Friday, July 16, 2010

FACTS Concerning The 2006 Pima County RTA Election

We are very grateful that John Brakey, co-founder of AUDIT-AZ (Americans United for Democracy, Integrity, and Transparency in Elections, Arizona)has supplied us with a wealth of data concerning the 2006 Pima County RTA election.

Although it is a lot to digest, we hope our readers will take the time to to so.

After reading the FACTS that John gleaned with much time, effort and cost, we trust we can all make an intelligent determination as to the merits of his documentation.

We certainly hope John will pursue the facts concerning the May 2010 Oro Valley Mayoral Election, with the same steadfast diligence.

Art
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Facts we’ve learned by getting the Poll tapes for the RTA and Oro Valley election of May 16th 2006:

. There were 368 memory cards use for precincts and voting area. Pima County in the RTA had 409 precincts. We’re missing 112 poll tapes out of 368, this works out to 30.43% or if you prefer 122 poll tapes out of 409, some poll tapes are voting areas with 2 precincts.

· 85 memory cards were loaded at least twice, of those we are still missing 40 of those poll tapes that affect 50 precincts (10 of the precincts are voting areas)

· Oro Valley has 22 precincts of which 18 out of 22 poll tapes are missing. Plus 3 out of the 4 poll tapes do not match the final canvas by 34 votes that were added. One race was decided by 4 votes and had a recount which had nothing to do with this canvas. This points out that the Oro Valley ballots were counted 3 times. The 3rd count was done after this canvas on May 31st 2006.

· 50 poll tapes do not match final canvas. In all cases ballots were added and the yellow sheets indicate that the precincts optical scanners were not counting all ballots. The results of the additional ballots followed the precinct results by percentage. This is still consistent with our theory of electronic vote tampering.

· 11 Memory Card that were changed. When 086A00 changes to 086A01 this means memory card has been changed. I believe they were changed Election Day do to failure of the precincts optical scanner. They could be much more but again we’re missing 112 poll tapes that equal 122 precincts.

Added to this:

The Ellen Theisen report: http://www.votersunite.org/info/SignificantDiscrepanciesInComparisonOfRTAResults.pdf


What we learned about ballot on demanded, video, Jim March Explains the Problems of Ballot On Demand Systems: http://blip.tv/file/3154065


Additionally Anomalies Related to the RTA Election of May 16, 2006
REV JB 12/24/2008 1:07:35 AM

1. The RTA passed by a surprisingly large margin. Sales tax increases for roads had lost badly in four previous elections.

2. Election Division staff printed unauthorized vote total summary reports after the first day of RTA early ballot scanning. (5 days before election-day on May 11th)

3. Before the second day of RTA early ballot scanning, (May 11th) Election Division staff erased the first day’s database backup by over-writing it. This required responding to two warning messages, one from GEMS and one from Windows.

4. Election systems expert Michael Shamos of Carnegie Mellon advised the AG investigator of possible RTA fraud to hand count ballots, echoing advice from local election activists.

5. The AG Investigator lied to Shamos in an email, saying that “local naysayers” were on board with not looking at ballots. The opposite was true and the investigator knew it, because he had engaged in a shouting argument with local naysayers about this issue.

6. IBeta tests conducted under contract with the AG investigator of the RTA election should have included looking for possible swapping of yes and no votes, but did not.

7. County staff directed all aspects of the IBeta testing, and led the testers to look at irrelevant items and to disregard potentially important items.

8 A whistle blower has come forward saying in a sworn affidavit that Bryan Crane told him privately that he had “fixed” the RTA election, under direction from his bosses.

9. The County Treasurer has announced a plan to destroy the RTA ballots ASAP.

10. A Microsoft Access manual was seen and photographed in the vote tabulation room on election night. Use of MS Access on an election computer was and is illegal.

11. Democratic Party observers were prevented from investigating cables connected to the tabulation computer after the RTA on the pretext that it was a non-partisan election.

12. A tape of ballot layout held by the Secretary of State for use by the Attorney General in any fraud investigation was never examined during the RTA fraud investigation where it was potentially key evidence. Instead it was returned to the suspects, who “lost” it.

13. The Pima County Board of Supervisors, through their lawyers, claimed there was a substantial risk that all election employees handling the election computer would “take the fifth” and refuse to answer questions based on a fear of criminal prosecution.

14. The Pima County Board of Supervisors has never requested an internal investigation of the Election Division.

15. Neither Brad Nelson nor Bryan Crane nor any Election Division employee has been reprimanded for any violations of rules or procedures.

16. At the end of the RTA Election Day, the database was NOT backed up, as it has been in virtually every other election. The database was not backed up until three days later, (Friday at 5pm) after all results had been published.

17. The Pima County Election Division purchased a “crop scanner” computer-hacking tool ten months before the RTA election. This tool had no other purpose in the Election Division than to illegally alter the programming of precinct voting machines.

18. Jim Barry retired from his job as the County Administrator’s assistant in early 2005 and was immediately hired by the County to do a precinct by precinct study of how Pima voters had voted in bond elections, and “other duties” as assigned. Mr. Barry collected $75,000 from the County for this contract, while at the same time collecting $12,000 from a pro-RTA group for helping them with the RTA campaign.

19. The Election Department reported to the media that election night 35 precinct’s optical Scanners had failed, a memo 2 weeks later stated that 75 and now from the databases it looks to have been 149 Scanners failed.

20. The RTA databases show that several days after the Election on the 19th and 20th that 31 databases had to be reloaded for a total of 85 were loaded at least twice starting election night. Overwriting the previous precinct’s results.

John Brakey, & Co-Coordinator of Investigations Velvet Revolution http://www.velvetrevolution.us
My web site with Arizona Election Integrity News http://audit-az.blogspot.com


EDA & AUDIT-AZ’s Mission: to restore public ownership and oversight of elections, work to 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 audited election process.
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead
"Make yourself sheep and the wolves will eat you." -- Benjamin Franklin
“There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men.” -- Edmund Burke

2 comments:

Tucson DFA said...

Art, thank you for posting this. Please go back on what John submitted and makes the links hyperlinks, so people can just click on them and get to the pdf, articles, etc. People don't tend to copy and paste and just click.

John, thank you for the great info.

Thank you. Cheryl

Tucson DFA said...

"2. Election Division staff printed unauthorized vote total summary reports after the first day of RTA early ballot scanning. (5 days before election-day on May 11th)"

Isn't that illegal? Against AZ law? If so, why is no one held accountable for breaking the law?