I have great respect for Pima County Administrator Chuck
Huckelberry. I really do. However, I don’t know what in the hell he was
thinking when he told (what’s left of) the Tucson Citizen that
Attorney General Terry Goddard’s investigation into the 2006 Regional
Transportation Authority vote “vindicated” the county.
Goddard’s ballot look-see proved that the 2006 RTA vote was indeed
counted properly. However, Goddard’s investigations also pointed out
serious security issues in the Pima County vote-counting process.
Thankfully, many of these issues have been addressed, to the credit of
Huckelberry and other county officials.
However, these security improvements don’t change the fact that
Elections Division employees were doing some really, really stupid
things before the election-integrity folks started squawking—like
taking home elections files for no reason, and futzing around with a
crop scanner, a device known to be helpful in election-hacking
efforts.
A few members of the elections-integrity crew act like complete
nutballs, and some of them (particularly John Kromko) acted appallingly
by pronouncing falsely that they KNEW that the RTA election was fixed.
However, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: The
election-integrity crew also deserves thanks from all Pima County
citizens for bringing up these election-security issues and forcing
change.
Meanwhile, I still don’t know why some people in the Elections
Division, like head honcho Brad Nelson, still have their jobs after all
of these revelations.
The results of the RTA election have been confirmed. But there’s no
vindication here.
This article appears in Apr 30 – May 6, 2009.
