Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry says he’s unaware of any plans to destroy the ballots from the 2006 RTA election, as alleged by attorney Bill Risner in a press release yesterday.
“I have said, ‘Do not destroy them under any circumstances,'” Huckelberry says. “My instructions to the county attorney were to go to court if necessary to prevent those ballots from being destroyed.”
Huckelberry says he’ll be sending out a memo today to request that the County Attorney’s Office prevent County Treasurer Beth Ford to not destroy the ballots.
Huckelberry says he’d be delighted to recount the ballots but the law prevents the county from doing so.
“We could have saved $250,000, $300,000 in attorney’s fees and all the aggravation we’ve gone through over the last two years we would have been just allowed to recount the ballots,” says Huckelberry, who points out that under state law, the ballots should have been destroyed already, had it not been for the county’s decision to hang onto them. “It demonstrates how archaic election law in Arizona is.”
Huckelberry quotes Charles Dickens: “The law is an ass.”
This article appears in Jul 3-9, 2008.
Some Facts Related to the RTA Election
The RTA passed by a surprisingly large margin. Polls taken before the election showed it losing. Sales tax increases for roads had lost badly in four previous elections.
Election Division staff printed unauthorized vote total summary reports after the first day of RTA early ballot scanning.
Before the second day of RTA early ballot scanning, Election Division staff erased the first day’s database backup by over-writing it. This required responding to two warning messages, one from GEMS and one from Windows.
Election systems expert Michael Shamos of Carnegie Mellon advised the AG investigator of possible RTA fraud to hand count ballots, echoing advice from local election activists.
The AG Investigator lied to Shamos in an email, saying that “local naysayers” were onboard with not looking at ballots. The opposite was true and the investigator knew it, because he had engaged in a shouting argument with local naysayers about this issue.
IBeta tests conducted under contract with the AG investigator of the RTA election should have included looking for possible swapping of yes and no votes, but did not.
County staff directed all aspects of the IBeta testing, and led the testers to look at irrelevant items and to disregard potentially important items.
A whistleblower has come forward saying in a sworn affidavit that Bryan Crane told him privately that he had “fixed” the RTA election, under direction from his bosses.
The County Treasurer has announced a plan to destroy the RTA ballots ASAP.
A Microsoft Access manual was seen and photographed in the vote tabulation room on election night. Use of MS Access on an election computer was and is illegal.
Democratic Party observers were prevented from investigating cables connected to the tabulation computer after the RTA on the pretext that it was a non-partisan election.
A tape of ballot layout held by the Secretary of State for use by the Attorney General in any fraud investigation was never examined during the RTA fraud investigation where it was potentially key evidence. Instead it was returned to the suspects, who “lost” it.
The Pima County Board of Supervisors, through their lawyers, claimed there was a substantial risk that all election employees handling the election computer would “take the fifth” and refuse to answer questions based on a fear of criminal prosecution.
The Pima County Board of Supervisors has never requested an internal investigation of the Election Division.
Neither Brad Nelson nor Bryan Crane nor any Election Division employee has been reprimanded for any violations of rules or procedures.
At the end of the RTA Election Day, the database was NOT backed up, as it has been in virtually every other election. The database was not backed up until three days later, after all results had been published.
The Pima County Election Division purchased a “crop scanner” computer-hacking tool ten months before the RTA election. This tool had no other purpose in the Election Division than to illegally alter the programming of precinct voting machines.
Jim Berry retired from his job as the County Administrator’s assistant in early 2005 and was immediately hired by the County to do a precinct by precinct study of how Pima voters had voted in bond elections, and “other duties” as assigned.
Mr. Berry collected $75,000 from the County for this contract, while at the same time collecting $12,000 from a pro-RTA group for helping them with the RTA campaign.
JT: Do you have a copy of a poll that showed the RTA election losing?
So why not just recount the ballots as chuckelberry suggests? Wouldn’t that put to rest whether the published results were fake?
Yes, it would, but state law prevents it. More on this later this evening when we get back from the field and can write a dispatch.