Arizona Election Fraud: Pima County Continues to Delay Forensic Exam of RTA Ballots

Editor's Note:  This crucial court case is currently experiencing a media blackout among local Tucson press.  This includes the Arizona Daily Star and the Tucson Weekly.  This case is a textbook example of a battle waged by the growth lobby against the will of the population.   The reason why the county is using such extreme measures to stop this trial is that the plaintiff, the Libertarian Party, may conduct discovery which includes a forensic exam of the RTA ballots to demonstrate to the courts that the 2006 RTA election calling for a two billion dollar twenty-year sales tax hike was rigged.   This is the prerequisite for the courts to grant prospective relief for rigged elections.

If they felt they would be exonerated, Pima County would welcome the scrutiny.  Instead, it appears that Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry is pushing his attorneys to use all conceivable tactics to delay and obstruct the procedure, which would ultimately benefit the nation as a precedent-setting court case aimed at improving election integrity.

AUDITAZ
John Brakey


Video of Court Hearing:   http://youtu.be/yGALqZGvaRs

THE INITIAL DISCLOSURE STATEMENT FILED BY PLAINTIFF ON 1/12/12 IS A GREAT COMPREHENSIVE STATEMENT OF FACTS: http://tinyurl.com/LPFiling

PROTECTING THE PURITY OF ELECTIONS
 
IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
THE STATE OF ARIZONA IN AND FOR
THE COUNTY OF PIMA
CASE NO. C20085016
HEARING ON JAN 30, 2012  2:30 PM
COURT ROOM OF THE HON. KYLE BRYSON
RAW FOOTAGE RUNS 37 MIN

Defendant Pima County's Attorney Ronna Fickbohm, files and gets "emergency hearing" based on false certification to request the court to stop deposition of Pima Co’s Election Director Brad Nelson. UPDATE: DEPOSITIONS GET GREEN LIGHT FROM JUDGE TO GO FORWARD. 

Plaintiff's attorneys, Bill Risner and Ralph E. Ellinwood file Motion to Strike and Sanction Pima County for misleading the Court, filed:1.27.12:   http://tinyurl.com/7krbr4c  

Plaintiff also filed a motion in response to Defendant Motion for Protective Order filed 1.30.12:  http://tinyurl.com/83qk3mq

Pima County is doing everything possible to stop this case from going forward including filing motion based on deception.  http://tinyurl.com/7krbr4c  

The case is as fundamental as it gets. What we're seeking "prospective relief" so they cannot cheat in the future. ANDREA WITTE "THE CONNECT THE DOTS LADY" has connected the dots into a 10-Point Quick Summary of The Fact pattern in this gripping saga of power and deceit. And we propose a remedy that is easy, inexpensive and doable. Link to Flyer: http://tinyurl.com/7amy6ff

Since our saga began over five years ago, more and more people across America are becoming aware of the serious security flaws in computerized voting systems. They are systems designed to cheat, and they are everywhere. As the political scene heats up with the Presidential election, all eyes will be on Tucson as ground zero for exposing these flaws in open court and proposing reasonable checks and balances in the system. We must protect the purity of elections and public confidence in election results — a cornerstone of our democracy. That's what this case is ultimately about.  http://fatallyflawedelections.blogspot.com/ 

BACKGROUND: AUDIT-AZ, the Pima County Libertarian Party and other interested citizens of multiple parties for years have been investigating election processes in Pima County. In previous actions, the Democratic Party took the lead in winning public records lawsuits and revealing the extent of the problems, including poor security practices on "designed to cheat" systems, election results that consistently did not add up, missing or falsified paper, and election officials and staff who continuously flout the law.

AUDIT-AZ will be running the pool camera and if you can't make it to court you can watch the proceeding on our AUDITAZ's Channel on YouTube the next day: http://www.youtube.com/user/AUDITAZ/featured

Arizona Election Fraud: Pima County's Desperate Arguments Against the Court's Protection of Evidence

 J.T. Waldron

Whether they are denying statements made in a hearing four days ago or they are claiming that the Libertarian party's motivation for prospective relief  is to "make a movie", Pima County appears to be in a state of panic.   After the Arizona Libertarian Party won their appeal for prospective relief for rigged elections, last week's initial hearings were prolonged by the county's absurd arguments against rudimentary measures to protect evidence and to learn how evidence was previously handled.

The evidence in question rests in cardboard boxes at an Iron Mountain storage facility, which is holding poll tapes, summary reports, ballots and other paperwork involving the 2006 Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) election.

Pima County's private attorney Ronna Fickbohm claimed last Friday, "Pima County has never said, 'we object to simply asking Beth Ford to get a certified statement from Iron Mountain listing who's accessed the records since the day they came to them and show it to you.'"   Fickbohm contradicts her own testimony from the previous Monday.   Bill Risner, an attorney working with the Libertarian party,  promptly reminded Judge Kyle Bryson last Friday, "At the last hearing, where we were talking about deposing Iron Mountain and Ronna Fickbohm was arguing, Pima County was arguing against that.   Her argument  talked about how 'in front of Judge Borek, she was successfully able on behalf of Pima County to prevent us from obtaining information about what happened to those boxes. '"

Pima County's other private lawyer assigned to represent Treasurer Beth Ford, John Richardson, introduced a procedure making Beth Ford an inextricable part of the process designed  to protect the ballots.  Rather than making ballot custody an impartial process by removing all parties and leaving any orders to the judge, both Richardson and Fickbohm presented arguments about how such a court order could potentially implicate Beth Ford by suggesting there is good cause to protect the ballots. 

As Bill Risner states last Friday, "The good cause is that it's important evidence that needs to be protected. That's the good cause...it was stunning what was done with this court's vault, which simply heightens the need for it to be clear to Iron Mountain...much better than a complicated order that relies on Ford's communication ... They repeatedly say that 'Gee, Ford's done this really great job', but if she did such a great job, how come Iron Mountain says 'No one ever told us'."

On May 18th, 2007, Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry (who sets the county treasurer's budget) issued a memorandum instructing his legal team about the need to secure all evidence involving the 2006 RTA election.   Later testimony confirmed, however, that no actual action or enforcement was implemented.  According to testimony by an Iron Mountain employee, no specific instructions concerning the handling of the ballots were delivered to Iron Mountain.   Pima County's private attorney Ronna Fickbohm goes to great lengths to dispute Bill Risner's reference to the memo as a press release.  She says, "It wasn't a press release.  It wasn't directed to Mr. Risner somehow Mr. Risner got a hold of it.  It doesn't matter.  It wasn't a big secret." 

Fickbohm is correct in stating that it wasn't a big secret because that 'memo' was released to the local press at the end of the day.  Reading the memo, the public's last impression comes from the final sentence, "We need to take action to ensure that all documentation, ballots, electronic files and other information sources  are secured so they cannot be altered, tampered with or destroyed as I am sure an accurate independent review of this material will verify that the allegations made by Mr. Risner are absolutely untrue."  This document can formally be labelled a memo, but it was clearly an exercise in public relations. 

Initially, Pima County's refusal to disclose electronic public records for the RTA election sparked a lawsuit by the Democratic party.  Pima County spent over one million dollars in their failed attempt to prevent public disclosure of election data, which eventually was released to the Democratic party. 

This release, however, was marred by Pima County employee John Moffatt's violation of the court order requesting the transfer of the data to both parties at the same time.  Moffatt managed to gain possession of the data from the county vault prior to the Democratic party finding out about the order.   This acquisition occurred with no signature or paper trail. 

In the following trial for prospective relief, Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard grabbed the boxes of ballots the moment it was established that the Democratic party would gain access to the poll tapes that are included in the boxes.  The Democratic party had experts ready to examine them for fraud.  In addition to grabbing the poll tapes, Goddard's apparent purpose was to count the ballots in an attempt to vindicate Pima County. At this point, the Democratic Party abandoned their legal pursuit of prospective relief, but continued to fight for access to the poll tapes.

The Libertarian Party remained and succeeded in obtaining a precedent-setting ruling on behalf of prospective relief for elections so the court can intervene once there is a failure of existing laws and law enforcement (Goddard's investigation) to protect election integrity.   

In the previous records case, Pima County admitted that software security is so bad, altering the outcome of an election is easy.  In fact, the county is estopped from arguing otherwise in this current case for prospective relief.  The county may eventually find itself in a similar position if they continue to make statements inferring that the RTA election was not rigged.

The Libertarian party intends to get a forensic examination of the RTA ballots to determine whether the cardboard boxes have been 'stuffed' with ballots generated by an ink-jet ballot-on-demand printer owned by Pima County.  Terry Goddard refused such an examination despite the fact he was aware of the incident with John Moffatt and the Pima County vault.  Another peculiar omission in Goddard's very public recount of the ballots behind glass was his refusal to incorporate basic auditing procedures.  No sufficient audit took place because there was no comparison of the ballot totals to the precinct totals or poll tapes.

The Democratic party battled on for another year of litigation to gain access to the poll tapes.  Over one third of the tapes were missing.  Another 10% of the the poll tapes do not match the precincts they were supposed to match.   The missing and errant poll tapes correspond to the precincts that had problems with memory card uploads.  Problems with memory card uploads indicate attempts to reprogram the cards using an industrial farmer's crop scanner, a device that the Pima County Elections Division possessed during the RTA election. 

"What this is really about, Judge, is the creation of new film footage for their commercial enterprise." said Ronna Fickbohm to Judge Bryson last Friday,   "If you go online and Google fatallyflawedthemovie.com you will see a documentary that Mr. Brakey had asked you to film today put together starring Mr. Risner that was commercially available over the internet for twenty bucks a pop and it was even screened at the Loft."

John Brakey of CARE and AUDITAZ was operating the camera for the press pool footage of last Friday's hearing embedded at the end of this article. 

Edited together with no narration or talking head interviews, the completed documentary, "Fatally Flawed"  enables its audience to relive the experience of those who cared about the integrity of elections in Pima County.   It has proven to be an important tool for the public interest to help educate viewers about what transpired between Pima County and election integrity advocates in pursuit of election transparency.   It also contains important video evidence, like the footage of John Moffatt's county court shenanigans.   This type of documentation makes the revision of past events much more difficult.

In addition to what's in the movie, there is footage of an array of tables behind glass at Goddard's recount.

Continuous running footage of one table's entire process of counting the RTA ballots shows identically sized cardboard boxes filled to the top edge with approximately 1600 ballots.  Additional footage shows another table's complete count filling the same-sized box to the same level with approximately 1000 ballots.   One of the crucial specifications in any print job is the paper thickness, especially when ballots are involved.  This could be a troublesome dilemma for any last minute attempts at 'correcting the situation' by accessing the boxes a second time and replacing ballots for the purpose of passing a forensic exam.   A successful switch would require ballots of the same quantity of different sizes to fit in the same number of equal sized boxes in exactly the same way they were filmed during Goddard's recount.

Referring to the boxes of evidence, Bill Risner tells Judge Bryson, "Whatever's in them needs to be protected.  We certainly can't trust Pima County.  The games in terms of that sort of stuff need to stop... It's hard to have faith, really, in any storage in view of what Pima County did to the vault of this court.  That is out of my comprehension that someone can simply walk in and walk out, but they did it and that was a demonstration of incredible authority and power within the system.  Demonstration of who's in control.  Phenomenal. "

Pima County's desperate measures will not distract from the Libertarian party's primary goal behind this litigation - to ensure fair transparent elections for the future and prevent cheating by Pima County in upcoming elections.  This case for prospective relief through the courts is a major milestone that could help with election transparency across the nation.  Hopefully, Pima County will abandon or exhaust all delaying tactics and approach a timely outcome within this election year.  There is far too much at stake.

Arizona Election Fraud: Pima County Loses Bid to Stop Ballot Custody Depositions

J.T. Waldron

Citizen's Agains Rigged Elections
Left to Right:  John Kromko, Gayle Hart, Dick Kaiser, Gigi Nitka, Ralph Ellinwood Esq,
two dudes. Sherry Mann, John R Brakey, Mary DeCamp,  Arlene Leaf, Ben Love,
Bill Risner Esq., New member, "the connect The Dots Lady"  Andrea Witte,  New member,
Raymond Graap, Jim March, Radio show host Jack Fitzgerald
Photo by Lee Stanley

The Libertarian party may depose employees at the Iron Mountain storage facility in an effort to determine who in Pima County had access to the ballots for the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) election since 2006.

Previous depositions indicate that Pima County employees were able to access the RTA ballots since they were delivered after the election in 2006. The depositions were part of the hearings that ultimately led to the Libertarian party's successful pursuit of  prospective relief for rigged elections. This court case was first triggered by the Pima County Treasurer's pursuit of a declaratory judgement over the ballots for the 2006 RTA election. 

Originally, Pima County attorneys advised County Treasurer Beth Ford to sue the political parties (those charged with monitoring elections in Arizona) to "get a decision on what to do with the RTA ballots". The original idea was to provide an opportunity for Pima County to destroy the ballots before true auditing or a forensic examination of the ballots could take place. This idea backfired when the Libertarian party made a successful counterclaim for prospective relief from the courts.

A favorable ruling for prospective relief means the courts can intervene when there is a failure of existing laws as well as a failure to enforce existing laws designed to keep elections transparent and accurate.

Fighting Tooth and Nail over Rudimentary Disclosure

Pima County has taken elaborate, evasive measures that exceed what is legally customary when requests are made for public records, discovery, depositions and other seemingly innocuous items that could provide a clearer picture of election security.




RTA Ballot Custody Still a Major Concern

The county's most recent efforts at blocking disclosure involved the request by the Libertarian party to depose employees of Iron Mountain, the storage facility that held the ballots since 2006. 

What reason did the county provide?  Concern over the costs of the depositions.  An ironic position given the exorbitant private attorneys hired by Pima County to litigate the case initiated by their Treasurer's office.  Previously, Pima County attorneys handled the electronic records lawsuit over the RTA's database files.  In addition to cost, Pima County's private attorney Ronna Fichbohm claims that the Libertarian party hasn't shown good cause for the need to find out what happened to the ballots.

Pima County employee John Moffatt, however, was all the cause needed to justify this line of inquiry.  During the RTA records hearing, Moffatt had managed to take possession of a box in the county vault that had a court order specifically instructing that both parties be present when the box is released.  This box contained two hard drives: one intended for the county and the other for the Democratic party.  In violation of the court order, John Moffatt obtained possession of both hard drives before the Democratic party was aware they were available. 

The Democratic party had publicly announced its intention of using software developed to pick up certain anomalies in the electronic database files soon to be released through a court ruling.  Apparently, the county wanted a little 'extra lead time' with both hard drives while they were still in the process of developing their own software aimed at detecting what the Democratic party might detect.

The following clip shows the precise moment when John Moffatt was caught with his hand in the evidence cookie jar.  Notice the free pass provided by AZ Daily Star's obedient reporter, Erica Meltzer:

Unfortunately, it's not just the county that disrupts the chain of custody of crucial evidence.  The very same RTA ballots were removed from Iron Mountain's facility in February of 2009 by Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard for his criminal investigation of the RTA election.   While his appearance of upholding the law was initially appreciated, Terry Goddard played the unfortunate role of demonstrating why prospective relief is needed through the courts. In addition to the refusal to conduct a proper audit or a forensic investigation of the ballots, the chain of custody seems to be completely unaccounted for during the ballots' 5-6 week hiatus with Goddard's staff. 

 John Brakey, Co-founder of AUDIT-AZ and CARE (Citizens Against Rigged Elections) was on location at Maricopa's Elections Division as the ballots were rolled out in a cart to be counted.

" The boxes were an absolute mess, Boxes were already opened, tape looked like it was removed and reused.  I kept asking myself and others 'How could the Attorney General take evidence without securing it?'"

Around this time, John Brakey gained notoriety for being falsely arrested through the request of Pima Elections Director Brad Nelson.  Brakey discovered mislabeling of ballots earmarked for a hand-count audit and was promptly arrested when he brought the discrepancy to the attention of the Pima Elections Division.  Charges were dismissed once it was made clear in the courts that Brakey did not disrupt the process.

This court case is set to continue this Friday, because Pima County is delaying the hearing to determine if the courts should obtain custody of the ballots during the case.  Those familiar with this case know the answer to that question.  The following initial disclosure statement is a great comprehensive statement of facts: http://tinyurl.com/LPFiling

All are invited to attend this historic hearing.

Friday, January 20th, 2012- 11:00 AM
Judge Kyle Bryson’s Courtroom
Fifth Floor, Pima Superior Court: 110 W. Congress
Tucson, Arizona USA

Election Fraud: Arizona's Ticking Time Bomb Set to Reverberate throughout the Nation

Precedent setting court case could improve election transparency in the United States.

The Libertarian party's pursuit of a remedy against Pima County's criminality and incompetence can have nationwide implications for disenfranchised voters throughout the country.  The Arizona Supreme Court ruled favorably on behalf of the Libertarian party, who argued that the courts must intervene when there is a failure of existing laws as well as a failure to enforce existing laws designed to keep elections transparent and accurate.

Today's press conference marks the beginning of the Libertarian party's request through the courts for changes to Pima County's election procedures, which have been found to be woefully inadequate.

Like most voting districts throughout the country, Pima County uses electronic voting machines now infamous for their numerous security flaws and errant outcomes.  Unique to Pima County is the mounting evidence of election fraud surrounding one specific election that took place in 2006.  This was a taxpayer-funded road construction measure worth two billion dollars.   This Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) initiative contained two "yes/no" questions which was part of a simple ballot design that contained only a total of four "yes/no" questions.  Part of the initial suspicion was fueled by this simple ballot initiative's unusual number of anomalies and malfunctions during the tally process, which was unmatched by any of the other more complex ballots counted in Pima County.

Bill Risner helped set the foundation for
prospective relief in this case.

The means, motive and opportunity for election fraud was clearly established by a previous court case over an electronic records request by the Democratic party.  Pima County refused to release the electronic database files for the 2006 RTA election.  Their resistance cost taxpayers approximately 1.5 million in legal fees in its failed effort to prevent the legal transfer of public records to political parties.  The Democratic Party eventually lost interest in the pursuit of prospective relief for election integrity once it became apparent that Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Terry Goddard was complicit in the criminal investigation of the 2006 RTA election.   Fortunately, the Libertarian party continued with the lawsuit to win the appeal over prospective relief. 

This case eventually demonstrated the failure of existing state laws to enable a timely challenge of election results due to a five day limit.  This problem seemed to be complemented by the failure of law enforcement, which was highlighted by the incompetent criminal investigation conducted by Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard. 

In short, Terry Goddard refused to conduct an audit by comparing one set of numbers (the ballots) to another set of numbers (the precinct totals or the poll tapes).  Goddard's team refused to conduct a forensic check of the ballots (which are still in existence) despite the suspects' (Pima County's)  access to them throughout the period of litigation.

Today's press conference is marked by the filing of the Libertarian party's initial disclosure statement, which contains the most comprehensive and comprehensible list of facts, legal theories and evidence surrounding the rigged 2006 RTA election.

Additional discovery will take place in this suit to complete the picture of election fraud and to further understand the shortcomings of existing election procedures in Pima County.  Apparently, Pima County is offering stiff legal resistance to the plaintiff's request for a list of people who visited the storage facility for access to the ballots in question during the period of litigation. 

Since HAVA (Help America Vote Act) election fraud is rampant throughout the United States.  The Libertarian party's victory in obtaining prospective relief through the courts means that a court can issue orders that effect the transparency and accuracy of elections.  This case is precedent-setting and may be applicable to other election court cases throughout the country.

J.T. Waldron

Here is the press release info (which has a livestream link):

Press Conferences: The Pima County Election Fraud Case Heads to Back to Court

Just released; will be filed Thursday morning. “Statement of Facts”  Election Fraud Pima County: http://tinyurl.com/76lgzvy

Contacts: John R. Brakey, 520 339 2696 AUDITAZ@cox.net, Bill Risner 520 622 7495, bill@risnerandgraham.com, Jim March, 1.jim.march@gmail.com


When: Thursday January 12th, 2:30 pm
Where: Armory Park Senior Center
220 S. 5th Avenue, 220 S. 5th Avenue, Tucson AZ

Tucson, AZ: Since our saga began over five years ago, more and more people across America are becoming aware of the serious security flaws in computerized voting systems. They are systems designed to cheat, and they are everywhere. As the political scene heats up with the Presidential election, all eyes will be on Tucson as ground zero for exposing these flaws in open court and proposing reasonable checks and balances in the system. We must protect the purity of elections and public confidence in election results — a cornerstone of our democracy. That’s what this case is ultimately about.

BACKGROUND: AUDIT-AZ, the Pima County Libertarian Party and other interested citizens of multiple parties for years have been investigating election processes in Pima County. In previous actions, the Democratic Party took the lead in winning public records lawsuits and revealing the extent of the problems, including poor security practices on "designed to cheat" systems, election results that consistently did not add up, missing or falsified paper, and election officials and staff who continuously flout the law.

The Democratic and Libertarian Parties jointly filed suit years ago to ask a court to order reforms to the process. One local judge decided that his court was unable to do so no matter how obvious the problems might be. After that, the Democratic Party dropped out. The Libertarian Party did not: They appealed and won. Pima County appealed that decision to the AZ Supreme Court and lost. The courts have now ruled that if it can be proven that elections are being handled poorly, a local judge can indeed order Pima County to institute reforms.

IT’S GAME TIME: So after years of effort, we are “game on.” We plan to prove wide-ranging abuses of basic election security in Pima County Arizona and to obtain court-mandated improvements in the election process that could serve as a national model for how to do electronic voting properly and securely.

We have connected the dots into a 10-point quick summary of the fact pattern in this gripping saga of power and deceit. And we propose a remedy that is easy, inexpensive and doable. Let us share that and more with you. We promise a very interesting time.

***30***

·        RTA Fraud Slides for Press Conference 1/12/12 .pdf: http://tinyurl.com/872o8sn

·        Flyer for Press Conference 1/12/12 pdf: http://tinyurl.com/85ddblt

      ·        Just released: “Statement of Facts” http://tinyurl.com/76lgzvy

·        For more info: http://audit-az.blogspot.com or: http://seekingjusticeauditaz.blogspot.com

Occupy Rigged Elections with C.A.R.E

If you can’t make it you can hopefully watch on line: starting at 2:30pm tomorrow you'll be able to watch it online at: Occupy Rigged Elections Tucson:
 http://www.livestream.com/occupyriggedelections
You may have to sit through one short ad first, after that we're on.

Hope, Peace and Occupy with C.A.R.E.  Care stands for Citizens Against Rigged Elections

John R Brakey