On October 1, 2014, the Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors heard from members of the public who were demanding the County turnover documents sought in the Americans United for Democracy, Integrity and Transparency-Audit AZ vs. Santa Cruz County lawsuit. The Board has been withholding the metadata requested by citizens trying to ensure election integrity.
The County has refused to hand over verifiable information needed to substantiate recent elections.
Zack Howard, told the supervisors, “I would like to see clean and verified voting. I had an election once and I lost by very few points… I really think we need to check and re-check our votes. I am running again and I would hate to lose by as few as I lost by last time…”
John Brakey, an elections integrity expert said, “It has been almost 90 days since I have turn in a records request and we’ve had one day of trial. We anticipate being on trial on the ninth and also on the fifteenth. It is really up to you all now to put up your defense why we shouldn’t get these records. But clearly we proved in court with our experts is what we want is metadata. There are no secret programs there is none of this other stuff that we want…”
Southern Arizona community leader Richard Hernandez told the supervisors, “You must have lots of money here in Santa Cruz County because every day that this goes on, it costs you, the people in Santa Cruz County, more money,” referring to the County’s delay, “If I lived in Santa Cruz County, believe me, we’d be having a recall in Santa Cruz County.”
Sergio Arellano, the Republican Party chair in Arizona Legislative District 2 said, “I’m chairman of Legislative District 2 for the Republican Party. I am also the acting chairman for the county party. What we’re dealing with here is a simple records request which has been going on for far too long as my colleagues have said. Don’t be surprised if more records requests come down the road. This is just a drop in the bucket with what anybody or any citizen or any resident can do. And if this is the way you guys handle records requests, you guys are in for a hurting down the road.”
Behind the lawsuit are numerous county politicians and local celebrities who are refusing to accept anything less than verified elections.
Prior to the meeting of the supervisors, a court hearing was held in which testimony was offered professionals with credentials from the University of Arizona and the NSA. They testified as to the ability to tamper with the vote counts, and the need for audits of those counts.
At the heart of the court case, is the request for an inspection of the counting machinery and audit logs.
The request of the Santa Cruz Election Integrity Committee is as follows:
The records we need to inspect and review are present in electronic form on the “central tabulator” computer supplied by Diebold, and possibly a secondary “backup” computer of the same type. The files need to be copied to standard file formats such as “PDF” and “text files” through utilities and processes supplied by Diebold Election Systems Inc. They will then need to be written to a CD-ROM disk on blank media supplied by the county (to eliminate any allegation that a “problem” was introduced on media we supplied). Diebold installs a CD “writer” program called “Nero” for this purpose. No change will be made to any software process through the execution of this inspection and review of records.
Our representatives may need to be on-site and observe the processing of these files into standard data formats and onto CD, to prevent any possible allegation that the files were modified prior to our receiving them. This “observation” right to public records creation is not a normal part of the public records laws, but is strongly implicit when combined with “party observers to the election and counting process” laws.
With the previous notes in mind, we ask for the following documents:
1) Electronic copy of contract with the vendor who programs the Central Count Election computers and the AccuVote memory cards.
2) Electronic copy of contract with ballot printing company “Runbeck Inc”
3) Electronic copy of Runbeck invoice that shows how many ballots that are being purchased for the 2014 Primary,
4) Electronic copy of the long term contract or the intergovernmental agreement with the recorder office listing their responsibility
5) Electronic Copy of the central tabulator computer directories.
6) Electronic copies of the “Windows Event Logs” and backup (if present) Diebold “Central Tabulator” computers. These are the machines that run the Diebold “GEMS” central tabulator application. There are normally three per system, titled “System”, “Application” and “Security”. Please provide these Records in a “.csv” format.
7) Electronic copies of the “GEMS audit logs” for the central tabulator data files involved in either the setup or execution of the last 5 elections printed to electronic PDF file.
8) A copy of each folder list of all folders from each of the central count computers that contain GEMS database and backup files, showing all databases and backup files as well as any other files contained in those folders, all file types, all dates of creation, all dates last modified, all dates last accessed, and all sizes. These should be produced as text files on a CD or portable disk drive in the presence of Democratic Party observers and under their supervision.
9) We request a copy of the “File Allocation Table” on each GEMS server and if not available plain text file with the following command on each server:
C:\> dir *.* /s > c:\gemslist.txt (this also goes for D, E, F, and so on if there and both computers.
The filename “gemslist” should be “gemslistmain” and “gemslistbackup” for each file. This does not create a new file, but rather transcribes the file from one format to another.10) We need to check various network settings on these central tabulators this will be done by appointment. This will be a matter of pulling up and displaying Windows operating system settings. We may ask for “printscreen” snapshots of anything questionable, otherwise we will simply take notes, pictures and/or video tape.
Not surprisingly, no one showed up to argue against election integrity. After hearing only support for the plaintiffs, the supervisors retreated to an executive session to discuss the matter.
When they returned, Supervisor John Maynard said, “Now Mr. Brakey I cannot disclose what was said in our executive section, but I think that probably by this time tomorrow when your attorneys have spoken with our attorneys or however that works out. I’m not pretending to be a lawyer that we will be so much closer than you think we are right now to being able to look at each other and feel good about where we are.”
On October 2nd, 2014 the lawyers for both sides met to discuss a settlement out of court. The County offered what Brakey called a “ridiculous offer.”
The matter will be continued in court on October the 9th. Brakey says they will fight until they reach their goal of “elections that are transparent, with a documented chain of custody and then verified.”