For years, residents of Pima County have fought to ensure fair and clean elections. Ever since the highly questionable RTA bond election, few have any confidence that the County takes every step to ensure that voters have the appropriate access to the ballot box, or that the ballots will be counted in a fair and accurate manner.
As a result, parties involved in the Sunnyside recall election have begun asking questions and demanding that precautions be taken to ensure the voters have their say.
Concerns were first raised when the County opted to place a ballot box in Apollo Middle School under the control of the very administration that will lose control of the District should the recall succeed.The unusual placement of the ballot box in the mail-in ballot election, prompted the intervention of Pima County election expert John Brakey.
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This week, Brakey sent Pima County Superintendent of Public Instruction CFO Ricardo Hernandez the following letter advising him of Arizona statutes and voters’ rights and the County’s responsibilities:
Subject: Special Sunnyside Recall Election and Public Records Request
Dear Ricardo,
It was my pleasure to meet you last Friday. As you know I am a voter in the Sunnyside School District and also have been asked to be an observer for the recall committee and several candidates.
As an observer, I have a list of questions related to Best Practices: Chain of Custody, Our Citizen Oversight access rights and Ballot Accounting.
However, the first thing we need to get cleared up is our rights of oversight. Basically, you informed us that we have none. I believe this note will help clear that up. Under ARS 16-621 Proceedings at the counting center “Excerpt from section A”. …and shall be conducted in accordance with the approved instructions and procedures manual provided for in section 16-452 under the observation of representatives of each political party and the public. The proceedings at the counting center may also be observed by up to three additional people representing a candidate for nonpartisan office, or representing a political committee in support of or in opposition to a ballot measure, proposition or question. …
Additionally, at our meeting you informed us that counting of ballots would start on Friday morning May 16th, which is 5 days before the election. This goes against good common sense. Looking back at the last 3 Sunnyside elections, particular the all Vote By Mail election (VBM) of 11/10/2011, which also was a special election. The official turnout was 23.10% of overall voters. The one open seat votes cast was 20.55%. Only 5,256 ballots were cast for the one elected office. Clearly PROP 402 and 403 brought out the voters in that election.
Pima County Elections has the capacity to count an average of 2,350 ballots per hour. Let’s say that in this election that somehow 10,000 ballots were returned and we’re to start counting Tuesday, election morning at 7 am. All ballots could be counted by 1PM. Election results cannot be released or printed until 7pm. The recorder office site shows that there are 26,540 registered voters in this school district. At this time I would estimate that turnout will be between 5,000 to 8,000.
It is to be noted that Pima County Elections also has the capacity based on past history to be “peeking” into “who is winning and losing” days, or in one case, 11 days prior to Election Day. We know this from several previous court cases, through testimony and from the many databases from previous elections we won in lawsuits. At the “database” trial, Mr. Evans testified under oath that the Pima County Election Division printed pre-election tallies so regularly that Pima County paid for a rubber stamp to be made to stamp them as “unofficial tallies.” He further testified that the Pima County Election Director regularly came in to obtain his own copy to take back to his office. Other copies were kept at a table in the computer room. By law, these reports are NOT to be printed until one hour after the polls close on Election Day. If you need to check the election system, you run a “Cards Cast Report”.
Finally you stated that the Logic and Accuracy (L & A) test was done. However we believe that it was not done per the law. The L & A certification, of which you provided me a copy, refers to ARS 16-449. Excerpt: “Public notice of the time and place of the test shall be given at least forty-eight hours prior thereto by publication once in one or more daily or weekly newspapers published in the town, city or village using such equipment, if a newspaper is published therein, otherwise in a newspaper of general circulation therein. The test shall be observed by at least two election inspectors, who shall not be of the same political party, and shall be open to representatives of the political parties, candidates, the press and the public.” Will you please provide to me proof that this was done?
Over the last 10 years I’ve learned that secure chain of custody of election materials, robust ballot accounting and equipment are prerequisites for good election and post-election audits. The following conditions must be met:
(a). There are strict written accounting procedures for paper records to prevent the addition, subtraction, substitution, or alteration of paper records.(b). To safeguard the ballots and audit records from loss and tampering, paper records and electronic equipment are fully secured[1] at all times when a breach could adversely affect the integrity of the records including from the time the votes are cast until all audit or recount activity is completed and election results are finalized. (c). The audit begins as soon as possible after the random selection of audit units, which commences as soon as possible after the initial tallies recorded by the voting system are reported. (In some circumstances the audit may be conducted in phases as discussed in Best Practice. (d). There is a reconciliation to ensure that all votes from all audit units are correctly tabulated in the election totals.
Please consider this below per Arizona Public Records Law, A.R.S. § 39-121, et seq, and Arizona’s Election Oversight By Observers Process, ARS 16-590 and 16-603 we submit this public records request.
Please answer the following are questions:
1. Describe the complete Chain of Custody. (The chain is only as good as the weakest link.)
2. How many ballots were printed?
3. How many ballots were mailed out?
4. How many ballots have been returned by mail for being undeliverable?
5. To date, how many voters have called and reported not getting a ballot?
6. Were all ballots printed only on offset printer?
7. Will any ballots be printed on laser printer, knows as “Ballot on demand?” http://www.runbeck.net/pressroom/newsclips/Runbeck100207.pdf
8. Who mailed out the ballots, Recorder office or Runbeck Inc. out of Phoenix?
9. Who first receives the ballots, Recorder office or Runbeck?
10. When will ballots be delivered to Pima Elections?
11. When will the ballots be opened?
12. When will there be a Logic and Accuracy test that the candidates are allowed to participate in per ARS 16-449?
13. Please provide us a schedule of all ballot activities, and meetings of any election boards.
14. Please provide us a copy of the internal government agreement between Pima County School Superintendent and Pima County and its Election Department for this election.
Respectfully,
John Brakey Co-founder of AUDIT-AZ (Americans United for Democracy, Integrity, and Transparency in Elections, Arizona) 5947 S Placita Picacho El Diablo , Tucson, AZ 85706
520-578-5678 Cell 520-339 2696
- Footnote [1] Procedures regulating access to ballots and equipment could include requiring signatures for access and documenting the reason for it, preventing access by a single person, requiring that access be observed by members of opposing parties, or the use of surveillance cameras to guard storage areas.
- To better understand how unverifiable Arizona election are please download this document that Bill Risner authored which is our disclosure statement of facts filed with the court on 1/12/12 about voting in Arizona: http://tinyurl.com/LPFiling
- Here is a short video link of Bill Risner in court argument: http://youtu.be/JE0kOvFjn_0
- Resolution on Election Integrity by Bill Risner and passed by AZ State Democratic Party: http://www.velvetrevolution.us/electionstrikeforce/ArizonaDemResolution2010.pdf