“Election Integrity: Are our votes counted honestly?”

On Tuesday January 8, 2013, Saguaro Eastside Democrats will host a discussion of this issue by Mickey Duniho and Tom Ryan. Both men are members of the Pima County Election Integrity Commission which tries to influence our ability, as voters in Pima County, to confirm the honesty of our elections process. Their opinion is that the results in its first four years are limited. Although attempts to increase security procedures and security documentation have succeeded, attempts to increase the transparency of election processing have failed.

The meeting will be held at New Spirit Lutheran Church, 8701 E. Old Spanish Trail (on the northeast corner at Camino Seco). The meeting begins at 6:30 p.m. with light refreshments and time for socializing. The formal program will begin at 7 p.m. and last until 8:30.

Please note that this is a new day of the week for our programs. In 2013 we will be meeting the second Tuesday of the month.

All meetings of SED are free and open to the public. You do not have to be a member to attend. For further information, call attorney Pat Wiedhopf at 520-850-6755.

This is a very important issue as we all in this democratic country want to insure that when we vote in Primary and General (and special) elections that our vote will be counted accurately.

LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS PRESENTING FREE WORKSHOP ON MODERATING

Is your organization planning a panel discussion, a forum, workshop, or candidate debate? Come and learn the tips and techniques on how to make everything run smoothly, with everyone following the rules and being civil to one another.

The workshop will be held on Saturday, August 11, 2012 from 9 AM to 1 PM at the Pima County Housing Center, 801 West Congress Street (1/4 mile west of I-10).

Light refreshments will be served. Be sure to reserve so we’ll have enough materials for you. Contact 520-327-7652 or 520–3018.

More information on League of Women Voters of Greater Tucson: http://lwvgt.org/.

Coming up:

Saturday, August 18, 2012, 10 AM to Noon
Eckstrom-Columbus Library
4350 E. 22nd Street, Tucson Summer Meeting – “Ballot Security and Voter Suppression”.

The LWVGT has joined others in voter registration throughout Pima County and all over the United States. The barriers for citizens to vote have been acknowledged by many Local Leagues. This topic was brought up in a planning meeting by members who wanted to know more about any voter suppression in our community and how protected is our ballot when we vote.

We will have two speakers who will provide information on this issue:

F. Ann Rodrigues, Pima County Recorder, will tell us of the outreach efforts made by her office to secure voting rights for registered voters. Barbara Tellman, former League Vice Chair, member of the Pima County Commission on Election Integrity, will share information about voter rights and suppression.

Contact: Maxine Goodman
maxinegoodman17@yahoo.com
Media / Community Relations
League of Women voters
Of Greater Tucson
(520) 622-0905

Just got an email from the Pima County Election Integrity advocates who claim that something is still wrong with that May, 2006 Regional Transportation Authority election, despite the hand count done by Attorney General Terry Goddard last year.

Here’s what The Brad Blog (blogger Brad Friedman’s article dated7/14/10) reveals about this:
(EXCLUSIVE: Poll Tapes, Other Evidence Discovered Missing in Long-Disputed, ‘Fixed’ Arizona Election).

Breaking news from this blog:

“Out of 368 precincts, 112 poll tapes are completely missing. Moreover, 102 of the “yellow sheets” — certified precinct reports, signed by poll workers, detailing corresponding summary information, such as numbers of ballots received, cast and spoiled, as helpful for important auditing functions at the precinct level — are missing as well.

Furthermore, of the poll tape records that are not missing, 50 of them do not match the results as recorded in the final canvas of the election, according to the Election Integrity advocates who have compared them to the original electronic database numbers…”

The question now is:

Where are those missing poll tapes with the summaries of each Arizona precinct, signed by the respective poll workers?

I wrote about this issue earlier when that “Fatally Flawed” documentary by JT Waldron premiered at the Crossroads Theater (click here) in November, 2009.

Attorney Bill Risner who has represented the Pima County Democratic Party in the lawsuit on this issue, has maintained since that hand count by the Maricopa Elections Division in April, 2009 that the poll tapes had to be checked and verified as well. And they were not, and now 30% are missing. This doesn’t lend a lot of confidence in the Pima County Elections Division, once again.

Pima County Elections apparently owns a print-on-demand Diebold machine that can re-print paper ballots at any time. So the allegations are that the “original ballots” cast may have been replaced, which may have been the ones counted in last year’s hand count. The poll tapes in each precinct box would have verified the electronic database numbers as well as the hand count numbers, but now a year later, many of them are missing.

Questions still remain then about the security of these RTA ballots since the May, 2006 election to the present (the “chain of custody” of the ballots), and what happened to those missing poll tapes? Stay tuned for further developments in this case from the Election Integrity advocates.

For info contact John Brakey at Auditaz@cox.net, 520-578-5678 or 520-339-2696, or Tucson Attorney Bill Risner at 520-622-7494 or bill@risnerandgraham.com.