage seem MORE robust. In fact it can be a ruse to trick unsuspecting opponents into offering needed YES’s.
That people misunderstood was no accident. The marketing aggressively pushed this confusion telling people not to bother voting for it unless they did so in both ways. Even the man who was subsequently elected made this argument, perhaps without understanding it’s likely sinister impact.
So how does one then rigorously report the outcome?
You say how many people voted YES & NO, or NO & YES.
The info is now available. There could even be worse to be discovered. For example if people voted NO & blank, perhaps there NO was not counted at all! Or even if it was counted, and I believe it was, I do not believe the blank should be ignored. IT SHOULD BE REPORTED AT THE VERY LEAST!