Frustrating. I spent much of the day prepping for my KPFK/Pacifica Radio show today, only to get to the station this afternoon to find out we were on a last minute, emergency fund drive this week, so my show was preempted, but I didn’t get the message (literally).
Had planned to do a long overdue War on Voting update, as I haven’t gotten to cover elections much on the show for months. Had prepared to discuss everything from AG Eric Holder’s speech on voting rights issues at the LBJ Library in Austin (who knew we even had an AG?!); to Ohio voters putting the kibosh on GOP voter suppression laws going into effect next year to 96-year old Dorothy Cooper now unable to vote in TN under the GOP’s new voter suppression laws there; to 84-year old Ruthelle Frank told she may have to pay $200 to vote in WI under the GOP’s new voter suppression laws there; to the ACLU’s new federal lawsuit against Gov. Scott Walker and the GOP’s voter-suppression laws in WI; to the League of Women Voters state suit against same; to the jackass Jeffery Karnitz in WI recently arrested after defacing ‘Recall Walker’ petitions; to our Special Report this week on the battle for election integrity in Venango County, PA and the unexplained “remote access” on “multiple occasions” found, via a forensic investigation, to have taken place on their ES&S e-voting systems during recent elections (and the attempt by ES&S and the County Commissioners to spike that investigation by the county Board of Elections.)
What a show that coulda been!
The bad news: I couldn’t do it today at KPFK for the aforementioned reason. The good news: Mike Malloy has asked me, at the last-ish minute, to guest host his show this Friday night! So today’s show prep for KPFK will be delivered to Malloy listeners on Friday instead!
Relatedly, I’ll also be in for Mike next Friday (before XMas weekend) and the Thursday and Friday thereafter (before New Years weekend). As usual, we’ll have LIVE listening streams and chat rooms here during the show each night that I’m guest hosting, 6p-9p PT / 9p-Mid ET, so I hope you’ll join us! Especially since it’ll be our last few nights on our Clear Channel affiliate, Green960 in San Francisco, before the only progressive AM talk station on the air in one of the nation’s most liberal cities disappears from our public airwaves!
For now, anyway, these things are all First World Problems. Though only as long as we remain a First World Nation. Given the way things are going, that is no longer a safe bet for much longer…
Tucson Weekly
They’re Back: Election Integrity Activists Head Back to Court
by Mari Herreras on Mon, Dec 12, 2011 at 3:00 PM
According to a press release issued Friday by election integrity activist John Brakey, Tucson attorneys Bill Risner and Ralph Ellinwood head back to court to carrying on the election integrity battle over the RTA election ballots and more on Monday, Dec. 12, Judge Kyle Bryson’s Courtroom, fifth floor, Pima County Superior Court, 110 W. Congress:
Since 2006 we’ve won 3 major cases[1] so far revealing how the process in Pima County works despite the county spending over a million dollars to block public records access. We filed this case several years ago to actually fix the problems found in the public records cases. More on this case here: “When A Court Is Presented With Evidence That Election Results May Have Been Tampered With, Does The Court Have Equitable Jurisdiction To Fashion Prospective Relief To Protect The Purity Of Future Election Results?â€[2]
This particular case went into a coma about two years ago when Judge Harrington said that he couldn’t order fixes to the election process no matter how obvious or severe the problems are.[3], [4] Well now the appeals and state SUPREME court said “not so fast†— we do have a right to ask a court to reform a broken election system regardless of what loopholes remain in state law. And that means GAME ON, before a new local judge.
In this first hearing before the new judge, we’re asking for something fairly simple: we want our money back on the 2 years of ballot storage fees racked up during our SUCCESSFUL APPEAL. In other words, the county used bad arguments to get us tossed, the previous judge tossed us out, and that cost $2,000 a year just to keep the most critical evidence (the damn ballots!) out of the shredder. That’s $4k we should now be able to spend on depositions and the like. We could use it — but more importantly, this “opening issue†for the new judge will tell us a lot about where his head and biases are. PLEASE, we need a big presence to show that this is a critical case and “we the people†are paying attention and we expect the judge to do the same.
Longer term, we’re going to prove that election databases have been destroyed, election laws have been violated, our votes have been hacked and the voting systems we use are a tragic mess from both a technical and procedural standpoint. We’re going to ask the court to order reforms that could serve as a model for the whole country when it come to the dangers of electronic voting.
Resolution on Election Integrity by Bill Risner and passed by AZ State Democratic Party[5]:
By our estimate the Pima County Board of Supervisors has spent more than $1.3 million on BS defenses fighting “We the People†over core issues relating to the foundation of our democracy. And if you’re reading this and saying “well, what about the hand count done by the Arizona Attorney General Goddard?†please read Significant Discrepancies in Comparison of RTA hand count Results by AZ AG,[6] a report by Ellen Theisen of Voters Unite.org.
I ask you, when does the cover-up become another crime?
Tags: John Brakey, Bill Risner, Ralph Ellinwood, elections integrity, Pima County, RTA
[1] We’ve won 3 major cases and have saved this one from the dumpster via appeals – this one that’s back on is actually “case 3†of the four. http://tinyurl.com/5wda8gl
[2] When A Court Is Presented With Evidence: http://seekingjusticeauditaz.blogspot.com/2010/04/when-court-is-presented-with-evidence_12.html
[3] August 8, 2010 When It Comes To Election Integrity In Arizona There’s Nothing Like Having An “Elephant in the Room†Or At Least A “Big Donkey”. : http://audit-az.blogspot.com/2010/08/when-it-comes-to-election-integrity-in.html
[4] Attorney Bill Risner Reaffirms the Need for the Courts to Provide Prospective Relief
http://audit-az.blogspot.com/2009/08/attorney-bill-risner-reaffirms-need-for.html
[5] Resolution on Election Integrity by Bill Risner and passed by AZ State Democratic Party: http://www.velvetrevolution.us/electionstrikeforce/ArizonaDemResolution2010.pdf
[6] Significant Discrepancies in RTA hand count: http://www.votersunite.org/info/SignificantDiscrepanciesInComparisonOfRTAResults.pdf