Pima County’s History of Rigging Bond Elections: Full Wake Up Tucson Coverage

John Brakey on Wake Up Tucson: Pima County Tried to Rig Another Bond Election

This is what cheating with impunity looks like.  Yesterday and nine years after the RTA debacle, an employee at the Pima County Elections Division broke into a sealed part of the central tabulator to hook up an ethernet connection. This occurred after the Logic and Accuracy (L&A) Test was completed and seals were placed prominently on the vulnerable parts of the system.  Since live video feeds show a running total of the number of viewers during transmission, they probably did it when Pima County's video feed left the impression that no one was looking.  This, of course, was hours after John Brakey had left the observation room.  Brakey drove five minutes from his house, spent a couple of hours writing and emailing a number of people about the L&A Test and, by habit, hit the hot link to the election department's live feed.  Moments later, he was watching the act take place before him.

Elections employee breaking the seal (he's worked there 10 years).

John Brakey discussed this incident this morning on the local AM radio show, "Wake Up Tucson".

The following is Brakey's letter to the Secretary of State:

          Michele Reagan
          Arizona Secretary of State

I am an experienced, well trained election observer for three political committees and at least one or more nonpartisan candidates on the Nov 3 ballot. (On bottom have listed groups)

On the morning of Tuesday, Oct 27, I observed the logic and accuracy test at Pima County Elections (PCE).   After the testing was done (about 11am) I went to my home office to write a report of my observation and concerns in this election.  I turned on the live video feed and had it playing on my Samsung flat screen tv.  For several hours as I was writing my report, I saw no activity at PCE.  After I finished my report I emailed at 2:56 pm.  At about 3:00 pm, I notice two men who earlier were part of the L & A test enter the room.  At about 3:03 pm, I took the attached picture of an employee of ten years removing a security seal, and connecting ethernet cables. 

The second person turned on the computer. I could see that he went into a program I had observed earlier that day called ES&S “Election Reporting Manager” (ERM).

At this point I called some friends thinking that this could not be true.  Maybe there were party observers out of camera range.  After several more minutes passed, PCE Director Brad Nelson entered the room and sat on a chair right next to the man on the computer. Mr. Nelson had to have seen that the door to the computer cage was wide open (as seen in picture above).

 No sound comes through the feed but I could see that Brad said something and then started spinning around in the chair acting happy.

 After a few more minutes of trying to figure out what to do, I decided to go and see for myself what was going on.  I live about five minutes from Pima County Elections. When I got to the public observers’ door, it was locked.

I then noticed that Mr. Nelson now was with several other gentlemen on the Westside corner of PCE. I approached him and ask if I could talk to him. I than asked him if was there anything wrong with the live video feed.

He said no and explained to me quickly how it worked.

I then said, “well look at this” and I showed him my smart phone picture of his guy breaking the seal and illegally entering computer cage that holds the Election Management System’s computers that were previously sealed.  I have video of that procedure.

Mr. Nelson acted surprised and said for me to wait from him at the public observers’ door while he figures out what’s going on.

After about 25 minutes, Mr. Nelson returned and told me that he has already called the party observers and that a mistake was made and that the L & A test will be redone at 8:00 AM.

I know that he was dishonest with me. Mr. Nelson had to have known when he entered the room that protocol was violated. One could not have missed this obvious breach under his supervision and in such close proximity.  

I hope that the above information warrants a proper investigation. We are concerned and there are other serious issues that the Secretary of State’s office should investigate with us.

Additionally, I wanted to mention that I deeply appreciate your prompt work last week addressing the issue of verifying elections and hand count audits in Pima County. 

Please help us make sure that election are true and accurate .

Respectfully yours,

John R Brakey, of AUDIT-AZ & Special task force leader for Citizens Oversight for Verifiable Elections:
 

JohnBrakey@gmail.com  520 578 5678 Cell 520 339 2696

CC

Gini Crawford, Chair of the “Taxpayers Against Pima Bonds”   Email: GiniCrawford54@gmail.com

John Kromko, Chair of “Tucson Traffic Justice”,                        Email: jkromko@dakotacom.net

Ignacio Gomez, Chair of the “No on the Sunnyside Override” Committee Email: TheYaquiTrader@live.com

Mission of Citizens Oversight for Verifiable Elections, COVE: To restore public ownership and oversight of elections, as per the Arizona constitution; to protect the “purity of elections”, “run by the people”.  This will ensure the fundamental right of every American citizen to vote, and to have each vote counted as intended in a secure, transparent, impartial, and independently verifiable audited election process. 

An Open Letter to the Pima County Board of Supervisors and Its Elections Department

 Mission of Citizens Oversight for Verifiable Elections, COVE: To restore public ownership and oversight of elections, as per the Arizona constitution; to protect the “purity of elections”, “run by the people”.  This will ensure the fundamental right of every American citizen to vote, and to have each vote counted as intended in a secure, transparent, impartial, and independently verifiable audited election process. 

Chair of PCBOS Sharon Bronson

130 W. Congress, 11th Floor, Tucson, AZ 85701

Phone: (520) 724-8051 Email: district3@pima.gov  

Pima County Recorder F. Ann Rodriguez                                                                             OPEN LETTER                         

240 N. Stone Avenue, Tucson AZ 85701

(520) 724-4350  Email: fann@recorder.pima.gov 

Brad Nelson, (CERA) Elections Director

6550 S. Country Club Road, Tucson, AZ 85756

Phone: (520) 724-6830 Email: Brad.Nelson@pima.gov 

Monday, October 04, 2015

Dear Honorable Sharon Bronson, Chair PCBOS, County Recorder F. Ann Rodriguez and Election Director Brad Nelson:

    We are pleased to announce that we have formed a coalition called “COVE” which stands for Citizens Oversight for Verifiable Elections.  At this point in time we have three committees members which are Gini Crawford, Chair of the “Taxpayers Against Pima Bonds, John Kromko Chair of “Tucson Traffic Justice” and Ignacio Gomez, Chair of the “No on the Sunnyside Override”.   We also expect to have several of the four certified legit non-partisan candidates from Oro Valley's recall joining COVE and naming our observers.  We expect our observers to have the same rights and respect that you give the two political party observers.  As you know most of the candidates and issues on the ballot are non-partisan.

   Our members are invoking their rights as “a political committee” and/or “nonpartisan” under ARS 16-621 Proceedings at the counting center, “Excerpt from section A”. …and shall be conducted in accordance with the approved instructions and procedures manual provided for in section 16-452 under the observation of representatives of each political party and the public. The proceedings at the counting center may also be observed by up to three additional people representing a candidate for nonpartisan office, or representing a political committee in support of or in opposition to a ballot measure, proposition or question….”  

    Here’s a link to the history of what happened in that case back in the 2006 RTA Bond Election titled “Elections remain compromised” which cost taxpayers several million dollars in litigation and left the voters wondering if their vote “really counts”. The only solution is to have a verifiable election.

    We at “COVE” support the Pima County Election Integrity Commission letter to Sharon Branson Chair BOS, dated September 28, 2015, advising minimal hand count audits that they hope to have in the November Election.  However, we must point out that this does not resolve the Vote by Mail problem of being unverifiable: video Mickey Duniho, (see problem below).

    Your own Pima County Election Integrity Commission has been proposing solutions that "you’ve been ignoring for years".  We refer to the April 17, 2015 letter from PCEIC to BOS titled, “Recommendation to Use Ballot Images to Enhance Early Ballot Audit”, and the letter dated July 18, 2014, to the BOS “Recommendation for Early Ballot Sorting by Precinct on Early Ballots”.

    “There is nothing in state law to prelude the County from doing a voluntary hand count”.  Tom Ryan, Chair Pima Co. Election Integrity Commission.

    The big problem we see where the ballots could be gamed with impunity is in the Vote by Mail (VBM) in the November General Election which is about 80% of the votes.  VBM ballots are not sorted by precinct except inside the central 'hackable' tabulator that could easily be preprogrammed only hack ballot batches over a certain size, thus avoiding the random testing done by audit batches pulled for hand counting. That's why the Volkswagen case is so meaningful to elections transparency activists, WV rigged the testing.  “…the cheating was preprogrammed into the algorithm that controlled the car’s emissions.  Computers allow people to cheat in ways that are new.  Because the cheating is encapsulated in software, the malicious actions can happen, far removed from the testing itself.  Because the software is "smart" in ways that normal objects are not, the cheating can be subtler and harder to detect.”

    “That's why we must have software verification with two parts: Transparency and Oversight” which as we know in Arizona, neither exist. “Transparency means making the source code available for analysis. The need for this is obvious.  It's much easier to hide cheating software in the manufacturer's code. Cheating on regulatory testing has a long history in corporate America.” By CNN Bruce Schneier:  "VW scandal could just be the beginning”.   

    According to AUDIT-AZ longtime attorney and friend Bill Risner: “Every study of the security of computer voting systems has identified insiders such as company employees and or vendors and election department employees as the primary security risks.  These same vendors when having their software certified, instructed the test labs "NOT" to check the software for security.”   Video Bill Risner in Court:

    The solution is simple: Pima County’s new ES&S central count scanners, the EVS 5200 makes a digital image of both sides of each ballot. These digital ballots have a bar code and precinct number that can be sorted by precincts and counted. We know of several companies that have software that can sort and read the digital images that work in elections. However, the gold standard is hand marked paper ballots that are hand counted.  We recommend printing and counting the digital VBM ballots and then taking a "statistically assured" random group verification to the original ballots that are stored in numbered batches. Here’s a short video depicting digital ballots from Dane County in Wisconsin, where they used an older version of the EVS 5200 called the DS200 as a way to verify voting machines output with digitally imaged ballots as shown.

    Again by utilizing the existing election laws:  “ARS Title 16 – Elections and Electors", the Arizona Secretary of State Election Procedures Manual Revised 2014, to download the entire manual here, or link it to specific pdf pages below in this manual.  As political party, candidates, and as electors, we invoke our rights to the following positions, and request that the named party oversight designates be given prior significant constructive notice in writing & verbally, to invoke oversight, before these boards meet.   Each of these boards shall consist of at least two members, and shall be registered voters of the parties on the ballots cast.    Each board’s responsibilities shall be as provided in SOS manual:

•                  & Citizens Observers                      *      snag board

•                  L & A testing                                   *     duplication board

•                  receiving board                               *     inspection board

•                  write-in board                                  *     accuracy certification board

•                  data processing board                    *     audit board

   The Persons noted below are designated as Observers for the counting of the early ballots, the General Elections ballots of November, and until all votes are counted.   Also, these persons have authority under ARS 16-571 to visit precincts. 

     Mickey Duniho, John R Brakey, Ally Miller, Richard Hernandez, Sergio Arellano-Oros, Paul Hilts, Jonathan Salvatierra, and others, to be trained and named later.

    The first Chairman of the Federal Election Assistance Commission, the Rev. DeForest Soaries, appointed by George W. Bush as the first chair of the commission created by the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA), otherwise known as the “Hack America Vote Act”, in the wake of the 2000 Presidential Election Debacle, stated in Oct of 2006: "We know more today about how to build a machine to take pictures of rocks on Mars than we know about how to build a machine to safeguard the American right to vote.”  Read what else Rev. DeForest Soaries has to say.

    Today, thanks to the work of election transparency activists, scientists & statisticians, Secretary of State Debra Bowen of California, in 2006 called for:  Top to Bottom review on voting system.  From citizens on commissions like PCEIC, universities, and their reports generated, we now know that these machines must NOT be trusted.  This short video of 8 minutes, gives the best overview, and is right on the money in every respect, when it comes to electronic voting --- be it via touch-screen computers, or paper ballot optical-scan systems. 

    Ronald Reagan said it best; “Trust but Verify!”   Conversely, No Verify, means NO TRUST!  The Board of Supervisors actions on this matter will show the citizens of Pima County whose side you’re on?

    On a closing note: Please demonstrate by action that this is not true in Pima County. History teaches us that elections without public accountability are nothing more than vote-counting in the dark, controlled by a county government, in the act of choosing itself and its cronies, while picking our pockets.  Our message is simple: “We the People”, must have elections that are 100% transparent, that are completely verifiable, with a documented ‘chain-of-custody’, followed by mandatory election verification!  Nothing less!

  Government can never be the sole verifier of its own secret elections.

    Respectfully yours,

   John R Brakey

John R. Brakey of Americans United for Democracy, Integrity, and Transparency, Arizona & Special task force leader for Citizens Oversight for Verifiable Elections.

JohnBrakey@gmail.com        520 578 5678 Cell 520 339 2696

https://www.facebook.com/john.r.brakey

Sites: www.RiggedNoMore.com

https://www.youtube.com/user/AUDITAZ

https://www.facebook.com/groups/AUDIT.AZ

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Santa-Cruz-EIC

Close Congressional Race Between Barber and McSally Presents an Opportunity to Verify with a More Transparent Optical Ballot Scanning System

J.T. Waldron

The Arizona U.S. Congressional race between Democrat Ron Barber and Republican Martha McSally was alleged by the Pima County Elections Department to be such a close contest that they require a recount to determine the winner. Martha McSally's slim margin of 161 votes over incumbent Ron Barber falls within Arizona's "one tenth of one percent" rule that requires a recount after the state canvass. Despite one provision of the law calling for a different program, recounts are typically performed with the same machines that may have an estimated margin of error of over 0.13% or 250 votes. The most convenient, compliant means for confirming an election this close is through optical scanning of ballots as demonstrated in Humbolt County and with the more refined "Clear Ballot" system.  Clear Ballot takes photographic scans of each of the ballots, reads the ballots and separates them into precincts with a level of speed, accuracy and flexibility that has never been matched by any of the current voting systems.

Mickey Duniho, a former NSA analyst and member of Pima County's Election Integrity Commission, describes the problem with Diebold scanners used by Pima County:

Using Pima County’s 2012 Presidential Primary percentage as a guide, today’s scanners may have missed as many as 250 intended votes, almost double the number separating Barber and McSally in the original count. If you rescan the same ballots with the same scanners, you are liable to get different totals with every scan simply because of the technological imprecision of the scanners.

What was the cause of this 250 vote margin of error in 2012? In Pima County's elections system, voters use a black felt tip pen to fill in the ovals on a paper ballot to indicate their preferences. Diebold scanners recognize an actual mark inside an oval only if it contains what that particular scanner determines as a sufficient mark. Crosses, checks, center dots and any other effort by the voter to mark an oval may be interpreted as blank if the voter misses a portion of the white inside the oval.

Diebold's count is further hampered by stray marks or smudges errantly interpreted as another mark when the stray ink hits another oval. Pima County's Diebold machines are calibrated on a regular basis to provide some control over how these marks are interpreted. Unfortunately, the percentage of blank votes appears to be increasing over each election since 2004. Close elections like the Barber/McSally race turns this margin of error into a 'margin of disenfranchisement'.

Bev Harris, author of Black Box Voting, recalls the birth of our current electoral quagmire:

Vendors and lobbyists leveraged the Florida fiasco to persuade well-meaning legislators to enact a sweeping election reform bill, the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), creating a gold rush to purchase new voting systems, under tight deadlines, using federal money. Vendors did not disclose to lawmakers that their optical-scan systems and touch screens had a history of glitches, bugs and miscounts, and because their computer code was kept secret and proprietary, even U.S. senators and representatives could not know about security flaws or learn just how broken the “certification and testing” system really is.

Once this federal mandate was implemented, nationwide oversight has been abandoned as all the seats in the U.S. Election Assistance Commission remain vacant. Victoria Collier, the editor of votescam.org, describes the current electoral landscape as "a vast patchwork of electoral fiefdoms where laws, procedures and private-vendor technology change from state to state; even from county to county."

In the fiefdom of Pima County, effective verification is consistently undermined. In 2006, Arizona's hand count audit law saw its proposed sample size reduced to a mere one percent of early ballots thanks in part to the lobbying efforts of Pima County Elections Director Brad Nelson. In 2010, Nelson circumvented Pima County's Election Integrity Commission (PCEIC) by requesting that the Secretary of State waive his requirement for Pima County to presort early ballots by precinct before they are audited. Millions of taxpayer dollars were spent by the county in an effort to prevent election transparency. The video below explains some of the concerns that PCEIC members Mickey Duniho and Jim March had about lack of substantive auditing procedures for Pima County's elections.



Ironically, a hand count audit contradicting the official tally has no bearing on the election.

According to the tallies provided by opensecrets.org and the New York Times, over sixteen million dollars have been spent on the Barber/McSally race exceeding the cost of $70.00 per vote.
Incumbent Ron Barber's campaign asked the Pima County Board of Supervisors (PCBOS) to delay canvassing over concerns of rejected ballots, poll workers sending voters to errant polling places and at least 132 ballots thrown out due to mistakes by election officials. Pima's board supervisors have rejected far worse conditions in the past so Barber's team shouldn't be too surprised at their refusal to postpone this election's approval.

Both candidates should recognize why the winner of their nationally publicized, highly contested bid for Congress cannot be determined with certainty by the Pima County Elections Department.

Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett has the unique opportunity to preside over the inevitable advancement in elections technology by confirming the result of this congressional race. We would like to name Bennett among forward thinkers like Secretary of State Jim Condos in Vermont who is now using the new scanning technology developed by Clear Ballot. Condos, who recognizes that random audits are "an integral part of performing checks and balances of our voting system" provides substance to his claim "as Vermont's Chief Election Officer, I take this duty very seriously".

Arizona Revised Statute Section 16-664(A) seems to provide for Bennett to follow suite:

In the event of a court-ordered recount of votes that were cast and tabulated on electronic voting equipment for a state primary, state general or state special election, the secretary of state shall order the ballots recounted on an automatic tabulating system to be furnished and programmed under the supervision of the secretary of state.

Subsection (C) allows Bennett to use a different program:

The programs to be used in the recount of votes pursuant to this section shall differ from the programs prescribed by section 16-445 and used in the initial tabulation of the votes.

In 2009, Clear Ballot founder Larry Moore visited Tucson to talk about the level of transparency graphic ballot scanning could bring to the elections process. Here he met Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett, who attended his presentation at a meeting with the PCEIC. The video below shows Moore providing a brief presentation of what he learned from Humbolt County before his departing flight.

While Pima County was skirting a proper hand count audit in 2012, Larry Moore introduced his brand of election verification technology to a welcoming district in Florida. Here is a presentation by a local Fox affiliate.


Ushering in the new year with mid-term elections, Moore's development of Clear Ballot and its presentation finds larger audiences through talks like "TEDx".

For the first time in Arizona, a congressional race seems numerically impossible to resolve through our deficient tabulation systems. Ron Barber, Martha McSally and the Secretary of State have an opportunity to ensure the legitimacy of this recount by introducing a technology capable of the transparency so thoroughly eroded since the 2000 presidential election.

Santa Cruz County Elections Director Violates State Law by Refusing Libertarian Party Observers at the Polls

Twelve days earlier, Santa Cruz Elections Director and Board Clerk Melinda Meek (left) and
Supervisor John Maynard (right)  beat a hasty retreat as John Brakey (center) attempts to reassure
them that elections transparency is preferred over continued litigation.  Video available here.

J.T. Waldron

With only days away from the November 4th general election, Santa Cruz County Elections Director
Melinda Meek has refused elections observers appointed by the Libertarian party. To justify this exclusion, she provided the Libertarian party chair with a selective interpretation of state law placing the weight of party recognition onto the county itself instead of the Secretary of State. In her letter to Warren Severin, the Chairman of the Arizona Libertarian party, Meek wrote,

The Libertarian Party is not a recognized party in Santa Cruz County.  Only recognized parties through the  local party Chair have the authority to appoint official party observers. Therefore, pursuant to Arizona Revised Statutes and the State of Arizona Elections Procedures Manual, you do not have the authority to appoint an official party observer for the 2014 General Election.

Meek ignores Arizona Revised Statute Section 16-804 (C) which clarifies;

The secretary of state shall determine the political parties qualified for continued representation on the state ballot pursuant to this section by February 1 of the appropriate year. Each county recorder shall furnish to the secretary of state such information as the secretary of state may require no later than October 31 of the preceding year.

Santa Cruz has 130 active Libertarian voters in Santa Cruz, local Libertarian candidates running for the Board of Supervisors, and a Gubernatorial Libertarian Candidate Barry Hess on the statewide ballot. According to the Secretary of State's document "Continued Representation of Political Parties for 2014 Election Cycle", the Libertarian party has received enough votes to qualify for continued representation. That is why Barry Hess is on the ballot.

John Brakey, the founder of Americans United for Democracy, Integrity, and Transparency in Elections, Arizona (AUDITAZ), was requested as an elections observer by the gubernatorial Libertarian candidate. He was one of the Planiffs that recently won the election records lawsuit against Santa Cruz County. This suit revealed that, contrary to Melinda Meek's testimony under oath, programming of the database files appears to have been done by someone who's retrofitted the same database for five other counties in Arizona. The suit also revealed that someone inside of Meek's elections department generated summary reports. Premature peeking into election results is a class 6 felony under A.R.S. Sec. 16-551 (C).

Local Santa Cruz candidate Jack Scholnick has also nominated John Brakey as an election observer, but his request only allows his name to be entered into a lottery for the prospect of observing this election. When serving as an observer, Brakey is a bit more inquisitive than those we have caught snoozing on video in Maricopa county. Soon we'll have to find observers to oversee the lottery that picks the observers.

Meek seems to have adopted a tactic similar to Pima County. Provide the initial appearance of cooperation before last minute maneuvers skirt transparency on the cusp of election day. Citizens' objectives appear to be managed by the careful timing that precludes any legal remedy prior to the elections process.

Mickey Duniho Resigns from Pima County's Election Integrity Commission

Mickey Duniho's resignation letter to Pima County Board of Supervisor Ray Carroll, the elected official who appointed Duniho to a seat in the Pima County Election Integrity Commission.

Dear Mr. Carroll,

I have spent many years at your request and that of others researching numbers of ways that elections in Pima County and the state could be made transparently honest. I have invested a great deal of research, much of it with others of the Pima County Election Integrity Commission and also with many others knowledgeable about methods of assuring the validity of elections. Six years ago I was honored by your appointment, having hopes for effective auditing of ballot counting in Pima County, and with the past experience of having witnessed apparently dishonest counts in my community. I now realize that these hopes and efforts have been wasted.

 The Election Integrity Commission in its six years has made a number of clearly sensible recommendations for improving legal and accurate processes for Pima County’s elections. Each of the Commission’s lucid suggestions to the Board of Supervisors or to the Secretary of State has been rejected outright or put off to another day when it was ultimately rejected by one or the other. The most recent recommendation, a very simple trial of an improved auditing procedure, was rejected quickly and blatantly, adding to the belief that the Pima County Board of Supervisors, the Pima County Administrator and Election Director, and the Arizona Secretary of State are engaged in the (successful) effort to block any substantive effort to improve the public auditing of ballot counting.  The only reasonable surmise at this point, considering the concerted and continued effort to prevent election reform, is that a majority of our county and state officials have a sincere stake in continued support of election fraud.

 Coming to the understanding that the Election Integrity Commission has been thwarted in its serious and sane efforts for election integrity in Pima County and the state, and that there currently seems to be no hope for election integrity in Pima County, I tender my resignation from the Commission.

 Sincerely,

 Michael A. Duniho

Duniho discusses the matter in a recent interview on the local radio show "Wake Up Tucson".  Video courtesy of John Brakey.

Southern Arizona powers-that-be don’t want you to know Bill Risner

L. Hunnicut
Arizona Daily Independent

                                       Video by John Brakey

On Friday 13, 2014, an ideologically diverse group of Tucsonans gathered to honor their friend; attorney Bill Risner. The event was years overdue.

Over the years, Risner has exposed and fought the powers-that-be in the community on behalf of the members of the community. And because of that effort, the powers-that-be have worked hard to keep community in the dark about the man who fought to shed so much light on their behalf.

From his days challenging the Viet Nam War as student body president at the University of Arizona, to just this past May when he sued City of Tucson for public records, Risner has been under the scrutiny of the powers-that-be because the powers-that-be don’t like people who bring scrutiny to them and their friends.

Over the years, despite his best efforts and those of so many others, little has changed in Southern Arizona, which is a microcosm of America’s ills. The only real change in our little world is that secret government agents have been replaced by computers that gather every shred of metadata possible in order to keep the powers-that-be and their cronies in cash and control.

Risner, a democrat, has taken on all the power brokers, in and out of his own political party. He took on Attorney General Terry Goddard and fought tooth and nail for the truth behind Pima County elections and specifically the fraudulent RTA bond election. The powers-that-be-good in the Party didn’t appreciate Risner much, but he won the admiration and loyalty of the grassroots.

That fight, Risner’s role in it, and the vastness of the County corruption earned little air time or column space. We don’t air our dirty laundry when the boys’ boxers are in the hamper.

In 1975, when investigative reporting still existed, Fred Allison of KGUN 9 News did a story about Risner and the secret agent from the Pima County Sheriff’s Office who was assigned to shadow him. It is hard to gauge the impact the report had on viewers at the time. It aired once. No relics of a follow-up can be found.

(Today, in Tucson, it would not be covered by the mainstream media, or even the tragically hip tabloids. They all crawled into bed together sometime back in the 1980’s but the citizens were the only ones who got screwed.) `

The following is an account from Risner to one of Tucson other tireless transparency advocates; John Brakey:

In the fall of 1975 on Channel 9 News had press coverage over allegations by someone that the Pima County Sheriff had wanted deputies to be on the lookout for Pima County supervisor Ron Asta in order that they might catch him in a compromising condition and stop him for a DU. Asta, an urban sprawl foe, who had earned of the wrath of developers, had not supported a larger budget for the Sheriff’s Office.

Risner ran into a television reporter while visiting the Pima County supervisor’s office. The reporter asked Risner if he knew about the Sheriff’s Office targeting anyone for political reasons. Risner said he had been targeted. The reporter asked Risner if he would agree to an interview. Risner, who is more sophisticated than the average bear, refused but suggested that he interview “his agent” who had worked for the Sheriff’s Office while targeting Risner.

Risner gave the reporter the agent’s name and telephone number. The reporter called him and the agent agreed to be interviewed for TV but only with a camera on the back of his head. Bill Risner then agreed to be interviewed for the segment.

(Back then, as it is now, if you tell a story that exposes their corruption, you will be crushed if you are the only one telling the truth. Even if you aren’t the only one telling the truth, if no one else has the nerve to tell it publically; you are toast. You can count on the cronies of the powers-that-be to line up to lie about you and marginalize you in every manner available. It’s the Tucson way.)

Bill Risner first learned that he had a “personal” agent one evening while he was visiting the Pima County Jail to see a client. A person standing behind the desk asked Risner if he recognized him. Risner said no, he did not. The man told Risner that he should he had been “his agent.” Risner said “let’s talk.”

Risner asked as they walked outside, “What do you mean?”

Risner’s agent told him that he went anywhere he thought Risner would be or where he could hear who Risner was talking to and what Risner was saying. If, for example, Risner spoke to a college class, the agent would be there pretending to be a student with a spiral notebook to take notes.

The agent then wrote weekly reports that were distributed to the Sheriff’s Office, the FBI, the State Police, the Tucson Police, and military intelligence.

Fred Allison reported it all. Both men shared their stories and Tucson continued slouching toward 1984.

In 2014, Risner is now trying to expose what many believe was a deal to sell off valuable public property at illegal below-market prices to the cronies of the powers-that-be. He represented concerned citizens who wanted to see the records of the negotiations that they, as citizens, are legally permitted to view.

Although the number of developers have dwindled, in the 8th poorest metropolitan area in the country, guys like Don Diamond still pull the strings of the elected officials on every level of government in Arizona.

A Pima County Superior court judge ruled against the City, for its failure to comply with public records requirements and awarded plaintiffs $15,800.00. The judge found, “COT’s slipshod approach to Ms. Cruz’s request, unreasonably expanded and delayed the resolution of this matter….”

That is it in a nutshell.

The powers-that-be have unreasonably delayed so many possible resolutions to so many of our community’s problems in an effort to maintain the status quo. Guys like Bill Risner don’t divide and conquer; they uncover. And given the all the information, people of good will can make the right decisions and resolutions.

Communication is key to Pima County’s economy

"Good Article. This firms up what Bill Risner, others and I know about our local media and its getting worse."   

          --John Brakey, AUDITAZ

Arizona Daily Independent

When government becomes one of the largest employers in an area, the desire by the unemployed or underemployed populace to maintain and grow its size grows as well.

Pima County is not shy about expanding, and the desperate are happy to help it.

Last week, officials announced that Dave Hatfield, soon to be former editor of the failing Inside Tucson Business magazine, would be joining Pima County’s public relations team. Hatfield will be replaced at Inside Tucson Business with Mark B. Evans, editor of the failing TucsonCitizen.com, an online “community of bloggers.”

Hatfield joins a Pima County government communications team headed up by former small advertising business owner, Jeff Nordensson. Nordensson replaced Sam Negri in January of this year.
Prior to being hired by Pima County, Nordensson’s firm had previously held the contract for Pima County’s media buys.

According to Nordensson, the Communications department consists of “3 writers here. We had one, but she decided that Barcelona was more fun than Tucson. Her departure opened the job sometime in mid to late May. We have 2 1/2 graphic designers, 3 1/2 videographers, and 2 ½ art directors, 1 social media editor/creative director.”

Including Nordesson, Pima County Communications Department employs 9 ½ full-time and part-time employees, yet still has the cash and apparent need to farm out media buys to the Bolchalk Frey Marketing Agency.

Hatfield’s base salary will be $55K.

According to Nordesson, the writers spend “a lot of time trying to figure out what is going on at different departments and also make what Pima County is doing more transparent.” Nordesson offered an example of the thought process behind the writers’ work. As an example, he explained that one of his writers, Diane Luber, did not mention in a press release issued last week that the Pima County Board of Supervisors gave $10K to the Borderlands Theater Group because it would not be “of general interest to the public.” On the other hand, she did mention that the County would be able to keep its lease with the Tucson Padres for a little bit more time until the team leaves town for good.

“Lots of things go on that before I took this job that I was not aware of. We determine whether something is note worthy, by whether it is in the general interest. It’s all available online, but it doesn’t generate a lot of interest. It is not a matter of trying not to bring something up. I don’t know if we would bring up the Raytheon lawsuit; that would depend on the issue at the time. We have tried to publicize the Michigan left turn because we know people have to change behaviors. It may not be controversial but it is something people need to know about.”

Nordensson said that despite being a government entity, they were making “subjective decisions about general interest, and we depend on media to take a look at what they think is of interest. There is a difference between what is available to the public and what we think is important for wider distribution.”

Luckily for the County, local media is shrinking, and few writers want to “expose” the corruption of what might be their only future chance for employment in Southern Arizona.
Evans has overseen the slow death of the Citizen after it went out of print. Hatfield, not known for his accuracy, has overseen Inside Tucson through its steady decline in readership and relevancy. According to insiders, Hatfield was anticipating a turnaround by Inside’s owners, Wick Communications.

According to the TucsonSentinel.com, “Top executives at Gannett Inc. don’t have a contingency plan for Evans leaving. Evans described the Citizen as an “orphan” despite being part of “the largest media company in the world.”

The Sentinel reported that Evans’ last day working for Gannett is Sept. 20; he starts with the Wick Communications-owned ITB three days later.

According to Nordesson, he hopes Hatfield will begin working for the County by October 1.
From the communication department’s webpage:

“The Communications Office proactively supports Pima County’s mission and strategic objectives. The Office provides creative services including editorial support, graphic and web design, logos,
photography, publicity, and media relations for all departments. Our communications products enhance the County’s visibility, image, reputation throughout the state, U.S. and internationally.
Videos, brochures, press releases, maps, and bike helmet stickers for kids — if it has words, pictures, or graphics, we create it for the County.
Check out some our recent work below and use the tabs to discover how we promote the County’s identity, people, and programs.”

In one of his most ironic opinion pieces at Inside Tucson Business, Hatfield wrote in July of this year, “By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth…” and advised his handful of readers that “more of us should question what we’re being told.”

The Pima County taxpayers can at least say Dave warned them.

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Arizona Election Fraud: Supervisors Accept County Shenanigans, Reject a Proper Audit

J.T. Waldron

The Pima County Board of Supervisors refused to conduct a proper hand-count audit of the 2012 general election ballots. This decision was made despite seasoned statisticians and computer experts in its own Election Integrity Commission indicating that the county's elections are not verifiable in their current state.

The primary reason? Timing. Pima County's use of this rationale is ironic because it appears that the county was in complete control its timing. As EIC member Mickey Duniho states in reference to Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry:

"Mr. Huckelberry unilaterally postponed the recommendation without consulting or informing the Election Integrity Commission. This violated the Commission’s right to advise the Board of Supervisors without interference, and it also violated basic rules of courtesy."

This postponement plays a role in solidifying the board's argument that 'it's too late'.

Huckelberry's recent memo, which is rife with distortions and errors, states that it's impossible to do a hand count audit. Such hyperbole was thoroughly eviscerated by Mickey Duniho's point by point response to the erroneous memo. Duniho provided his rebuttal in writing to each member of the board of supervisors.

"Your elections are being run by a sociopath," said EIC member Jim March. Elections Director Brad Nelson was held under a burning magnifying glass in the most recent Board of Supervisors meeting as March leveled a series of new charges against Nelson. First, March states that Nelson had his county-issued credit card yanked for fraud, yet he still keeps his job.

Other charges had to do with Nelson's management style with his employers. According to March, employees are willing to recall how they were retained because it was easy for Nelson to "make them cry" and "that's something he needed to do on occasion". Finally, March accused Nelson of breaking the law as he states that Nelson would ask temporary staff and poll workers to switch their party allegiance so that he can continue to retain these employees for future tasks.

Jim March's history of careful, meticulous analysis  before calling any one person's reputation into question adds significant weight to these charges.  We can only hope that an independent investigation into Brad Nelson's activities will take place. 

The only Supervisor concerned about having verifiable elections for this elections cycle was Ray Carroll, a Republican who has consistently moved to transcend party affiliation and improve transparency.

Arizona solidifies its national reputation as the 'meth lab of democracy' because those who can intervene refuse to make direct, immediate, substantive changes to the elections process.