Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Precedent-Setting Court Case Could Affect 2012 Elections



Click here to follow court documents for this case.

Enter this Case Number: C20085016

Possible RTA election fraud focus of lawsuit

Arizona Daily Independent

This week Pima County administrator Chuck Huckleberry claimed that a law forward by State Representative Terry Proud and signed by the Governor, HB2408, was retaliatory. The law calls for an audit of the Pima County Bonding disbursements. Huckleberry and an editorial in the newspaper, the Arizona Daily Star, argued that if Proud wanted the information, all she had to do was ask for it.

However, for over 4 years, various interests have asked Huckleberry for information regarding the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) election on May 16, 2006. At the time of the election, questions arose regarding the election results almost immediately. They persist in the form of a lawsuit in Arizona Superior Court.

The stated goal of a lawsuit filed in Arizona Superior Court by Tucson attorney Bill Risner on behalf of the Libertarian Party is “to protect the “purity of elections” in the future, starting with the 2012 elections. The lawsuit is based on two facts; “At the present time it is easy to cheat using our election computers and impossible to challenge a rigged election.”

The lawsuit alleges that “Pima County, through the direction and control of its county administrator C.H. “Chuck” Huckelberry, has systematically subverted critical controls required to protect the purity of elections. The elimination of those controls has permitted county management to take advantage of the ability to cheat presented by defects in our computerized election system.”

The central allegation in the suit is that “county management fraudulently rigged the Regional Transportation Authority election.”

The Pima County Democratic Party had previously taken on the issue. It was through the Discovery process in that effort, that the current suit bases its allegations. In papers filed with the court, lawyers claim that from “three other lawsuits involving the Pima County Democratic Party and Pima County,” a path was provided “for future discovery that must be followed in this lawsuit.”

The Libertarian Party argues that “The ease of cheating when matched with the impossibility of challenging any specific election requires court intervention in order to protect the purity of elections and ensure that we will have free elections.” They cite three Arizona Constitution sections as the basis of their claim, including Arizona Constitution Art. 2 § 21, which requires all elections to be “free and equal

Lawsuit highlights:

It Is Easy To Cheat With Pima County’s Computerized Election System

The most important legal and factual building block of this lawsuit is the agreed upon fact that it is very easy to cheat with our election computer software. The ease of cheating may be counterintuitive, especially among those least familiar with computers, but it is a fact. The ease of cheating may be a surprise even to those who are familiar with computers but whose familiarity was derived from securely developed programs. Our election computer system has quite simply been built to cheat and, at least for that goal, it has succeeded.