– Special investigative report by Brad Friedman, The BRAD BLOG
The mystery surrounding a long-questioned and allegedly “fixed” non-partisan 2006 Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) bond election in Pima County, AZ continues to deepen as troubling new details have now emerged. The resolution in this matter — should it ever come — could spell trouble for supporters of paper-based optical-scan electronic voting systems, since indications are that if the election was rigged, it was done with insiders via the electronic central tabulating computers.
Late last week another new twist was discovered in the years-long election fraud investigation by Democratic and Libertarian Election Integrity advocates in Tucson. The revelations come to light in what was thought by many to have been a settled election, at last, following a long-sought hand-count of paper ballots carried out last year by the office of AZ’s Democratic Attorney General Terry Goddard. The AG had announced in April of last year that his criminal investigation hand-count had “affirmed” the original results of the election were correct.
As it turns out, The BRAD BLOG, which has been covering this bizarre matter for years, plays a small role in this latest development, as a promise that Goddard’s office made to us last year concerning the “poll tapes” — remarks which he was asked about during a press conference at the end of the hand count [see the remarks on video below] — may have now boomeranged on him.
Given that Goddard is now the likely Democratic nominee to face Republican Gov. Jan Brewer in this fall’s Gubernatorial race, this revelation couldn’t have come at a much worse time for him.
After many years of litigation, Election Integrity advocates have now finally been allowed to review the long sought-after poll tapes in question. What they’ve discovered is disturbing and, so far, without legitimate explanation.
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 background, the anomalies, the whistleblower and the ‘fixed’ election
Some background is in order to explain the significance of the rather disturbing new discovery in the case, which we revealed in an on-air exclusive late last week during an interview with Pima County, AZ attorney Bill Risner while guest hosting the nationally-syndicated Mike Malloy Show. [Audio of the complete interview with Risner is available at the end of this article.]
Without getting into too many of the weeds — and there have been many along the way — the RTA bond measure, or ones like it, had been on the ballot several times in Pima, and had always been defeated. In 2006, however, the initiative was said to have finally passed. Ironically, at least in hindsight, the Democratic Party had actually supported the measure at the time in order to help see new roads built in the Tucson area.
The election was run in Pima County (Tucson) on Diebold’s paper-ballot based optical-scan machines, the same ones seen being hacked in HBO’s Emmy-nominated 2006 documentary Hacking Democracy (video of that hack here). Election Integrity advocates from AUDIT-AZ (Americans United for Democracy, Integrity and Transparency in Elections – Arizona) and BlackBoxVoting.org became suspicious about the election results after the measure had passed, and set about investigating various red flags in the contest.
Along the way, with Risner representing the county’s Democratic Party, they were successful in securing the landmark release of Diebold’s so-called “proprietary” databases from the race. The databases purport to show how votes were recorded and who may have accessed electronic tabulators at various times. In the course of that victory, it was discovered that county election officials had been printing out results of the race prior to Election Day, in violation of state law, and were perhaps even manipulating the databases themselves.
For years, Goddard refused repeated requests by the Democrats to hand-count the paper ballots from the election to assure the machine reported results were correct. The ballots had been held for some time by the Pima County Elections Division, and then in a supposedly secure, deep storage facility run by the Iron Mountain firm.
As the controversy roiled, and an official investigation by the AG found various concerns in the race, in the machines and with the county’s security procedures, a former county official filed a startling affidavit in July of 2008. He alleged that he’d been told by Pima County Elections Division programmer Bryan Crane that he had “fixed” the RTA election “on the instructions of his bosses.”
One of his bosses, Pima’s Election Director Brad Nelson, had been gained infamy at The BRAD BLOG some years earlier with his bizarre, video-taped outburst at a community meeting in response to questions by Pima County Election Integrity advocate John Brakey. Brakey had asked Nelson about Diebold touch-screen systems which the state had just purchased for use by disabled voters when Gov. Jan Brewer had served as Secretary of State. That video, which we fondly refer to as “Election Director Gone Wild” can be seen at right. (Nelson would later begrudgingly apologize for the outburst when asked about it by a local TV news channel.)
Even after the county whistleblower had come forward to allege he’d been told the election was “fixed” on the instructions of election officials, Goddard still refused the Democrats’ newly re-iterated pleas to hand-count the paper ballots to determine whether the results, as reported by the potentially-manipulated electronic central tabulator, matched the hand-marked paper ballots as voted on Election Day in 2006.
Given that they had no way to hand-count the ballots on their own (only AG Goddard had the legal authority to call for a hand-count as part of a criminal investigation by that time), and that a judge had ordered the ballots — long held at Iron Mountain pending the litigation — could soon be destroyed, Risner filed a motion in court [PDF] requesting to review the “poll tapes and yellow sheets”, supposedly stored inside the boxes along with their corresponding paper ballots at the storage facility.
The poll tapes are paper records printed by the precinct-based optical-scan machines at the close of polls, showing exactly what was scanned and what the results of that scan were before those numbers are sent to the central Diebold tabulator at county election headquarters.
Goddard’s hand-count failed to examine poll tapes as promised
In February 2009, within days of the legal attempts to gain access to the poll tapes, and without notifying the Democrats who’d requested them, Goddard suddenly removed all of the ballots and poll tapes stored in the boxes with them in Tucson, and whisked them up to Maricopa County (Phoenix) after, he says, he suddenly determined that a criminal investigation merited a complete hand-count of the ballots.
As the Arizona Daily Star reported on February 13th, Goddard said there was no basis for him to hand-count the ballots. State law, he said, doesn’t allow for hand-counts simply out of “curiosity”.
On February 18th, attorney Risner informed Goddard in a letter [PDF] of the party’s attempt to examine the poll tapes.
And on February 23rd, Goddard’s office suddenly announces they’d received a “secret court order”, to remove the ballots from Pima to examine them in Maricopa.
“There were suspicions that went in all one direction that could not be explained,” Goddard would later tell the media after the hand-count had been completed in April. “There wasn’t a credible explanation for all of the different coincidences that seemed to have happened on this particular election.”
Though Goddard’s office had claimed the counting would be done publicly, observation was strictly limited to just a few observers from the various political parties who had to be specifically approved by the AG.
As the count proceeded, the AG’s Press Secretary, Anne Titus Hilby, told The BRAD BLOG directly that the poll tapes would be examined as part of their investigative hand-count. The Election Integrity advocates wanted them examined to make certain that the ballots themselves — which had been stored at various times at both the Pima County Elections Division (with the “Suspects”, as Risner has described them) as well as at the Iron Mountain facility — hadn’t been manipulated and that they matched the poll tapes as printed on Election Day.
“Do we plan to examine those?” Hilby responded directly to our questioning by phone, “Yes, we’re examining all of the evidence seized, including the poll tapes.”
That, however, would not be the case.
At his press conference following the count, announcing that the hand-count had affirmed the original tally (with a few exceptions he believed to be minor), he was asked about the promise his office had made to The BRAD BLOG to examine the poll tapes.
As seen in the short video below, compiled by filmmaker J.T. Waldron, who has documented the years-long fight in Pima County in the recently-released documentary Fatally Flawed: The Pursuit of Justice in a Suspicious Election, Goddard threw his Press Secretary Hilby under the bus. “She did not have the authority” to promise poll tapes would be examined along with the thousands of ballots at the Maricopa County counting room, Goddard explained.
His bizarre responses to those who’d pressed him at the press conference — perhaps much more bizarre in light of the recent discovery of so many missing and mis-matching poll tapes — are worth watching to get a full appreciation of his comments in response to the concerns expressed to him at the time…
“Why would we count a poll tape?,” Goddard said at the presser, as seen in the clips above. “I mean, I don’t see how they are relevant to the hand-count.”
“The final evidence of the election are the ballots themselves,” he told the assembled citizens and media, apparently oblivious to the need to confirm the possibility of ballot manipulation by the “Suspects” in his own criminal investigation.
“The poll tapes are a different picture of the same process,” he said, telling a reporter, to the amazement of the activists, that counting ballots is enough and that he didn’t see how examining poll tapes would have any relevance to his investigation.
Unanswered questions, missing evidence and more red flags
The Pima County Election Integrity Advocates continue to be skeptical about whether the chain of custody for the 2006 ballots had been truly secure by the time Goddard performed his hand-count in 2009, or if the Pima election officials — the “Suspects” alleged by affidavit to have “fixed” the election — might have had the means, motive and opportunity to manipulate the ballots in order to cover their tracks.
In fact, as the EI folks pointed out during the hand-count — while being ignored by Goddard — the county had long ago purchased a “print on demand” ballot printer that can print ballots virtually identical to those used on Election Day in 2006. The actual original ballots, however, were printed by an offset printing press which, if compared under a microscope to the high-speed laser-printed “print on demand” ballots, offer tell-tale differences. Such a forensic examination of the ballots being counted by Goddard, might have revealed that original ballots had been replaced.
When Goddard was asked about such a forensic examination at the 2009 post-hand-count presser, he admitted that, despite the requests, he had carried out no such examination to determine the authenticity of the ballots.
“Did you do any forensic checks of the ballots to make sure they were real, period 2006 ballots?,” asked Jim March of BlackBoxVoting.org at the press conference.
“No,” the AG tersely replied.
One full year of litigation later, and the EI advocates have now finally gotten access to the poll tapes they’d sought more than a year ago, the ones which were stored in Iron Mountain.
“30% of the poll tapes are missing,” Risner told us during our live interview with him on the Malloy Show last week. “They simply are not in the boxes. And that’s compared with the last election we had in Pima County. Some citizens asked for copies of the poll tapes and they were all there — 100% of them were there.”
Risner says that prior to Goddard’s having swooped in to take the ballots out of Pima last year in advance of the hand-count, they had explained to him the significance of reviewing the poll tapes.
“We told the attorney general’s office that if we look at the poll tape, there would be clues on it that would tell us whether they had used the machines to fraudulently program [the election],” Risner explained. “That’s when he grabbed the ballots.”
Brakey and March’s examination of those poll tapes which are not missing, show that some 50 of them do not match the numbers in the Diebold electronic databases. They say that many of the places where numbers don’t jibe are the same places where their initial analysis of those databases — the ones they received after their long court battle to get access to them more than two years ago — are the same places where red flags were seen, such as precincts where memory cards appear to have been uploaded multiple times, for reasons still unknown.
“A significant portion of missing poll tapes had corresponding anomalies in the electronic data records,” documentarian J.T. Waldron told us. “It’s naive to think that electronic records would be manipulated without some measure to cover tracks by either creating a new paper trail or removing the one that exists.”
The investigators say they are eying questionable findings from, among other places, precincts in a small township north of Tucson, called Oro Valley.
When asked if he could offer any legitimate reason that the poll tapes would now be missing, Risner was blunt: “Yeah. They’re possible evidence that the election was rigged.”
Goddard’s press office responded to The BRAD BLOG’s request for comment just prior to publication of this article. However, new Press Secretary Molly Edwards informed us she’d need time to look into the matter and into our detailed questions on the missing and mismatched poll tapes and yellow sheets, on whether or not the materials were there and/or accounted for when they performed their hand-count last year, and other related matters. We will update this article with whatever responses we receive from his office.
‘Immaculate’ perceptions and ‘Not the end of the story’
So was the election rigged? Have all these questions been those of a bunch of conspiracy theorists? Even AG Goddard himself, now set to be the state’s Democratic candidate for Governor this November, had previously noted that “there wasn’t a credible explanation for all of the different coincidences that seemed to have happened on this particular election.” He even later conceded to the Associated Press that the paper-based optical-scan systems used in Tucson — and in virtually every state in the nation, by the way — “are very, very bad”?
We still don’t know all the answers, and the EI advocates promise more news to come as their investigation presses forward. But the fact remains that when we don’t bother to actually count paper ballots and rely instead on electronic scanners which may or may not be accurate, which may or may not have been manipulated, all of these questions continue to persist and the legitimacy of American democracy itself is further drawn into question.
The corporate media, however, would like to see things differently. After Goddard’s hand-count last year “affirmed” the original results — out of some 120,000 ballots reviewed, the count was off by “only” 600 votes or so, according to the AG — local media declared the mysteries surrounding the 2006 RTA election to be at an end. All was well again in Pima County’s democracy.
“It’s over. Done. Finished. Finis. Terminado. The state Attorney General’s Office hand count of the ballots from the 2006 regional transportation authority election affirmed the initial results,” the Arizona Daily Star pronounced in an unbylined April 23, 2009 editorial.
“Let that be the final word,” the paper pleaded, before offering a familiar, condescending refrain for Election Integrity advocates: “It’s time to move on.”
For good measure, they even used the “c” word: “Conspiracy theorists will probably remain unconvinced that Pima County is vindicated.”
The Star editorial, hoping to quell concerns, uncritically quoted Goddard saying that “the chain of custody was immaculate.”
How “immaculate” was that chain of custody? The Election Integrity advocates have discovered that the facility at Iron Mountain wasn’t as secured as they’d originally been told.
“Our County Manager had instructed the County Attorney to tell Iron Mountain that no one could approach those boxes,” Risner told us last week. “But in our recent poll tape case, the Iron Mountain guy said ‘no one ever told us that, and our customers, the county, could always come in to these boxes’.”
The county “could always come in to these boxes”?! Did they?
Risner doesn’t yet know. “That’s the next step in the lawsuit. I’m going to ask for permission to get that information from Iron Mountain,” he said. “It’s not the end of this story.”
Pima County, it should be noted, still employs the same elections personnel who ran the 2006 election. They are still operating, as Waldron says, “with impunity.”
To date, neither the Arizona Daily Star, nor any of the other local papers who declared the RTA election settled and done after last year’s hand-count, have bothered to report on the newly discovered 112 missing poll tapes, 102 missing yellow sheets, and 50 poll tapes that don’t match the original count.
• Special thanks to J.T. Waldron for his contributions to this article.
• See this February 18, 2009 letter [PDF] from Risner to Goddard for much more detail on the back story.
Our interview with Pima County trial attorney Bill Risner, as heard live on the Mike Malloy Show last week, on July 8th, 2010, may be downloaded here [MP3], or listened to online below [appx 30 mins]…
[audio:http://bradblog.com/audio/MikeMalloy_BradFriedman_GuestHost_070810_Hour2_BillRisnerPimaCountyAZ.mp3]
Man oh man Brad, you make a strong case for getting rid of the 1st amendment! The lies you spew to try to get a Republican elected are treasonous filth!
Huh? Okay. If you say so. Um, btw, what “lies”? And what “Republican”??
Considering the fact that ‘Dubya was NOT elected twice yet managed to hold the office of president twice, and easily programmable electronic voting machines still have a wide base of users nation wide. It’s safe to assume that there will never be a fair election in America ever again
we have the drunken confession of the guy that rigged the election
we have 30% of the poll tapes “gone”
we have anomolies in the database
we have yellow sheets missing
we have the perps having a machine that duplicates ballots
and we still dont know if what was counted was the original ballots or some “newer better replacement ballots”
and all this to raise billions of dollars in taxes
jim,brad,risner if i wore a hat i would take it off to you!!!
it is a crying shame that the guy obscurring the prosecution of this crime is the pretend dem but this isnt about party,its about country
I would challenge LOL @1, or anyone else for that matter, to demonstrate a single, factual error in Brad’s exhaustive, years-long investigation and coverage of this Pima County election fraud issue.
As to your charge that Brad has some secret agenda to help a Republican get elected, in this case Jan Brewer–well that charge is so baseless that I am the one who is left to laugh out loud.
Since this piece appears to be the first one you’ve ever read at this blog, I’d recommend you take a look at President’s Homeland Security Appointment Opened Door to Arizona’s Apartheid Regime and the numerous Brad Friedman articles that I linked to in that piece wherein Brad excoriated then AZ Sec. of State Jan Brewer as a deceitful proponent of unverifiable e-voting systems; described her then as one of this nation’s worst secretaries of state.
Brad often states that it is not about left or right but right and wrong. This piece is but the latest in one of this nation’s most extraordinary bodies of scientific coverage of election integrity issues.
In my mind, Brad Friedman is a national treasure–one which should be shared with all citizens who value democracy–one which would be shared if we had an MSM with integrity.
Karen –
I should add one more to your list above — one that I didn’t include in the story above, since it was already way overlong, and I didn’t want to have to expalin it — but Pima County also admitted to buying a crop-scanner. The same type that Harri Hursti used to hack the memory cards in Hacking Democracy. Reason they gave for having done that: just to test the theory and see if Hursti was right or not.
Risner talks about it in the audio interview I posted at the end of the article, and we’ve covered it in the past as I recall as well.
Great writeup thanks!
I don’t care what party you are, what religion, what color, what economic stratum, or educational level, 1+1=2 for all of us. That said, if you don’t have secure elections you don’t really have a democracy and all the other issues/crisis are a dog and pony distraction.
Arizona is a FASCIST state. Republicans run the place for the benefit of the Republican legislators and their personal businesses. The Democrats, specifically the Attorney General, doesn’t care enough about assuring that Arizonan’s votes are being counted legally to do a thorough investigation of ballot tampering. Is Terry Goddard clueless, or part of the plot? Who knows, but he sure isn’t getting my vote – at least legally!
Fascism, Lianda Ludwig @9, is precisely what is in store for us all of the tea party movement should regain control of the legislative and executive branches of the U.S. government.
See, “‘Tea Party in Senora’: Ken Silverstein of Harper’s Says Arizona is a Laboratory for Radical GOP Policies.“
brad,excellant point..besides owning a ballot printer ,they own a “hacker”
,also i should of included
they ran results before the “election”,kind of a practice run
any1 of these things should be enough for a reasonable person to suspect fraud but when you add them all together it takes a fool to think the results are legitimate
I’m waiting for a hard hitting story on the claims of massive voter fraud in Minnesota which likely turned the election.
I’m waiting for a story questioning why charges were dropped against New Black Panther Party members who were engaged in blatant voter intimidation at a polling place.
All I was able to find in a search was passing references to “wingnut whining” or similar..
Ancient @ 8 said: “I don’t care what party you are, what religion, what color, what economic stratum, or educational level, 1+1=2 for all of us. That said, if you don’t have secure elections you don’t really have a democracy and all the other issues/crisis are a dog and pony distraction.”
Judging from the deafening silence regarding those issues I’d answer to ancient that it does matter what party you are from. At least when it comes to the crusader for election integrity.
lol steve…the thread starts with someone accusing brad of trying to screw a dem ovr in az…and now here you are accussing him of not covering neo con election concerns? i mean it only took franken what 8 monthes to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he won that election
i dont suppose ya read his monroe peice that showed 2699 republican votes dissapearing between may 19 and the 25th in arkansas?
election integrity is not a party issue,or shouldn’t be
It is truly amazing, how over and over again, lies rule the day and truth lies bleeding on the ground.
Perhaps more amazing is that the truth tellers rise up over and over again to chip away at the beautiful facade that covers the hideous Dorian Gray of our elections system.
Steve @ 12 –
See KarenFromIllinois’ response to you. If you need any more such examples (eg. fighting for Conservative Party Doug Hoffman in NY who got screwed by Dominion/Sequoia machines, for Republican TX Supreme Court candidate Steve Smith who got screwed everywhere in TX, against Obama and the Dems in NV and NH and any other number of cases) let me know. Or better yet, look around, pay attention, and stop falling for the phony garbage they’re peddling to ya on Fox.
If I had anything to add to either of the stories you mentioned, I would do so. For the moment, the Black Panther story is utter ACORN Hoax-like nonsense, and there’s not much more in MN either (where, I guess, you’re presuming any felons who voted illegally, if they did, actually voted for Franken, which is not a very safe bet.)
Rest assured, however, if I have anything to add to either of the above stories, I will do so. We don’t just blog stuff here cuz someone says something happened. You’ll figure that out if you hang around a while.
Thanks for stopping by.
Here, can I just fly by and drop a shit on your head with attitude without knowing anything? It makes me feel better(like masturbating)and like I am doing something righteous and American. I don’t know what I’m talking about and I don’t really want to know but I’m convinced that I do.
(I’ve been away from here for a while. Those kinds of comments like Steve @12 always upset me. I’m back for 5 minutes and whoops there’s another fly by shitter. And there’s Brad being even-tempered and gracious. Tremendous respect for the Bradman continuing the good fight. We are sooooooo ignorant as a country and yet soooooooo attitudinal. This book The Guantanamo Lawyers I’m reading is the most upsetting thing I’ve ever read. We are so deeply sick. We fucked over mostly innocent people again and again and again and in so many terrible inhumane ways. The Supreme Court, THE SUPREME COURT, ruled three times that, no you can’t fuck over these people like that. They have habeas rights. THREE TIMES. Made just about no difference. No difference. The military, the courts, the congress, the media(and to some extent all of us)all complicit in ongoing crimes against humanity. Built on lies, lies, and more lies. And how many know about it? You can’t treat people like this without consequences. You know this shit is going to come back here. And we’re so ignorant and afraid we’re not gonna understand it when it does.)
The problem, from your perspective, Steve, is not that we do not “cover” right-wing allegations of “voter fraud,” but that, unlike your pals at the Faux “News” network, when we discover facts that reveal there is no truth to the “allegation,” we report it as such.
Take, for example, your baseless claim of “massive voter fraud” in the MN election. We covered those “claims” at length:
See:
Dead In Its Tracks: An Anatomy of Norm Coleman’s Failed Effort to Contest MN’s U.S. Senate Election
‘Big Boat, No Walleye’: Franken Moves to Dismiss Coleman’s U.S. Senate Election Contest in MN
BREAKING: JUDGES ISSUE RULING IN COLEMAN V. FRANKEN U.S. ELECTION CONTEST IN MN
MN ELECTION JUDGES COUNT FINAL BALLOTS; FIND FRANKEN WINS, COLEMAN LOSER
Franken Isn’t ‘Leading’; He Won and Coleman Lost
For Coleman, the End is Near; For Senate Democrats, It’s Not Near Enough
Franken Replies to Coleman’s MN Supremes Appeal
MN Supremes Hear Oral Argument on Coleman Appeal
Pawlenty Says He’ll Certify MN Senate Race After State Court Process Complete
_____
Coleman’s legal team had ample opportunity to prove voter fraud, but failed because there was no evidence to support it. Just as he lost on every bogus legal challenge he advanced.
Coleman’s claim was unanimously rejected by a bipartisan three judge trial court and by the MN Supreme Court.
I’m sorry, Steve, if you feel our unwillingness to report wing-nut myths as fact somehow makes us partisan, but the truth is that we are an evidence-based blog. Thus, when nearly 50 investigations of ACORN at the state or federal level fail to reveal that a single fraudulent vote was ever cast by reason of improper registration, we simply cannot step forward to repeat the wing-nut myth that ACORN committed voter fraud.
To the contrary, it is our obligation to report on those media sites who have perpetuated the lies.
The problem, from your perspective Steve, is not that we don’t “cover” wing-nut allegations of “voter fraud,” but that, unlike your pals at the Faux ‘News’ Network, when we discover evidence that reveals the allegations to be baseless, we report it as such.
For example, we posted no less than 9 separate articles during the course of the Coleman v. Franken. An entire team of attorneys over an extended period failed to establish any “voter fraud,” let alone “massive” voter fraud that would have turned the election.
Coleman lost before a bipartisan three judge panel and again before the MN Supreme Court for a very simple reason–there was no substance to his legal challenge. Just as there is no substance to your comment.
Your comment calls to mind a response President Truman made when someone shouted “Give ’em Hell, Harry!” He said, “I just tell the truth and the Republicans think that’s Hell.”
Please link me to where you reported the Franken case as baseless allegations, I searched the site and couldn’t find it.
What makes the Black Panther case “utter ACORN Hoax-like nonsense” Brad? Your opinion? In your opinion is it okay for a pair of menacing looking figures, in a threatening stance, and holding a weapon at the entrance to a polling place? Are you saying the video is a fabrication? Is there a link to the report showing that as baseless?
Finally, why are the extreme left folks so hateful? I pop in occasionally, look through the stories, and once in awhile comment with a moderate point of view. And then the same leftwing anger issues accusations of neo-con and Faux news (which is so clever) etc. get tossed around by everyone. Kinda funny w how easy it is to spin you all up.
Regarding the fraud allegations in the Coleman-Franken race, Franken won by more than 300 votes, however the “Minnesota Majority” has presented about 205 votes using valid data:
http://www.minnpost.com/politicalagenda/2010/07/12/19631/fraud_allegations_in_franken-coleman_senate_election_spur_investigation_–_but_also_overblown_statements
That’s still not enough to turn the election results.
As for the Black Panther case:
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201007140030
– Tom
What, Steve @19, the 9 links I provided in comment #17
Consider, if you will, ‘Big Boat, No Walleye’: Franken Moves to Dismiss Coleman’s U.S. Senate Election Contest in MN
And:
You see, Steve, anyone can claim irregularity or fraud. Proving it is another matter.
As to the Black Panther case, a case involving not “voter fraud†but voter suppression, there’s no “there†there. A single individual threatened a white voter. That individual is the subject of a Justice Department criminal investigation. The Justice Department is not prosecuting the other Black Panthers who were present because there is insufficient evidence to do so. That type of decision—-to prosecute or not to prosecute—-is routine for prosecutors, but because this is something the wing-nuts love to hang their hats on-—discrimination against “white†voters—-guys like you won’t let it go.
I’m still waiting to hear you condemn the likes of Andrew Breitbart, Hanna Giles and James “convicted federal criminal†O’Keefe for the fraudulent hatchet job they did on a benevolent community organization, ACORN, but I’m not going to hold my breath because I know you lack the integrity to do so.
Oh, and Steve, here’s a link to the article Brad wrote that complained about the unverifiable results that may have cost Doug Hoffman a seat in the House. It was published in the right-leaning Gouvenor Times.
NY-23, Sequoia and the Private Corporate Takeover of Your Once-Public Democracy
I love it when folks like Steve come to join us here at BradBlog. They find what true integrity and honesty is. This is not a partisan issue at all. Election integrity is the life blood of an democratic system.
Please come back Steve, you’re the most important member of the audience here today!
And the PIMA County RTA Election has the potential to blow the doors off of the dirty little secret that Election fraud holds for America.
It is, literally, CRITICAL to our survival as a nation.
Hey, did steve evaporate in the face of facts (good work folks) disputing his arguments that continue to keep people divided instead of coming together on the most destructive force to democracy?
Thanks for the links, Tom @20. They demonstrate that the Black Panther Party case is but another instance in which the right-wing echo chamber makes up “factoids” in order to wage its culture war, just as it did with ACORN.
And once again, when challenged, the scurrilous Faux “News” commentator is unable to come forward with the non-existent “evidence” to back up their dissembling noise.
Steve @ 19:
It seems to me that Ernie linked to plenty of that for you, though perhaps you failed to read it?
Moreover, Tom @ 20 above, offers a very nice article that destroys the latest Franken/Coleman allegations (though that article doesn’t mention that, even if we take at face value that just over 200 felons voted illegally out of the 3 million voters who cast votes, and even though if all of them voted for Franken, there is actually no evidence that any of them did, and, as pointed out in my previous note, all we have so far is evidence of felons voting for Coleman, and Coleman fighting to have the felon’s vote counted!
Again, Tom’s link to Fox “News” video does a fine job of quickly detailing what is nonsense about the case. Though it doesn’t even note that it was Bush’s Administration that settled for an injuction with the guy before Obama even took office!
Nor does it note that not there was not a single complaint of voter intimidation at that precinct where the jackass was caught on video with a nightstick out in front. (While the Bush Administration failed to prosecute folks who showed up with GUNS at the polls in AZ, btw!)
Nor is there any evidence presented by the so-called “whistleblower” (former Bush Admin appointee) to back up the second-hand allegations he’s making.
No, it is not okay. Even though nobody reported being intimidated by them, it appears to be inappropriate — no matter how long he did it, and no matter whether anyone filed a complaint or not — so they should be held accountable. Which apparently they were! Police removed the guy, and he has since been barred from being at the polls. Not sure what more you want. The Bush Administration’s investigation found that there was no grand conspiracy here. Though if you’d like to fault the Bush Admin for being too lenient on that jackass, that’ll be up to you.
There is nothing “moderate” about passing on massive and grotesque misinformation in a world which has been severly crippled by such misinformation. Folks who pass on that sort of Fox “News” bullshit, without bothering to check it out (and it’s not just wingnuts, but mainstream media like the NYTimes, etc.) have been damned dangerous to this nation, and this world. And there are thousands dead to prove it.
That’s not “leftwing” anger, Steve. That’s anger. Righteous anger. And if you’re not angry, given what these America-hating menaces, goons and evil-doers (like the folks on Fox “News”) have done to you, your family, this nation and this world, then you just ain’t paying attention. Or, you’re a sucker. My money is on the latter. Hope the actual information presented to you in this thread begins to unsuck you.
To Brad and the AZ election watch dogs, thanks so much…I’m sure cares that much that a unpopular road building intiative passed 4 years ago
(unlike partisan issues)…but you guys have doggedly kept at this corruption….
The fact that this was about govt spending smells totally like someone wanted to feed at the govt trough, and they rigged this. More sunshine to this is going show more and more corruption. Great work
By the way, the reason individual voter fraud and absentee ballots are a legit issue in MN is because the rest of our elections systems are fairly decent when compared to the shambles in other states. If you want to steal an election in MN you have to be clever and you have to be real real real close to winning anyways, because if you are real good you might be able to fraudulently steal a few thousand votes at the most, by having folks wrongly rejecting absentee ballots, by getting people to commit individual voter fraud, by tweaking the vote tabulation very very slightly only in precincts that do not get randomly, automatically audited. But if you are in a state like GA or SC that does not have paper ballots to even check, or, a state that does not have random, automatic hand checks of paper ballots to compare to election night machine count, you have so many massive, easy ways to throw an election in your state, by 5, 10 15 pt spread, not just a few thousands. Outsiders, like China, India, Venezuela (who owns the intellectual property of one vote machine company) can hack your elections. Connected insiders or a candidate who can bribe the right techie can swing you elections easily, without any way to even detect it happened, unlike the trail the MN felons left.
In states that have no paper ballots, only worrying about individual voter fraud while ignoring the other easier way to steal money is a bit like this: Well-known wealthy local businessman focusing on putting his petty cash in a safe every night while leaving all his account numbers, user names, passwords, PINs to all his credit and debit cards and bank accounts along with his social security number and birthdate and a copy of his signature on an unsecured FTP site the name “Mr. Famous Local Rich Guys private stuff” Yeah, sure, he should lock up his petty cash, people do steal cash, but should he fixate on that while he leaves the bulk of his wealth open to easy theft from almost anyone, anytime, anywhere in the world? Fox News has got you worried about the petty cash, while Dems and Repubs steal our entire democracy with no more work than a techie’s keystroke.
Both parties reject election systems fraud watch them, they do not look at the larger issue, they gripe a little about pet peeves, but do not rock the boat.
Brads exposing the AZ issues is a net gain for anyone concerned about safety of our election systems, an exposed fraud makes people aware of our vulnerable election systems, makes people more vigilant.
I hope you are more vigilant now and keep reading about Doug Hoffman’s stolen election. Watchdog your local election systems, but remember to look beyond just individual voter fraud, look at any mail-in ballots, look at paper ballot security if you even have paper ballots, look for results to be reported at precinct level election night in addition to central tabulation, look to secret software etc…
Well, Steve, I’m still waiting for you to “condemn the likes of Andrew Breitbart, Hanna Giles and James “convicted federal criminal†O’Keefe for the fraudulent hatchet job they did on a benevolent community organization, ACORN…”
Interesting that you remain silent in the face of this injustice but erroneously accused Brad of failing to cover election fraud as it pertained to the political right.
But, but, but, you guys always ignore all of the unsubstantiated wing-nut drivel!!! That is so UNFAIR to rely on FACTS and REALITY, and then ignore all of that other noise. SO UNFAIR. I would like to lodge a complaint RIGHT NOW. You guys are WAY TOO FACT ORIENTED.
The Tucson Citizen did report much of the above. Unfortunately, the Gannett Corp. closed the Citizen last year, tossing 68 employees out of work. Clearly collusion between Gannett and Lee Enterprises. Goddard dropped the anti-trust lawshit. I suggest we see who the remaining local paper and the Gannett-owned Arizona Republic endorse for governor.
“…50 of them do not match the results as recorded in the final canvas of the election…”
You know, at this point, the officials in power should know enough to get rid of “voting” machines and use paper ballots instead.
It makes you think the officials in power caused this to happen… they like it… and I believe THIS is the heart of corruption in America.
Nothing will change until this is fixed. Brad, thank you for exposing this, and keep it up! Eternal Vigilance! The pen is mightier than the sword! We all need to keep talking about this.