Friday, October 29, 2010
North Carolina Republicans File Lawsuit Against Electronic Voting Machine Failures
 The Brad Blog has just broken a story over the lawsuit the North Carolina Republican Party has filed against the State Board of Elections over the use and failures of the electronic touch screen voting machines. Amongst the allegations is the votes being cast for Republican candidates are being flipped to Democratic candidates instead. The Daily Comet also reported. Below is an excerpt from The Brad Blog on this breaking story:
"This afternoon, Legal Counsel for the North Carolina Republican State
Executive Committee sent a letter [PDF] to the NC State Board of Elections threatening legal action if their "demands" were not "immediately" met for taking a number of specific actions to mitigate reported touch-screen voting problems describes as "significantly more widespread than the NC GOP initially understood."
The GOP attorney, John E. Branch III writes that the voting system problems should have been addressed prior to the early voting period "and, to the extent they were not, the touch screen systems should have been been banned."
The problems in contention are related to reports of the state's ES&S iVotronic e-voting systems reportedly showing votes as flipping from Republicans to Democrats on the screen. The threat from the state GOP comes on the heels of complaints made last week in two different NC counties, Craven and New Hanover. Those reports were a switch from previous years when voters in dozens of states had reported votes flipping largely from Democratic to Republican. Branch charges that the party has "received word" that similar problems have emerged in "Mecklenburg...Randolph...Cumberland, Wilson, Pender, Forsyth, Lenoir and other
counties," which all similarly use the oft-failed, 100% unverifiable ES&S touch-screen voting machines. The same systems are also used in more than a
dozen other states...
In a sharply worded response [PDF] to Branch's letter late this afternoon, Gary O.
Bartlett, Executive Director of the State Board of Elections charges the GOP
letter was "apparently intended to elevate isolated occurrences with touch screen voting equipment into a crisis of confidence in the integrity of the election." Bartlett downplayed the concerns, as elections officials usually do, describing them as "no different than ones that must be addressed in every election."
North Carolina Election Integrity advocate Joyce McCloy, Director of NC Coalition for Verified Voting and editor of Voting News tells The BRAD BLOG that vote flipping in the state "has historically been from GOP to DEM". She also notes the acrimony between the state Republicans and the Board of Elections, explaining that many of the county BoEs have a Democratic majority and that the state's largest local e-voting vendor, Print Elect, who program the machines in a number of counties, is a "BIG donor to the DEM Governor".
In truth, however, there is no way to know how any touch-screen voting machine actually records a vote during an election. What is shown to voters on both the screen and the so-called "paper trail" printed out along side it (on many such systems) may not reflect the way the votes are actually recorded internally. To that end, there is no way to know that any vote has ever been recorded accurately, as per any voters intent, for any candidate or initiative on any ballot in any actual election using a touch-screen voting machine.
The ES&S iVotronics were indeed certified at the federal level, but by contractors selected and paid for by the vendor themselves and who tested the systems in secrecy. Subsequent independent analysis, by a number of states, have found "serious" flaws in the systems. A study released by the state of Florida in 2007 found the systems were vulnerable to viral vote-flipping attacks. The state eventually decertified the systems after 18,000 votes were lost all together during a 2006 U.S. House special election decided in favor of the Republican by just 369 votes.
One of the "DEMANDS" listed in the GOP attorney's letter to the State Board of Elections is for an order to be issued requiring poll workers to keep a record of complaints (which Bartlett says they already do), but to include "the identify of the voter, the time the voter voted, the specific voting machine used by the voter, and the nature of the voter's complaint" in such incident reports.
Such a requirement, however, would likely result in the loss of privacy for that voter's secret ballot. That's just one more problem to add to the ever growing list of reasons why, as the GOP's Branch correctly noted, "the touch screen systems should have been been banned." In addition to North Carolina, the ES&S iVotronic is used, according to VerifiedVoting.org's database at polling places in Arkansas, Washington D.C., Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin, and West Virginia.
• 10/28/10 Letter from NC GOP to NC's State Board of Elections [PDF]• 10/28/10 Response to NC GOP from NC's State Board of Elections [PDF]"
Read the full story at The Brad Blog.
This is interesting news because in the past years, it has mainly been Democratic state or independent organizations that have been raising this concern on the lack of transparency and intergrity of electronic voting machines. It is GREAT news that a Republican organization is finally taking this issue of election fraud seriously. As AuditAZ has stated over and over again, election integrity is not about the Right or Left. It is about right and wrong. No democracy can ensue when votes cannot be counted accurately, transparently, and one vote per person. Labels: Diebold, election fraud, election integrity, ES and S, Republican Party, voting rights
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Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Maricopa Judge Favors Misleading Testimony of Election Officials Over Election Law: Rules Partial Victory for Electors
In a one-day mini trial September 10th in the old Courthouse in Phoenix, Judge Oberbillig granted only partial victory to individual voters who filed suit August 16 in Maricopa County [Hess vs. Purcell] to compel the Maricopa Elections Recorder and Division of Elections to follow state law expressly written to protect and empower voters.
The biggest win is a reform of how Maricopa County conducts post-election hand audits. Until now they have insisted on picking which precincts to count before telling anybody what the precinct detail results are. This allowed them to game the audit: they could cheat however they want, and then once precincts were picked “un-cheat” those selected precincts. The races would always look right despite rampant alteration of results. The whole thrust of our case (still in progress!) is to deny them the right to cheat that they’ve insisted on. Whether or not they are in fact cheating is not even at issue in court – but the degree to which they’ve insisted on having that ability in this and many other areas (unsigned results tapes, failure to seal away a results tapes copy from their own ready access, telling pollworkers to keep precinct results secret on election night and many more) should cause concern among all voters of all political stripes.
The case was a Mandamus action, which asks a court to “mandate” that government officials follow statutory law. In most states a Mandamus action is designed to be a fast-track process for cases where the issues are relatively obvious. In Arizona, there is no discovery ahead of time, which makes the process fast and inexpensive for all concerned.
The court’s ruling favored misleading testimony given by election officials – failing to realize their interest in closing off the public from an insider-controlled process that maintains the status quo, restricts observation and escapes accountability by insisting that the public just trust the officials. In our opinion, the case was compromised by lack of time for preparation, as well as the judge’s lack of technical understanding that seemed to make him inclined to believe the election officials.
At trial, plaintiffs clearly prevailed several key points and were able to win recognition from the judge that observers should have “unobstructed” viewing of the central tabulator. However, the ruling fell short of full transparency for observers at the central count facility. The complaint alleged that Maricopa Elections office has been violating and ignoring state law for years. These Points “Interlock” To Make A Complete Election Fraud Recipe.
After seven different Arizona election cases that we have been involved in since 2005 and more elsewhere, we’ve seen that almost all judges see the world from the viewpoint of other government officials. They’re a team. The judge and the county recorder are on the same team. Democratic myth has judges interpreting the constitution and making government officials carry out their legal responsibilities. Judges sometimes see it as hassling one of "their guys". Our job is to know this and rethink why in most of those seven cases we’ve had to go back and file additional motions such as a “Motion to amend finding of fact or law or for a new trial” or “Motion for reconsideration”. Sometimes the system needs a little pushing and prodding, all done by using and clarifying the facts. That’s what we intend to do.
We summarize the explanation of our thinking on points won and lost listed below:
We won the first flurry when the opposition surrendered point eight below. The County basically admitted that they been doing the hand count audits wrong since 2006 by not publicly committing the precinct results as required by law. This is on top of not having polltapes signed as required by law, a point that we won later in the trial. 1) (WON) The judge agreed that the results tape need to be signed by pollworkers at the end of the voting day.
2) (WON PART “A”, LOST “B” AND “C” SO FAR) This point involved observation of the election process itself, esp. at the central tabulator. This point broke down into three issues:
A. We couldn’t see the monitors for the central tabulator system. In one of our biggest wins in this case, the county is required to give us “unobstructed” viewing access to the monitors on computers used for vote tabulation. Somebody’s head in the way specifically doesn’t cut it, at least based on what the judge said in court. This will likely involve a second screen up that observers will be able to see at a normal distance, on a video signal splitter. This is similar to what Pima county has already done and was mandated years ago by the California Secretary of State.
B. We can’t see the cabling in there, and cannot bring our own laptops to probe for illicit use of WiFi or Blue-tooth data connections. And per the judge we still can’t. This was among the worst rulings and one we are strongly inclined to challenge. One of the most frustrating parts: the judge said that observer laptops would be seen by other observers over wireless and be mistaken for “false positives”. He didn’t understand that wireless laptops are normally set up as “receivers” as opposed to “transmitters” and that it’s only “transmitters” (routers or access points) we’d be looking for. The judge made a major technology blunder and introduced it as new evidence. This is despite the fact that a new WiFi network popped up running from a home-grade router after midnight on election night, traceable to within the election offices. The county wouldn’t search it out themselves or allow our observers to do so with their own laptop. Here is the legal issue: we have a legal right to observe the central tabulator system. They’ve put that system on a local area network, but the county is banned from broader connections to the county’s net or the general internet. That local net is part of the central tabulator system and if we can’t observe it, they can do whatever they want behind the scenes...and the scary part is, at least some hard evidence says they are – we saw a new wireless network based at the election processing center pop up after midnight on election eve with no explanation.
C. Per the county, no photography is allowed. The judge is fine with that. We’re not. We may or may not be able to do anything about it - for now.
3) (LOST) We asked the court to outlaw internet connections, and the county claimed there were none. We have a witness who worked for the agencyas an advanced pollworker (“troubleshooter” covering several precincts) in 2008 who examined one of the regional collection station laptops and saw the software on it needed to function with a cellular modem on the Alltel network “Axcess” which in turn is a straight shot to the internet. The county claimed they don’t do that; the judge believed them over our guy.
We suspect that at least in 2008, at least some of the 22 regional memory pack upload sites scattered across the county had poor quality or missing landlines for dial-up modems, so they went cellular as plan B. These regional upload centers are where pollworkers bring memory packs in to be uploaded to the central tabulator instead of driving them to downtown Phoenix.
We still have the opportunity to try and catch ‘em doing this in future elections and come back to this point. (Amusingly, the results upload process in this last primary took a LOT longer (by several hours) than in previous years. We suspect they realized we were looking for cellular modems and didn’t use ‘em, instead carting memory packs downtown in those locations with dysfunctional phone lines. There’s no proof there of course but...it’s interesting.)
4) (LOST) This was the uncertified software/BPS issue. Basically, the judge is taking the former secretary of state’s office’s opinion (Jan Brewer) that everything is hunky dory despite strong evidence otherwise. To be fair, we could have done this better with more time to prepare. We suspect our best bet is to drop this for now and gather more evidence, including trying to get copies of the databases via another state such as California where there are stronger public records laws.
For those just tuning in, here’s what’s going on: Sequoia withheld a major portion of their software from outside scrutiny by the federally approved test labs. That was just wrong, and one of four instances in which we can prove a voting system vendor withheld components from the labs. The lab scrutiny concept is the “fig leaf of sanity” on what is fundamentally insane: counting our vote with privately owned and internally secret software. Nobody in the elections business wants to admit the test lab process is being gamed. To hide the gamesmanship, Sequoia also declared as secret the contents of the election’s key data files by claiming there’s “software” in them, which may or may not be true – if true, for a number of reasons any such “software” would be illegal on it’s face as it cannot be confirmed as authentic and is too easy to modify in the field, breaking the federal certification rules at least twice.
5) (LOST) Maricopa County instructs the pollworkers to hide all details of the vote totals as they close out the polls. The judge was OK with that. This was his most obvious legal blunder. Neighboring Pinal county puts the vote totals on the front entrance of the door. Arizona revised statute 16-551 titled “Early election board; violation; classification” and you clearly mandates that pollworkers call out the vote at the end of the day. Now, there IS a rule calling for secrecy of vote totals until after 8:00pm, but it applies only to the early and mail-in votes – it’s guessed it, it refers to the operation of the early and mail-in voting boards, – NOT the polling place procedures which are still controlled by A.R.S. §§ 16-601. The judge decided to invent a new public policy based on the testimony of Karen Osborne: “don’t confuse the poor voters” with a precinct-vote-only total on election night. What he missed is that this election night report is a security measure – it gives us data from before the vote totals enter a thoroughly riggable electronic system. We WILL challenge this with the facts and law again. 6) (LOST) We challenged their policy of not putting a copy of the results tape (also known as the tally totals, tally list) in the “official returns envelope”. Several laws outright mandate this (ARS 16-615, 16-622 and 16-624) and the reason is clear: the official returns envelope is something the county election officials themselves can’t get at very easily, not without a lot of other eyeballs on the subject such as observers and/or a court order – see also the current statewide policy manual of May 2010 on page 203 for the “in case of challenge” concept. Larry Bahill is a former election director Pima 14 years and helped write the laws when he was minority leader in the state house. On the stand, Bahill clearly expressed why these statutes exist. We've confirmed that Cochise and Apache county does it correctly and we are checking others counties. You have to ask yourself this: what good is the “official returns envelope” if there’s no copy of a signed “results tape” in the envelope to be opened in case of a conflict? ARS 16-615, clearly shows the results tape also known as “tally list” going into “official returns envelope”.
7) (LOST) This was a challenge to their practice of transporting critical materials with just one person, banned in the Secretary of State’s policy manual (see pages 144 through 146). Also see ARS 16 608, 16-564, and many more in the election codes (title 16) that go into chain-of custody issues. The judge simply ignored the problem for reasons we don’t understand at all.
8) (WON before court started) Finally at point eight we win a big one. Just before the trial started the county stipulated they were wrong, a shrewd move to quietly remove one of our bigger claims: no more picking precincts to hand count until after they release precinct-detail vote totals as per the ARS 16-602. What they were doing was both crafty and disgusting: by learning which precincts would be counted before releasing details for each, they could rig the vote totals among all precincts at the central database and then once they learn what will be counted, un-rig those ones selectively (shifting any false totals assigned there to other, uncounted precincts). This was the single most blatant violation along with the unsigned results tape and they gave up before trial started. We have on video two different times that we protested on this point, on 11/05/08 and on 08/25/10.
There’s no way around it: in key areas the judge either ignored the law, introduced his own incorrect technical “knowledge” or made outright policy decisions contrary to the law as written.
The scary part: this is the chief civil court judge in the Arizona Superior court, Maricopa County branch. However, he made us feel like we all did something good, he thanked us and then said too bad there weren’t any school children here watching and learning how democracy works. Yep, Jim and I were born at night, but it wasn’t last night. He did have us going for a while until we read the Judges minute entry – his final “official” written ruling.
Well, we will most likely challenge the lack of network connection observation (point 2B), the pollworker secrecy on vote totals (point 5) and the withholding of the copy of the results tapes from the official returns envelope (point 6). Possibly others but those are the most legally clear-cut and vital in terms of the overall security of the election process. Again we state: These Points “Interlock” To Make A Complete Election Fraud Recipe. If observers aren’t allowed to see the precinct data either on election night (point 5 above) or after wards (8), and are blocked from seeing what goes on at the central tabulator (2) when it gets there on systems connected to the internet (3) on unknown, untested and illegal software (4) and the one reliable record available of precinct results (results tapes) isn’t signed (1) OR put in a sealed bag for later review (6), then it’s not a proper election. The only thing left to call it is “illegal” – and that’s what we will present to a judge. Again, and again and again..
We below know that elections are just too important. 
We've all learned over many years that Election Integrity is not about "trust" or "credentials", it's about transparency and oversight and our *right*, as a citizen, to *know* that our favorite candidate -- or least favorite -- won or lost in *our* public elections. If you find yourself having to trust in someone -- anyone, whether it be an election officials, a Judge, a voting machine company, or an EI advocate -- rather than being able to see things for yourself, then something has gone terribly wrong. As it has been in AZ and in much of the nation.
To get a good overview of the problems with elections in Arizona, it’s important to read the resolution with background information written by attorney Bill Risner and passed by the AZ Democratic Party Jan 23rd 2010: This report tells it like it is from a seasoned attorney with 42 years of experience on how bad the election systems is, it’s a must read if you care about elections: http://tinyurl.com/27mw9jn
John Brakey and Jim March Labels: Arizona election law, election fraud, election integrity, election reform, Jim March, John Brakey, maricopa county
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Sunday, August 22, 2010
ON MONDAY 08/16/2010 EMERGENCY LAWSUIT FILED TO FORCE MARICOPA COUNTY ELECTIONS DEPARTMENT TO FOLLOW THE LAW TO PROTECT UPCOMING ELECTION RESULTS FROM ELECTION FRAUD
Pre-election research over the last three weeks (based on the work of AUDIT AZ since 2006) discovered flagrant ILLEGAL violations of Arizona Election Laws [2]. The interlocking pattern of deliberate subversion of these security measures indicated below makes manipulation of vote counting easy, thus leaving elections vulnerable to undetectable fraud: - Arizona Election Law requires pollworkers to sign poll tapes at the conclusion of the ballot count.[3] Maricopa Elections has removed the signature line and changed pollworker manual to remove instructions for pollworkers to sign the poll tapes printed by the precinct electronic voting machines.[4]
- Maricopa Elections Dept. has prevented properly credentialed party observers from observing the central tabulator systems.
- Maricopa Elections Dept. has been connecting to and distributing election data over the Internet, in violation of Arizona law.[5]
- Maricopa Elections Dept uses uncertified software on the certified voting systems. These are listed in AZ law specifically as felonies.[6]
- Maricopa County blocks the public from knowing the vote totals at the precinct, instructing pollworkers to withhold results and prevents any observers from photographing the machine totals.[7] This is in open violation of AZ law. In contrast Pinal County posts the “results tape” on the front door of each polling location. [8]
- Maricopa County ordered their pollworkers for all recent elections not to place the polltapes produced by the electronic voting machines (“results tapes” that should, by law, be signed) into the sealed “official returns envelope”. This sealed envelope is to be preserved in case of a challenge.
- Maricopa Elections Dept. orders their pollworkers to return critical ballot materials (the “memory cartridge” electronic ballot boxes) from the polling places at the end of election day with one person only.[9] AZ law requires two persons to be assigned this task, one from each party.[10]
- Maricopa Elections Dept reports election results, combining by mail-in, precinct and provisional voting. It is easier to tamper with election results either by the precinct or mail-in votes; tampering with both to make them more or less equivalent in terms of the percentage of fraud is difficult. If a candidate or issue wins a large majority in one type of voting and loses in the other, it’s a strong indicator of election tampering. Maricopa County combines all the data into one total to avoid raising any inquiries into discrepancies.
 These Points “Interlock” To Make A Complete Election Fraud Recipe. If observers aren’t allowed to see the precinct data either on election night (point 5 above) or afterwards (8), and are blocked from seeing what goes on at the central tabulator (2) when it gets there on systems connected to the internet (3) on unknown, untested and illegal software (4) and the one reliable record available of precinct results (polltape) isn’t signed (1) OR put in a sealed bag for later review (6), then it’s not a proper election. The only thing left to call it is “illegal” – and that’s what we will present to a judge.
Arizona law has set the conditions for any full recount to be the most difficult in the nation: recounts are automatically generated only when there is a 1/10th of 1% or smaller difference in election totals between two candidates or issues. Florida is the only other state that is close to this standard, and their required percentage spreads are less stringent. A candidate challenge is impossible, even if the candidate pays for it. This is a recipe for un-auditable election fraud [11].
A pattern is emerging in AZ elections. In the case of the Maricopa LD20 (Sept 2004) election,[12] Election Director Karen Osborne testified that an 18% error rate on optical scanning machines was within the accepted error rate for those machines! This same election fiasco resulted in ballots being confiscated by the FBI and never properly investigated. Regarding the Pima County court case about the disputed RTA election, a court ordered examination of the stored poll tapes from the RTA election of May 2006 showed that 44% of them were missing or didn’t match the official results.[13]
The Maricopa County Elections Department is responsible for the counting 56% of the total votes of the state of Arizona. Thus, subversion of the elections in Maricopa could easily result in changing the election results for the entire state in a statewide election. Therefore, a group of concerned citizens from five AZ counties, as individuals in Arizona, have filed a request for an emergency hearing to ask the court to force remedies for these violations of the law before the upcoming election on the 24th of this month. This Special Action Relief request asks for an expedited hearing to assure the upcoming election will follow election law to assure accurate results in this and all future elections in the state of Arizona. Other relevant links: [14] [15]
Our complaint cites each violation, referring either to Arizona law or the May 2010 edition of the state-standard election procedures manual.[16]
Contacts: John R Brakey 520-578-5678 Cell 520-339-2696 Email: AUDITAZ@cox.net
Jim March 916-370-0347 Email: 1.Jim.March@gmail.com
 Pinal county posts their "results tape" on front door of polling location.
This is not the USSR where Joe Stalin said: It’s not who cast the vote that count; it’s who count the vote that counts!
- Electors’ v Purcell - 11 Motion supplemented.pdf: http://tinyurl.com/263cc8f
- Report by John Brakey and Jim March, “Unlawful Actions of the Maricopa County Elections – A Partial Compendium of Sins.” August 17, 2010: http://tinyurl.com/2ej5egk
- AZ Secretary of State’s procedures manual see page 144 & 145. This publication is available at: http://www.azsos.gov/election/Electronic_Voting_System/2010/Manual.pdf
- Maricopa County Elections Pollworkers Manual - see page 41: http://recorder.maricopa.gov/pdf/ebworker_trainingManual.pdf
- “Election Management System Security” on page 87, items 6 and 7. This publication is available at: http://www.azsos.gov/election/Electronic_Voting_System/2010/Manual.pdf
- The Sequoia Ballot Preparation/Printing System (BPS) – Does It Need To Be Certified by Tom Ryan, Ph.D. Arizona Citizens for Fair Elections: http://tinyurl.com/25wsqn6
- Maricopa County Elections Pollworkers Manual see page 41: http://recorder.maricopa.gov/pdf/ebworker_trainingManual.pdf
- Pinal county pollworker manual - see page 23: http://pinalcountyaz.gov/Departments/Elections/Documents/Downloads/Poll%20Worker%20Reference%20Manual.pdf
- Maricopa County Elections Pollworkers Manual - see page 42: http://recorder.maricopa.gov/pdf/ebworker_trainingManual.pdf
- AZ Secretary of State’s procedures manual - see page 144. http://www.azsos.gov/election/Electronic_Voting_System/2010/Manual.pdf
- To get a good overview of the problems with elections in Arizona, it’s important to read the resolution with background information written by attorney Bill Risner and passed by the AZ Democratic Party Jan 23rd 2010: This report tells it like it is from a seasoned attorney with 42 years of experience on how bad the election systems is, it’s a must read if you care about elections: http://tinyurl.com/27mw9jn
- District 20 Recount Scandal Factsheet from AUDIT AZ: http://tinyurl.com/2bea8sh
- The BRAD BLOG! 'EXCLUSIVE: Poll Tapes, Other Evidence Discovered Missing in Long-Disputed, 'Fixed' Arizona Election' at: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7946
- ELECTORS v PURCELL-12 REQUEST FOR EXPEDITED HEARING; http://tinyurl.com/2fkbbr4
- ELECTORS V PURCELL -13 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE; http://tinyurl.com/26ryqcg
- AZ Secretary of State’s procedures manual: http://www.azsos.gov/election/Electronic_Voting_System/2010/Manual.pdf
Labels: Arizona election law, election fraud, election integrity, John Brakey, Karen Johnson, maricopa county
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Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Emergency Lawsuit Filed - Maricopa Elections
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Aug. 17th 2010 
EMERGENCY LAWSUIT FILED TO FORCE MARICOPA COUNTY, ARIZONA ELECTIONS DEPARTMENT TO FOLLOW THE LAW TO PROTECT UPCOMING ELECTION RESULTS FROM ELECTION FRAUD[[1]]. Pre-election research over the last three weeks (based on the work of AUDIT AZ since 2006) discovered flagrant ILLEGAL violations of Arizona Election Laws [[2]]. The interlocking pattern of deliberate subversion of these security measures indicated below makes manipulation of vote counting easy, thus leaving elections vulnerable to undetectable fraud: 1) Arizona Election Law requires pollworkers to sign poll tapes at the conclusion of the ballot count.[[3]] Maricopa Elections has removed the signature line and changed pollworker manual to remove instructions for pollworkers to sign the poll tapes printed by the precinct electronic voting machines.[[4]] 2) Maricopa Elections Dept. has prevented properly credentialed party observers from observing the central tabulator systems. 3) Maricopa Elections Dept. has been connecting to and distributing election data over the Internet, in violation of Arizona law.[[5]] 4) Maricopa Elections Dept uses uncertified software on the certified voting systems. These are listed in AZ law specifically as felonies.[[6]] 5) Maricopa County blocks the public from knowing the vote totals at the precinct, instructing pollworkers to withhold results and prevents any observers from photographing the machine totals.[[7]] This is in open violation of AZ law. In contrast Pinal County posts the “results tape” on the front door of each polling location. [[8]] 6) Maricopa County ordered their pollworkers for all recent elections not to place the polltapes produced by the electronic voting machines (“results tapes” that should, by law, be signed) into the sealed “official returns envelope”. This sealed envelope is to be preserved in case of a challenge. 7) Maricopa Elections Dept. orders their pollworkers to return critical ballot materials (the “memory cartridge” electronic ballot boxes) from the polling places at the end of election day with one person only.[[9]] AZ law requires two persons to be assigned this task, one from each party.[10] 8) Maricopa Elections Dept reports election results, combining by mail-in, precinct and provisional voting. It is easier to tamper with election results either by the precinct or mail-in votes; tampering with both to make them more or less equivalent in terms of the percentage of fraud is difficult. If a candidate or issue wins a large majority in one type of voting and loses in the other, it’s a strong indicator of election tampering. Maricopa County combines all the data into one total to avoid raising any inquiries into discrepancies. These Points “Interlock” To Make A Complete Election Fraud Recipe. If observers aren’t allowed to see the precinct data either on election night (point 5 above) or afterwards (8), and are blocked from seeing what goes on at the central tabulator (2) when it gets there on systems connected to the internet (3) on unknown, untested and illegal software (4) and the one reliable record available of precinct results (polltape) isn’t signed (1) OR put in a sealed bag for later review (6), then it’s not a proper election. The only thing left to call it is “illegal” – and that’s what we will present to a judge. Arizona law has set the conditions for any full recount to be the most difficult in the nation: recounts are automatically generated only when there is a 1/10th of 1% or smaller difference in election totals between two candidates or issues. Florida is the only other state that is close to this standard, and their required percentage spreads are less stringent. A candidate challenge is impossible, even if the candidate pays for it. This is a recipe for un-auditable election fraud [[11]]. A pattern is emerging in AZ elections. In the case of the Maricopa LD20 (Sept 2004) election,[[12]] Election Director Karen Osborne testified that an 18% error rate on optical scanning machines was within the accepted error rate for those machines! This same election fiasco resulted in ballots being confiscated by the FBI and never properly investigated. Regarding the Pima County court case about the disputed RTA election, a court ordered examination of the stored poll tapes from the RTA election of May 2006 showed that 44% of them were missing or didn’t match the official results.[[13]] The Maricopa County Elections Department is responsible for the counting 56% of the total votes of the state of Arizona. Thus, subversion of the elections in Maricopa could easily result in changing the election results for the entire state in a statewide election. Therefore, a group of concerned citizens from five AZ counties, as individuals in Arizona, have filed a request for an emergency hearing to ask the court to force remedies for these violations of the law before the upcoming election on the 24th of this month. This Special Action Relief request asks for an expedited hearing to assure the upcoming election will follow election law to assure accurate results in this and all future elections in the state of Arizona. Other relevant links: [[14]] [[15]] Our complaint cites each violation, referring either to Arizona law or the May 2010 edition of the state-standard election procedures manual.[[16]] Contacts: John R Brakey 520-578-5678 Cell 520-339-2696 Email: AUDITAZ@cox.net Jim March 916-370-0347 Email: 1.Jim.March@gmail.com
[2] Report by John Brakey and Jim March, “Unlawful Actions of the Maricopa County Elections – A Partial Compendium of Sins.” August 17, 2010: http://tinyurl.com/2ej5egk [6] The Sequoia Ballot Preparation/Printing System (BPS) – Does It Need To Be Certified by Tom Ryan, Ph.D. Arizona Citizens for Fair Elections: http://tinyurl.com/25wsqn6 [11] To get a good overview of the problems with elections in Arizona, it’s important to read the resolution with background information written by attorney Bill Risner and passed by the AZ Democratic Party Jan 23rd 2010: This report tells it like it is from a seasoned attorney with 42 years of experience on how bad the election systems is, it’s a must read if you care about elections: http://tinyurl.com/27mw9jn ----------------------- John Brakey, co-founder of AUDIT-AZ (Americans United for Democracy, Integrity, and Transparency in Elections, Arizona) & Co-Coordinator of Investigations Velvet Revolution www.velvetrevolution.us Tucson, AZ, 85706 Phone 520-578-5678 cell 520 339 2696 John’s AUDITAZ@cox.net
__._,_  __,_._,___ Labels: Arizona election law, Arizona elections, Chuck Huckelberry, election fraud, election integrity, Jim March, John Brakey, maricopa county
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Wednesday, June 16, 2010
'Arti-factual' Election Results in SC
 From the BradBlog: 'Arti-factual' Election Results in SC; And a Brief History of Recent ES&S E-Vote Failure in Advance of Thursday's Democratic Primary Protest Hearing JUST IN: Protest hearing to be streamed LIVE Thursday @ 3pm ET...
Posted By Brad Friedman On 16th June 2010 @ 19:54
First, some very good news just in: The hearing for the protest to the results of last week's SC Democratic U.S. Senate primary will be streamed [1] live on Thursday at 3pm ET via Live.VicRawl.com [2]. The protest will be heard by the Executive Board of the South Carolina Democratic Party to consider Judge Vic Rawl's protest to last week's bizarre election. Second, I'm happy to say that I have finally been able to make contact with the campaign of former state legislator and Circuit Court Judge Vic Rawl [3]. I had a somewhat lengthy conversation earlier today with his campaign manager Walter Ludwig, and continue to be happy to report that it seems they have a very good grasp of the issues at stake --- in relation to the horrific ES&S e-voting system --- in their challenge to the 100% unverifiable election of Alvin Greene in SC's recent Democratic U.S. Senate primary race. As I noted last night [4], in discussing Rawl's interview yesterday on Fox, given the sharp learning curve for those unfamiliar with the complex issues involved with e-voting and Election Integrity, they've done an excellent job of getting up to speed, at least inasmuch as possible in the short time they've been forced to become "experts" on the topic. That, of course, is just another pitfall of using insanely complicated rocket science instead of common sense and eyeballs to add one plus one plus one in our current electoral system. Most candidates with questions about their election results simply can't afford the resources and computer scientists and time needed for the forensic investigation of these systems --- that's if they're even allowed access to the often proprietary trade-secret hardware and software --- following an election and prior to the date by which they must file and argue a legal challenge. That, as opposed to simply examining paper ballots and chain of custody procedures, as would be the case with sane, paper ballot elections. Ludwig seems to understand just how bad the voting system is that voters were forced to use in SC's recent election, the same system used in dozens of other states despite The BRAD BLOG's [5] best efforts over the past six years to warn of the dangers. "These machines are incredibly frail and subject to manipulation. They don't work very well." In short, Ludwig told me, "They're crap."...
'Arti-factual' Results The case he'll present tomorrow to the state Democratic Party's executive committee does not include evidence of direct manipulation, but rather, a three-pronged case combining the known problems and historical failures of the ES&S iVotronic system, in combination with the statistical and political improbabilities that Greene, an unemployed, unknown candidate who did no campaigning whatsoever, could have legitimately received some 60% of the total vote. "The results appear to be artificial, or 'arti-factual', as some people might say. As we've done our analysis, it just doesn't hold up," said Ludwig. Speaking to the oft-cited fallacy being forwarded in the media that both candidates were equally unknown entities, who each did little or no campaigning, Ludwig re-iterated what Rawl has been saying in his recent media appearances [6]. "There is an inherent presumption that these were equivalent campaigns. We campaigned, the other guy just simply didn't." Rawl has said he'd raised hundreds of thousands of dollars during the campaign, appeared at some 80 campaign events all across the state since March 1st, and had hundreds of campaign volunteers. By way of contrast, Greene didn't have a campaign website, had no volunteers, no campaign literature, and doesn't even own a computer or a cell phone. I pointed Ludwig to a number of academic findings in regard to the state's Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen) voting systems which he hadn't yet known of, and discussed my concerns about the sensitive memory cards used in those systems for both programming the ballot and recording votes. As manipulation of the memory cards are one of the direct ways to potentially manipulate the machines, I've been very troubled by reports received by the campaign that some pollworkers were said to have been repeatedly accessing and swapping out memory cards throughout Election Day. Ludwig says that the cards have yet to be examined or quarantined. I strongly advised, as I have since first reporting this story [7], that someone get a court order for that immediately.
Labels: Brad Friedman, Bradblog, Diebold, election fraud, election integrity, ES and S
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