Jan Brewer/Diebold Machine Purchase/Ballots Withheld District 20

[lonestarnot]

Got this in an email this morning.

Hi Folks,

Tomorrow, January 12 at noon until 1 PM
at 301 West Jefferson Street, Phoenix we
will be protesting election fraud and
demonstrating that we are not going to
allow Arizona elections to be stolen!
(Bring your signs if you have them.)
Read all about it below!

STOP STOLEN ELECTIONS IN ARIZONA!

Several groups working on this issue are
mad as hell that the Secretary of State (SOS), Jan Brewer
and the County Attorney, Andrew Thomas
will not give us or anyone the ballots for a recount!
500 extra votes showed up and the only way
to see if there was election fraud and tampering
with voting machines is to look at the ballots in
Legislative District 20. They are hiding them!

GIVE US THE BALLOTS SO WE CAN DO A RECOUNT!

Also Jan Brewer SOS just bought Diebold voting machines
for the whole state to use, the same ones that have
been thrown out by
California,
New Mexico,
Connecticut,
North Carolina,
and 2 Flordia counties,
to name a few!
It has been proven that these same Diebold voting machines
are easily hacked in to and the votes changed. That is
what happened in Ohio in 2004! But, we are not
going to allow it to happen here!

PROTEST STOLEN ELECTIONS IN ARIZONA!

So come join us tomorrow because were mad as hell
and we're not going to take it anymore!

DEMONSTRATION TOMORROW, THURSDAY, NOON TO 1PM

Peace,

Joy Marx-Mendoza
602-870-4714
Member of Phoenix Progressive Democrats of America (PDA)
Legislative District 10 Precinct Committeeperson
-------



SEE MORE DETAILS BELOW:

1. AUDITAZ's call to demonstrate tomorrow noon to 1 PM
AMERICANS UNITED for DEMOCRACY, INTEGRITY, and TRANSPARENCY in Elections (AUDITAZ)

2. PDA's ELECTION INTEGRITY ALERT!

3. PHOENIX NEW TIMES ARTICLE TODAY, January 11, 2006
Ballot Box Breakdowns
An independent voting-technology expert finds serious
problems in the Maricopa County Elections Department
By John Dougherty

4. FOUR MORE PHOENIX NEW TIMES ARTICLES

5. FOR OTHER SOURCES OF INFORMATION ON ELECTION FRAUD GO TO:
www.azfairelections.orgwww.aceronline.org
http://www.blackboxvoting.org
and Brads Blog
Also ask to join the email list at [e-mail]

Don't you get it yet? - the next election WILL BE STOLEN
in Arizona, if you don't fight for fair voting machines and laws.
If we don't have a fair vote in Arizona, we will lose our democracy!


6. NOTE BY JOY: AFTER THE DEMONSTRATION WE WILL
GO TO SEE TERRY GODDARD, AZ ATTORNEY GENERAL
ABOUT THIS SUSPECTED ELECTION FRAUD.
-------------------------------






Thu, 12 Jan 2006 04:24:22 +0000
From: [e-mail]
To: [e-mail] (Joy *A)
Subject: Joy can you please help me get this out
Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 04:24:22 +0000



Patriot Action Required






Demonstration outside the County Attorneys office, 301 W. Jefferson at noon tomorrow, Thursday, January 12. You made a big impact last Thursday exposing the Secretary of State, lets do it again, bigger and badder this time!



Join the anarchists, er, conspiracy theorists, er, fellow PATRIOTS at the southwest corner of 3rd Ave. and Jefferson to demand County Attorney Andrew Thomas release the ballots from the LD 20 election. We want honest elections! Release the ballots Andrew Thomas, what are you hiding?



County Attorney Thomas engineered a cancellation of todays scheduled senate hearing when he informed Senator Jack Harper that he would not appear at the hearing. Thomas also prevented other county elections officials from appearing after telling Senator Harper that he would not oppose a suit to release the ballots. OUTRAGEOUS!



Why are Andrew Thomas, Elections Recorder Helen Purcell, and Elections Director Karen Osborne not being transparent with the peoples ballots? What are they hiding?



Todays actions by fellow election integrity activists yielded even more evidence on the stonewalling tactics and attitude of the County Attorney to obstruct transparent and honest elections in Arizona.



We need your support, we need your voice. Bring your signs, your friends and family, and your passion to take back our democracy!



This is not a left issue or a right issue; its a right or wrong issue. - John Brakey



Election Integrity is not a partisan issue; Election Integrity is a civic issue. - Michael Shelby
--------------------



AFTER THE DEMONSTRATION WE WILL
GO TO SEE TERRY GODDARD,
AZ ATTORNEY GENERAL
ABOUT THIS SUSPECTED ELECTION FRAUD.
----------------------








From: "Phoenix PDA" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Election Integrity Alert!
Sender: "Phoenix PDA" <[e-mail]>
Phoenix Progressive Democrats of America





ELECTION INTEGRITY: a trans-partisan civic emergency
ACTION ALERT: please forward widely!

WRITE OR CALL YOUR LEGISLATORS AND THE ATTORNEY GENERAL NOW.
ASK THEM TO SUPPORT INTEGRITY FOR VOTE COUNTING IN ARIZONA


Republican AZ Secretary of State Jan Brewer issued a surprise New Year's Eve buy order for approximately 11 million dollars of taxpayer monies to go to Diebold, for new voting machines supposedly to benefit handicapped voters, even after months of discussions about flaws in these particular machines. Handicapped voters will not benefit, but the means to power through fraud remain in the hands of the SOS, a delegate for Bush at the Republican National Convention and an honorary co-chair of the Bush campaign...

Then, when she accidentally included election reform activists on her invitation list to her re-election announcement media event on Jan 5, SOS Brewer was surprised when they showed up to protest the Touch Screen - Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) purchase, she started calling them names, "anarchists," "conspiracy theorists..."

Of course, anarchists don't vote and wouldnt care, but any epithet will do, it seems. And with all the criminal conspiracy charges within the current administration, maybe we need a few more people who will believe a vast right-wing conspiracy could occur.

Back in November, when Brewer was asked how she had arrived at a decision to withhold the paper ballots in the now infamous District 20 Republican primary recount, (where many new votes mysteriously showed up in machine recount, reversing the results), she said "The angel (of God) was on my shoulder on that decision . . ." because when she returned to her office she discovered that had she allowed access to the paper ballots, she would have broken the law.

Now this is pretty funny for being so dumb, but what is as serious as a Diamondback bite is that the integrity of Arizona's system for counting votes in 2006 as well as in 2008 is on the line, along with 200 years of democracy.

WHAT IS BEING DONE?
The Progressive Caucus passed a resolution through the Party's State Committee last November, responding to the concerns of many that no other issue may matter if nothing is done. This calls for all Democrats to come together to push strongly for reform which can restore confidence that Arizona's voters are not disenfranchised.

Rep Ted Downing (D) and Sen. Karen Johnson (R), are sponsoring legislation to tighten accountability, Senator Jack Harper (R) is chairing an ongoing investigation, and A BI-PARTISAN ELECTION INTEGRITY CAUCUS IS BEING FORMED.

ACTION: PLEASE WRITE YOUR LEGISLATOR TO SUPPORT THE BIPARTISAN ELECTION INTEGRITY CAUCUS AND NEW LEGISLATION TO PROTECT THE INTEGRITY OF OUR VOTE .
The radical right and the special interests beholden will oppose them, but it is a bipartisan civic responsibility to assure a fair vote count, and your representative will want to know how much you care, and how many of us care!
http://www.azleg.state.az.us/MemberRoster.asp?Body=H

ACTION: PLEASE CONTACT AG TERRY GODDARD TODAY, AND ASK HIM TO WORK WITH THOSE WHO WILL SEEK TO MEET WITH HIM ON THURSDAY TO PREVENT THIS NEW PURCHASE, AND TO HOLD SOS BREWER ACCOUNTABLE FOR TRANSPARENCY IN ELECTIONS. (Phone: [phone] Fax: [phone]) Election Integrity activists are hoping to meet with AZ Attorney General Terry Goddard on Thursday to ask that he actively help restore integrity in the voting process. In our November resolution, the Party voted almost unanimously to ask our elected officials to take action to challenge any state purchase of Diebold machines and to hold SOS Jan Brewer accountable for any actions that lack transparency.

ACTION: JOIN THE GRASSROOTS MOBILIZATION
The Progressive Caucus is beginning to build a statewide precinct-level contact database online for the purpose of creating the ability to speedily mobilize the progressive community statewide, and to make it easier to coordinate our impact on issues like voting system integrity. To find out what LD you are in, contact your county recorder, or look at your voter registration card.

This won't work without your help. You have to sign up to participate in the network and join in the discussions. Some of you have already, and we are delighted!!

Please go to our website and sign in using the form at the top of the site. http://www.progressiveazdems.org
And explore the tools we are working on.

Also - Please participate in formulating grassroots strategy and issues positions by signing in to our new discussion forums.

Nothing could be more important in 2006 and certainly by 2008 than to be able to mobilize the progressive vote in Arizona to turn it more "blue," and nothing could be more important in that effort than your active participation. http://www.progressiveazdems.org

Remember, contact your legislator and AG Goddard right now. http://www.azleg.state.az.us/MemberRoster.asp?Body=H

In peace and solidarity,

Rev. Gerry Straatemeier
Sherry Bohlen
Co-Chairs, Democratic Progressive Caucus

------------

Background 1
Even John Kerry now admits that the 2004 election was probably stolen, and computer and voting experts have worked night and day to show us exactly how this occurred. Arizona is a key state for the present Republican party leadership, in which they hope to defeat our governor and to shift the balance in the legislature to prevent her veto of their agenda. Both in Pima and Maricopa County, there is significant evidence that the 2004 presidential elections were systematically influenced (hacked) and a manual recount/audit is not possible. Furthermore, the Diebold machines that (R) SOS Jan Brewer likes so well, have been decertified in California, New Mexico, Connecticut, North Carolina, and in Leon and Voluisa counties in Florida, to name a few. In New Mexico a judge has issued a Temporary Restraining Order to prevent more such machines being purchased until they can be proven reliable.

I am sure no one will be surprised to hear that admitted criminal lobbyist Jack Abramhoff received considerable funds from Diebold, and that the former chief of staff of his Ohio buddy Bob Ney, who shepherded the Trojan Horse HAVA Act (the Help America Vote Act ) through congress, has been working on behalf of Diebold, Inc. and at least one other Voting Machine Company as a registered lobbyist in the House, going back to at least 2001. (Bradblog: The Soon-to-be-Indicted Rep. Bob Ney of Ohio's Connection To Electoral Fraud)

AZ SOS Jan Brewer made a stealth decision on New Years Eve to purchase yet more flawed (hackable) Diebold machines for Arizona, supposedly to benefit handicapped voters. Election Integrity activists had been working with her and the procurement department for months to get access to bid information. Handicapped voters will not benefit, but the means to power through fraud remain in the hands of the SOS.

For more background information on this issue around the country, go to Brads Blog to download last weekends Phoenix Air America interviews with Brad and with Mark Crispin Miller, or read Mark Crispin Millers book Fooled Again, or go to Black Box Voting for ongoing discussion. If you have questions, I will attempt to put you in touch with someone who can answer them.

Tomorrow, Thursday, activists will be visiting with AG Terry Goddard to attempt to get him to take action to hold Brewer accountable, and to get an order to stop the purchase of the machines. Since Goddard is a Democratic elected official, the resolution passed by the party in November ought to apply to him at least giving them an open-minded hearing, and helping to assure fair and transparent elections.

Background 2
At the July SC meeting, the party voted to initiate a commission to work on this issue, which is headed by party chair Harry Mitchell. After a slow start, perhaps because Harry needed to become familiar with other aspects of his new job, it looks like it is finally taking off, according to Voting Integrity activist John Brakey of AUDITAZ. This is good news, because this years elections are of vital import, and we cant wait.

At the November meeting, realizing that immediate action was necessary if we wanted to assure a fair count in the 2006 elections, the SC voted further that Democratic party staff and elected officials work tirelessly on this issue, both within the party and with members of other parties.

In our resolution, we asked our elected officials to take action to
Challenge any state purchase of Diebold machines (which have been demonstrated over and over again, in state after state, to be vulnerable to outside hacking) Hold SOS Jan Brewer accountable for any actions that lack transparency
We asked also that the party sponsor open educational public forums around the state to:
Expose flaws of electronic voting Examine adverse consequences of blended voting systems Diebold touch screens with Opti-Scans Discover hidden costs associated with training poll workers to implement a dual voting system. Evaluate any state certification/decertification standards set by the Secretary of State Educate the public to participate in public oversight of county boards of elections.

We asked all Democrats to support legislation being introduced now to fix the major problems
-----------------------------




HERE ARE THE PHOENIX NEW TIMES STORIES
OF JANUARY 12, 2006

1.
Rocking the Boat
GOP bigwigs and their pandering pals in the mainstream press are apoplectic about a state senator and New Times' fight to discover the truth. What're these pols trying to hide?
By Rick Barrs
January 12, 2005

GO TO:
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/Issues/20060112/news/barrs_print.html


2.
Ballot Box Breakdowns
An independent voting-technology expert finds serious
problems in the Maricopa County Elections Department
By John Dougherty

Mark Poutenis

Picture not shown.
Clockwise from bottom: County Attorney Andy Thomas, County Recorder Helen Purcell, House Speaker Jim Weiers, Senate President Ken Bennett, and County Elections Director Karen Osborne.

Who / What:
Maricopa County Elections Department

Published online: Wednesday, January 11, 2006, 3:10 p.m. MST

An independent voting-technology expert has discovered widespread problems within the Maricopa County Elections Department that raise serious questions over the ability of voting officials in the nation's fourth-most-populous county to conduct fair and accurate elections.

"Any election where the margin of victory is under 2 percent could be called into question," says University of Iowa computer science professor Douglas Jones.

Jones is one of the nation's top experts on voting-machine technology. He discovered the irregularities during an inspection of the county's vote-tabulation machinery late last month.

"These problems," Jones says in an interview, "suggest a systemic problem with election administration" in Maricopa County and a failure by the state to properly oversee the county's handling of elections.

Jones, who testified before Congress on voting-machine technology following the 2000 presidential election, was inspecting the county's tabulation machines to determine why 489 votes inexplicably appeared during a September 2004 recount of a state legislative race that changed the outcome of the election.

Jones says the appearance of the votes during the District 20 recount on September 21, 2004, appears to have been caused by either failure of the county's voting machines to accurately read ballots or illegal vote tampering. Jones says the only way to determine what happened beyond this is to visually inspect the District 20 ballots.

"Someone should take a look at the real ballots," he says.

An examination of the District 20 ballots, Jones says, would also provide the public with crucial information about the overall fairness and accuracy of elections in Maricopa County. Visual inspection would allow researchers to determine what type of writing instruments voters used to mark early ballots in the race. Early ballots accounted for about half of the votes cast in the 2004 primary and general elections.

Jones says evidence he has uncovered reveals that the county's written instructions to voters using early ballots to use a black ballpoint pen and draw a single line to make their vote creates a 1 in 12 chance that the vote will not be counted.

"We already have found something that is not good news for the elections department," Jones says. "They should have been giving better advice."

Jones' examination of the voting machines has also revealed other serious problems with the way Maricopa County conducts elections, including:

: The county has failed to uniformly calibrate its optical scanning machines used to count ballots, which appears to be a violation of federal election law. At least two of the six Optech 4-C optical scanners Jones tested are far less likely to detect votes cast with black and blue ballpoint pens than the others.

The optical scanners are improperly calibrated to be ultra-sensitive to pencil marks and will detect even tiny specks of lead and smudge marks as votes, leading to the possibility of unintended votes being counted.

Election officials appear to lack fundamental knowledge of how their election machinery operates and are making public statements about how to mark ballots that are contrary to the actual behavior of their equipment.

Jones is also critical of Secretary of State Jan Brewer, whose office approves voting machines used by Arizona counties.

"This reflects poorly on the state's process of approving these machines," Jones says.

Neither County Recorder Helen Purcell, who oversees the Maricopa County Elections Department, nor Brewer responded to New Times' requests for interviews to discuss Jones' findings.

But in an interview published last July in the Arizona Capitol Times, Brewer said Maricopa County's optical scanning machines have worked without any problems -- which Jones' report contradicts.

"We were very fortunate we were one of the first states that implemented optical scan throughout all our counties," Brewer said. " did the last election (2004) with no glitches, unlike other states, and I'm very, very proud of that accomplishment."

Tom Ryan, director of Arizona Citizens for Fair Elections, says Jones' findings suggest that Maricopa County and the Secretary of State's Office have been violating Arizona's election law that requires voting machines to be maintained to accurately tally votes.

The tally of 489 new votes found during the District 20 recount is equal to about a 4 percent increase of the total number of votes counted between the primary and the recount.

"This implies that all the races that were run could have had 4 percent error in them," Ryan says. "That's pretty amazing! That's pretty horrible! It's appalling."

Maricopa County has used its current vote-tabulation equipment since 1995. The county has known since at least 2002 that the machines did not consistently read votes. In that year, a recount of a legislative race found more than 100 new votes, but that election did not generate public scrutiny because the recount did not change its outcome.

There have been at least two major elections in the past six years decided by 2 percent margins or less.

In November 2000, Maricopa County voters approved Proposition 302 to raise $2 billion in taxes to build the Cardinals stadium with 51.9 percent of the vote.

In 2002, Janet Napolitano defeated Matt Salmon in the governor's race by 11,000 votes, or a 1 percent margin. Slightly more than 650,000 of the 1.1 million votes cast in the governor's race were tallied in Maricopa County. A 4 percent error by Maricopa County's voting machines could have swung the election to Salmon.

Jones' suggestion that the District 20 ballots be subject to visual inspection is expected to be strongly opposed by key Republican leaders, including Purcell, Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, Maricopa County Treasurer David Schweikert, Speaker of the House Jim Weiers and Senate President Ken Bennett.

Purcell, Thomas and Schweikert have already rejected a public records request submitted in October by New Times to have an expert examine the ballots. Weiers and Bennett have taken steps to block an investigation of the District 20 recount by Republican Senator Jack Harper, chairman of the Government Accountability and Reform Committee, whose mission is to investigate such irregularities affecting state government.

Last spring, Thomas' office investigated the recount flap at the request of local Maricopa County Republican Party leadership, alerted to significant problems in the election by a New Times column ("Election Eve Nightmare," October 14, 2004).

Despite finding serious problems within the elections department, including evidence of voter-machine malfunction during the recount and witness tampering, Thomas closed the investigation saying there was no evidence of criminal wrongdoing. Thomas has said he will oppose in court any private or state-funded effort to conduct a recount of the District 20 ballots.

Thomas is taking this stand despite the fact that looking at the votes again cannot change the outcome of the election. No official recount is legally possible in the race, since the election has been certified by a judge.

Also, Jones says an unofficial recount is not necessary to determine what happened. Instead, he says, a scientifically random selection of about 1,000 ballots pulled from the 17,000 cast in the District 20 Republican primary would be sufficient to determine whether the voting machines failed to accurately count votes.

Or whether someone tampered with the ballots and added votes between the primary and the recount.

Jones' recommendation for a visual inspection of the District 20 ballots will be included in a report that was scheduled to be released on January 12 to Harper, who planned to hold legislative hearings to determine what caused the votes to appear during the District 20 recount.

New Times obtained an advance copy of Jones' report because the paper agreed to pay Jones to test the accuracy of the county's voting machines.

Jones inspected the county's machines on December 20, after Harper issued a legislative subpoena to the Maricopa County Elections Department demanding that the machines be made available to an independent expert. Senate President Bennett refused to authorize Harper to use Senate funds to pay the costs related to Jones' inspection, telling the committee chairman to find a private source.

Harper turned to New Times, which agreed in late November to cover the cost of Jones coming in.

Harper also issued a subpoena to County Treasurer David Schweikert to release the District 20 ballots, which are required by law to be held in the treasurer's vault for two years following the primary. But Schweikert, acting on the recommendation of County Attorney Thomas, refused to release the ballots to Jones.

The District 20 recount has been marred by controversy and unusual, if not suspicious, actions since September 2004, when Anton Orlich defeated John McComish by four votes in the Republican primary for a seat in the state House of Representatives. The narrow margin of victory automatically triggered a recount in which the 489 additional votes suddenly appeared. McComish won the recount by 13 votes.

Nearly all of the new votes that appeared in the District 20 recount came from early ballots that voters cast at home and mailed to the county elections department. The county used Optech 4-C scanners to count early ballots in the primary and used the same type of machine to conduct the recount. But the Optech 4-C used in the recount, known as Machine No. 5, detected an 18 percent increase in votes from early ballots.

Orlich filed a lawsuit seeking to block the recount, claiming the elections department mishandled the ballots between the primary and the recount and that it appeared one of the county's voting machines failed to accurately count votes.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Eddward Ballinger upheld the results of the recount after an extremely hostile and unusual hearing in which a key witness who worked for the manufacturer of the election machines failed to appear in court despite receiving a subpoena.

Thomas' investigation later determined that the witness, Tina Polich, was instructed to "lay low" during the hearing by county officials and her employer, Election Systems and Software Incorporated, who did not want her to testify about the possibility that the voting machines malfunctioned.

According to County Attorney Thomas' investigation, it appears that several county officials deliberately misled Judge Ballinger during the court hearing when they told him that they didn't know how to contact Polich.

Judge Ballinger expressed serious concern about Polich's failure to appear at the hearing and about the county's ability to accurately count early ballots.

Nevertheless, he went ahead and certified the recount as valid.

Elections department director Karen Osborne has repeatedly said in published statements and in sworn court testimony before Judge Ballinger that the reason for the sudden appearance of the votes was that voters casting mail-in ballots used marking instruments that were difficult for the optical scanners to read.

Osborne said glitter pens, gel pens and black felt-tipped pens were particularly troublesome for the county's Optech 4-C scanning machines.

Jones' tests on the voting machines found that the opposite of what Osborne claimed under oath was true.

"The sensitivity test showed that these machines are extraordinarily sensitive to black pencil, to ink from a Jelly Roll brand blue glitter pen and to black ink from a Sanford Sharpie Extra Fine Point pen. With these pens and pencils, the Optech 4-C scanner would pick up and count as a vote even a single dot," Jones' report states.

Jones says in the interview that "the blue glitter pen was more reliably scanned than any pen I tried."

The marking utensils best read by the machine used for the early ballots were No. 2 pencils and black ballpoint pens, Osborne has said repeatedly.

Jones, however, found serious problems with both of these instruments. Jones discovered that even tiny specks of lead from No. 2 pencils could be counted erroneously as votes.

"It's not a good idea to adjust machines to be so sensitive that they pick up fly specks of lead as votes," Jones says.

Votes cast with black ballpoint pens were least likely to be detected, Jones says.

The county "shouldn't have given instructions to voters that led the voters to make marks that can't guarantee will be read," Jones says. "My measurements show they really can't guarantee will read a Bic black ballpoint."

Jones also criticized the county's written directions on ballots instructing voters to draw a single line between arrows marked on the ballots when casting a vote. Single lines drawn with blue and black pens, he says, are not dark enough for the county's voting machines to consistently detect.

"Requesting a dark mark instead of a single line would encourage voters to make marks that would be far more likely to be counted," Jones' report states.

Not only has the county been providing incorrect instructions on how to mark early ballots, its Optech 4-C scanners used to count early ballots are not calibrated equally, Jones says.

During his tests, Jones found that two of the six scanners he examined were less sensitive to marks made by blue and black ballpoint pens than the other four machines.

The county's incorrect instructions to voters combined with the inconsistent calibration of scanners could have resulted in the sudden increase in votes detected between the District 20 primary and the recount, he says.

If a sufficient number of ballots in District 20 were cast where voters used black and blue ink pens to draw single lines, and if those ballots were run through a less sensitive Optech 4-C scanning machine during the primary, Jones says the votes may have gone undetected.

And, he says, if those same ballots were then run through a more sensitive Optech 4-C machine during the recount, the uncounted votes may have suddenly appeared.

"An examination of a random sample of the actual . . . Republican early voting ballots from the election would allow this hypothesis to be confirmed or ruled out," Jones states in the report.

"If the examination shows that a sufficient percent of the ballots were marked with a single stroke using a ballpoint pen, as opposed to use of pencil or votes cast with a deeply scribbled mark, this hypothesis would become more likely."

Jones also says visual inspection of the ballots would very likely provide conclusive evidence of whether the ballots were tampered with between the primary and the recount.

Osborne testified during the September 23, 2004, recount hearing before Judge Ballinger that the District 20 ballots were handled and sorted without first notifying the candidates, who are entitled by law to be present during that endeavor.

This unsupervised handling "may have created an opportunity . . . to surreptitiously add marks to ballots," Jones' report states. "I want to emphasize that I do not allege that any such ballot alteration occurred, only that the opportunity may have existed."

Jones says the characteristics of the District 20 race made it ripe for tampering.

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NEW TIMES STORY CONTINUED...

Voters were asked to vote for two of the five Republican candidates running for seats in the state House. In some instances, voters either voted for no one or only one of the candidates. Such ballots are called "undervotes."

It would have been possible during the handling of District 20 ballots between the primary and the recount, Jones says, for somebody to have sought out the undervoted ballots and added new votes to them.

Jones also notes that nearly all of the votes that suddenly appeared in the recount were on ballots that were counted as undervotes in the primary.

So as not to attract attention to any tampering, Jones says, hundreds of ballots would have had to be altered and all five candidates would have needed to receive additional votes. The recount showed that the 489 new votes were spread across all five candidates.

"If someone in a hurry to surreptitiously alter large numbers of ballots, I would expect them to mark those ballots all with the same pen or pencil and to make no serious effort to match the style of marks made by the original voter," Jones states.

"Therefore, there is a reasonable chance that an examination of a sample of the . . . Republican early-voting ballots would reveal the presence of surreptitiously made marks, so long as this sample is indeed a representative random sample."

Osborne said in an October 2004 interview that she doesn't believe tampering caused the increase in votes in the recount.

"In my heart of hearts, I don't believe anyone tampered with these ballots at all," she said. Then, she acknowledged, "anything is possible."

--------------------



Pandora's Box
Is Arizona's Speaker of the House afraid of what might happen if the truth is learned about a local election?
October 27, 2005
By John Dougherty


Who / What:
Maricopa County Elections Department

State Republican Senator Jack Harper's enraging a powerful legislator with his determined effort to get to the bottom of a potentially explosive vote-counting scandal at the Maricopa County Elections Department. The second-term senator from Surprise plans to hold legislative hearings early next year into the controversial September 7, 2004, District 20 recount, where the inexplicable appearance of nearly 500 new votes between the primary and the recount challenge the accuracy and integrity of elections in the nation's fourth-largest county. Harper's plan to hold the hearings before the Senate Government Accountability and Reform Committee, which he chairs, is upsetting some key Republican legislators, including Arizona Speaker of the House Jim Weiers. Weiers took the unusual step of summoning Harper to his office on June 16 to berate him for planning to investigate the District 20 recount. Weiers told Harper that the issue doesn't belong before the Legislature. "This really, truly is an issue that belongs with the County Attorney," Weiers told me, when I queried him on why he had gotten involved. Even after Harper related to the speaker that it appears county elections officials failed to properly secure ballots between the Republican primary and the recount, Weiers said he remained opposed to the legislative hearings. Turns out, elections officials' handling of the situation is even more suspect. The department not only appears to have left the ballots unattended, it currently has no idea who had access to them between the primary and the recount. Assistant county attorney Colleen Conner admitted in an October 14 letter to me that the elections department "does not have records related to individuals or personnel specifically involved in the collection, sorting or preparation of the District 20 ballots and recount." In addition, the elections department refuses to release the names of Maricopa County sheriff's deputies who were supposed to be guarding the ballots between the primary and the recount. Instead, it referred my records request to the sheriff's office. (I'm sure Conner is well aware that the sheriff's office brazenly ignores most of my requests for public records.) You would think such incompetence and aggressive stonewalling by the county elections department would spur the Speaker of the House to make every effort possible to determine what happened during the recount. Speaker Weiers admitted to me that he was moved to believe that Harper was onto something "kind of serious" when the state senator related that he was pretty sure he could prove that the ballots were left unattended. Yet instead of strongly supporting Harper's quest to unravel the mystery surrounding the recount mess in the Ahwatukee Foothills district, Weiers has become yet another barrier between the public and the truth. As for Weiers' plea that the county attorney, if anybody, should take up the fight, Andrew Thomas' office has already whitewashed the matter. And it has done so without providing a clear and convincing explanation of how in the hell 489 votes -- which changed the outcome of the Republican primary race for a state House seat -- suddenly appeared during a recount. Karen Osborne, director of the county elections department, has blamed the fiasco on gel pens and Sharpies used by some voters to mark early mail-in ballots. But her weak explanation doesn't satisfy the Maricopa County Republican party, which last winter persuaded Thomas' office to conduct the very type of investigation that Weiers suggested. And that investigation concluded that the county was guilty of stunning impropriety regarding District 20. Thomas' investigators discovered that assistant county attorney Jill Kennedy had improperly provided legal advice to the manufacturer of voting machines used in the election. Kennedy, who represented the elections department before Conner took over in the wake of this scandal, deliberately took steps to make sure Election Systems & Software employee Tina Polich wasn't served with a subpoena to appear in court to explain how the company's voting machines could have had such a wide variation in tabulating votes. (Although she's employed by a private firm, Polich kept an office in the elections department.) Polich's absence from a one-day hearing before Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Eddward Ballinger on September 23, 2004, allowed Election Systems to cover up evidence of a possible voting-machine malfunction during the District 20 recount. Polich's failure to appear angered Ballinger, who had no choice, without her testimony, but to certify the election. Amazingly, Polich later told investigators from the County Attorney's Office that "there could have been a malfunction with the machine that resulted in the large discrepancy." I'll say there was a large discrepancy -- an 18.3 percent increase in the number of votes counted from early ballots between the primary election and the recount! But rather than expanding the investigation into the elections department as a whole, Thomas meekly dropped his investigation without getting to the bottom of the incident. A month after Thomas punted, Senator Harper requested under the Arizona Public Records Law that the county produce dozens of documents related to the recount. In his June 8 letter to the elections department, Harper made it clear that he was deeply concerned about the county's possibly engaging in the "cover-up" of an election "scandal." Harper wrote: "There are also distressing issues of how the county handled the recount and of how it represented the scandal to public officials and the public. The time has long passed to identify the cause of the new votes and to hold all those responsible for the error or its cover-up accountable." This issue extends far beyond the outcome of the District 20 Republican primary, where John McComish went from four votes behind Anton Orlich after the primary votes were counted to 13 votes ahead after the recount. McComish was declared the winner and went on to take the general election. McComish is now entering the second year of his first two-year term in the House. The sudden appearance of 489 votes between the primary and the recount raises serious questions about the integrity of all elections held in Maricopa County. But instead of providing answers about how this could have happened, the county elections department is getting helped out of its jam by none other than the Arizona Speaker of the House. While Weiers' brazen attempt to strong-arm Harper into dropping his investigation failed, it wasn't for a lack of trying. Rumors circulating through the Legislature about the June 16 meeting cast an even darker cloud over the recount. Sources close to Harper told me that during the course of their meeting, Weiers offered Harper a business opportunity with the Republican party if Harper agreed to back off his recount inquiry. " told at least two people that he was offered a quid pro quo," says a prominent Republican, who asked not to be identified, but who has had several conversations with Harper about the June 16 meeting. Weiers vehemently denied making any such offer to Harper. "That is just an out-and-out lie!" Weiers said. But when I asked Harper in early October whether anyone offered him a job with the Republican party in exchange for backing off his probe into the county elections department, the state senator dropped a powerful hint that such an offer had been made. "I'll neither confirm nor deny who it may have been," he said. At the time, I only knew that Harper supposedly had been pressured by at least one unknown high-level Republican leader to back off his investigation. Only later did I learn that Harper had met with Weiers and McComish to discuss his recount probe. In subsequent interviews with Harper, the senator softened his tone about the meeting. "Nobody said to me that if I . . . back off of this, I would be offered a job at the Republican party," Harper said. I then asked him what, if anything, was presented to him during the meeting in exchange for losing interest in his investigation. "Well, I'll just say to you that I can't be bought or intimidated," Harper said. "And I will leave it at that." McComish told me that he has no recollection of Weiers offering Harper anything to drop the probe. "I'm absolutely positive that there was no . . . offer made," McComish said. Whatever the case, there is no doubt that Weiers, McComish and other legislative leaders -- including Representative Bob Robson, who ran on the same ticket with McComish in District 20 -- see no reason to investigate the county's handling of the recount. These three legislators, along with county elections officials and County Attorney Thomas, simply want the District 20 recount to fade away. They are hoping that the elections department's ridiculous explanation will simply confuse a public that will forget eventually. Last fall, county elections boss Osborne said the 489 votes suddenly appeared because the county's electronic scanners didn't detect votes made with gel pens, eyeliner, Sharpies and other markers during the primary on ballots that were mailed in. But this excuse doesn't wash because the mail-in ballots were read by the same type of vote-scanning equipment in the primary and the recount. Osborne's nonsensical glitter-pen explanation is why skeptical Republican party officials requested that Thomas conduct the investigation that went nowhere. More recently, a new explanation for the votes has been floated. McComish and Robson told me in separate interviews that the reason for the increase is that more ballots were counted in the recount than in the primary. McComish said improperly marked ballots during the primary were rejected by the scanning machines. But during the recount, he said, election workers made sure ballots that had been rejected in the primary were processed by the scanners during the recount. In other words, I asked McComish, more ballots were counted in the recount than in the primary? "That's my understanding," he said. What McComish didn't know when I asked him the question was that I already knew there were four fewer ballots counted in the recount than in the primary. Come on, McComish, you should do more research before conjuring up such an outlandish explanation! The fact that the county somehow lost four ballots in the two weeks between the primary and the recount is yet another troubling indicator that something is rotten at the county elections department. The plot thickens when you consider what Jim Torgeson has to say.

said he could virtually guarantee it would be McComish," Torgeson said. Robson's brash prediction puzzled Torgeson. "I thought it was weird," Torgeson says. "How did he know that?" Robson said he has no recollection of such a conversation with Torgeson but that he told everyone during the primary campaign that he expected McComish to win the second Republican seat in District 20. Which McComish did. But only after the strangest and most troubling election recount in recent county history. The District 20 fiasco has attracted the interest of Douglas W. Jones, a computer science professor at the University of Iowa. Jones is an expert on voting machines who has served as a consultant to elections officials across the country. "It's hard to tell whether they are covering up incompetence or fraud," says Jones, who has studied the District 20 situation extensively. "And it's hard to come up with a hypothesis that doesn't include, to some degree, one of these things or the other." But here is the question that lingers in my mind: What is the back story behind Speaker Weiers involving himself in this battle between fellow Republicans? Is he afraid that a Pandora's box of election problems might be opened up in the state's largest county if the truth is learned about how Karen Osborne's office mishandled District 20?

Torgeson, who ran as a Democrat for the House in District 20, told me that a few days after the September 7, 2004, primary, he asked Robson how the recount would be conducted. Robson had already won one of the two House seats up for election in the District 20 Republican primary. Torgeson said he was very interested in the outcome of the recount because he felt he had a far better chance of defeating Orlich in the general election than McComish. Torgeson said Robson told him not to expect Orlich to be his opponent. " said he could virtually guarantee it would be McComish," Torgeson said. Robson's brash prediction puzzled Torgeson. "I thought it was weird," Torgeson says. "How did he know that?" Robson said he has no recollection of such a conversation with Torgeson but that he told everyone during the primary campaign that he expected McComish to win the second Republican seat in District 20. Which McComish did. But only after the strangest and most troubling election recount in recent county history. The District 20 fiasco has attracted the interest of Douglas W. Jones, a computer science professor at the University of Iowa. Jones is an expert on voting machines who has served as a consultant to elections officials across the country. "It's hard to tell whether they are covering up incompetence or fraud," says Jones, who has studied the District 20 situation extensively. "And it's hard to come up with a hypothesis that doesn't include, to some degree, one of these things or the other." But here is the question that lingers in my mind: What is the back story behind Speaker Weiers involving himself in this battle between fellow Republicans? Is he afraid that a Pandora's box of election problems might be opened up in the state's largest county if the truth is learned about how Karen Osborne's office mishandled District 20?

--------------------




All Bark and No Bite
The county attorney could've forced elections department reform, but he backed down
July 14, 2005
By John Dougherty


I have no faith in the ability of Maricopa County to conduct fair and accurate elections.
It's now appallingly apparent that County Attorney Andrew Thomas is skirting the serious problems gripping the Maricopa County Elections Department.

I had hoped Thomas would conduct a thorough investigation of the elections department, part of the County Recorder's Office, in the wake of last fall's District 20 primary recount fiasco that exposed vast problems with mail-in voting that accounts for more than 50 percent of the ballots cast in county elections.

The recount revealed significant problems with the county's optical scanning equipment used to read mail-in ballots. Variances of up to 18 percent in the number of votes read by the machines cast serious doubt on the county's ability to hold valid elections.

The county Republican Committee requested last January that Thomas conduct an investigation into the elections department's handling of the District 20 recount based on information I uncovered last fall ("Election Eve Nightmare," October 14, 2004).

Thomas complied with the committee's request and launched what his office called a "preliminary investigation" of the recount controversy ("Litmus Test," February 17, 2005).

A better term for the so-called preliminary investigation would have been "whitewash."

According to records I obtained from the County Attorney's Office under the Arizona Public Records Law, Thomas allowed his minions to conduct a half-assed probe in which investigators failed to interview crucial witnesses -- including county elections director Karen Osborne.

How in the hell can you conduct an investigation of the elections department without interviewing the boss?!

Even more troubling is the fact that Thomas' investigators did uncover evidence of a conspiracy between county election officials and a private vendor to hide crucial information from a Superior Court judge that an optical scanner may have malfunctioned during the District 20 recount.

In other words, Thomas had evidence before him that county elections officials tampered with the outcome of an election. Yet the newly elected county attorney decided to drop the investigation.

With evidence of a conspiracy to defraud voters, a real prosecutor would have unleashed a pack of legal pit bulls on the elections department to plow through every file cabinet, e-mail and hard drive in the office.

Instead, Thomas, who lacks any significant prosecutorial experience, terminated the investigation, saying there was no evidence of criminal wrongdoing.

I had hoped Thomas would have dived into the elections department problems and proved wrong critics who predicted he would place politics ahead of fair and evenhanded prosecutions. Thomas wanted the appearance of an investigation, but he was unwilling to publicly embarrass County Recorder Helen Purcell, a fellow high-ranking Republican in county government.

Thomas turned the inquiry over to two of his top political aides, Tim La Sota and Barnett Lotstein. Information gathered by them indicates that Osborne and her minions worked vigorously to suppress evidence during a crucial hearing last September 23 before Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Eddward Ballinger. Their actions constitute a serious breach of public trust.

The one-day emergency hearing took place to certify the results of the District 20 Republican state House primary election. Anton Orlich had defeated John McComish by four votes in the September 7 primary. The narrow margin of victory triggered an automatic recount. But when the recount was conducted a few weeks later, 489 new votes suddenly appeared, nearly all of which came from early, mail-in ballots.

This time, McComish had 13 more votes than Orlich.

Orlich challenged the recount results, claiming the elections department improperly handled the ballots before the recount, and that the sudden appearance of 489 votes indicated a voting machine had malfunctioned during the recount.

The surge of votes represented a stunning 18.3 percent jump in the total votes tallied on one machine from the primary to the recount.

Orlich's attorney, Lisa Hauser, subpoenaed Tina Polich, an employee of Elections Systems and Software Inc., to testify about the operation of the company's optical scanners. Polich never showed up for the hearing -- which greatly upset Judge Ballinger.

"It's very unfortunate that your witness is not here duly served," Ballinger told Hauser. "That's very disturbing."

What Ballinger didn't know at the time was that county elections officials made sure Polich wouldn't show up at the hearing.

Her absence left Ballinger with no choice but to certify the election in favor of McComish, who subsequently won the seat in the District 20 general election.

Osborne, her chief assistant Mitch Etter, assistant county attorney Jill Kennedy and representatives of Elections Systems and Software brazenly took steps to keep Polich from testifying.

Here's what happened:

On the afternoon of September 22, a process server delivered a subpoena to Polich's office inside the Maricopa County elections department. Polich was not present, but the subpoena was accepted by Etter.

Etter told county investigators on February 8 that he placed the subpoena on Polich's desk. He also said he called his boss, Karen Osborne, and told her about the subpoena and about Polich's absence.

Osborne, Etter stated, did not direct him to take any further action.

If this is true, Osborne -- who turned down requests for an interview -- should be immediately dismissed from her post by her boss, County Recorder Purcell.

Osborne's top priority should have been to make sure that the court got all the evidence necessary to make a fair decision about the accuracy of the recount. It was obvious that Hauser wanted Polich to testify about the performance and reliability of the optical scanners.

If Osborne had the best interests of the public as her top priority, she would have instructed Etter to immediately contact Tina Polich to make sure she knew about the subpoena and demand that she appear in court the next day.

But Etter told investigators he did nothing more to notify Polich about the subpoena, claiming he only had an 800 number for her company.

Which is bullshit. Polich later told county investigators her home phone number is listed in the directory.

Etter informed investigators that he contacted Polich the next day, September 23, when the court hearing would take place. Etter stated that Polich's bosses told her not to attend the hearing because the subpoena had not been directly served on her and therefore was invalid. Polich, according to Etter, then left the office for the day and never went to court.

On February 16, eight days after investigators talked with Etter, La Sota interviewed Eric Anderson, Elections Systems and Software's attorney, who advised Polich not to appear in court. Anderson delivered stunning information that broadened the conspiracy to suppress information concerning the District 20 recount.

Anderson said he based his determination that Polich had not been properly served with the subpoena on advice he received from the county elections department's attorney, Jill Kennedy.

" said he spoke with Jill Kennedy . . . and that they mutually agreed that service had not been perfected and that Ms. Polich should 'lay low' for the day," states a February 21 memorandum written by La Sota.

This astounding piece of information should have triggered major alarms inside Thomas' office. Not only had Osborne failed to order Etter to make sure Polich appeared in court, now Thomas' investigators had evidence that the county elections department's attorney illegally provided advice to Elections Systems and Software to ignore the subpoena!

Kennedy denied giving legal advice to the firm concerning the subpoena in her interview with county attorney's investigators. But she admitted providing Elections Systems and Software samples of motions to quash subpoenas.

Thomas formally reprimanded Kennedy, stating that her actions "constituted the providing of legal advice, and possibly resulted in the witness not appearing in court."

On March 1, La Sota and Lotstein interviewed Polich. According to La Sota's notes of the meeting, Polich said Etter had "handed" her the subpoena and that she knew about the hearing the day before it was held. She also told investigators she was aware of its importance and that she knew she was the only employee of her company available to testify in Arizona.

Polich confirmed Etter's account that she did not attend the hearing because Anderson told her she was not required to go because of the improperly served subpoena. (County investigators note in their reports that the subpoena was properly served, by the way.)

Anderson told investigators, amazingly, that Polich would have attended the hearing if elections officials had only asked her to.

Even if that's true, Polich's appearing at the hearing was the last thing elections officials wanted.

Because her testimony would have raised serious questions about the validity of the District 20 recount and would have revealed that the county's optical scanners have serious shortcomings. This would have been a huge embarrassment to the elections department, Osborne and Purcell just six weeks before the November general election.

Polich, according to La Sota's notes of the interview, had found it possible "that there could have been a malfunction with the machine that resulted in the large discrepancy ."

It's impossible to know for certain how Judge Ballinger would have reacted to testimony by Polich. Transcripts of the September 23 hearing, however, show that her failure to appear in court was the basis for Ballinger's decision in favor of McComish.

Ballinger stated that even though he was deeply concerned about the large variation in the votes counted from the primary to the recount, his decision to validate the recount was "based primarily on the fact that didn't show up."

The elections department's cover-up of voting-machine problems is continuing.

Elections department officials have made repeated statements to the media that the county's voting machines have been working fine. Yet County Recorder Purcell told Thomas' investigators that the elections department was very concerned about voting-machine problems that arose during the District 20 recount.

Purcell said to investigators on March 31 that two of the Elections Systems and Software optical scanners used during the primary and recount were removed from service before the general election. She also said the county was considering contracting with a new vendor to provide voting machines.

Based largely on Purcell's statements that the elections department was addressing the issue, Thomas "determined that there was not sufficient evidence of criminal conduct to justify commencing a formal criminal investigation," he said in a May 5 letter to the county Republican Committee.

A month later, the Arizona Republic quoted elections director Osborne as saying she had no problem with the voting machines: "We are going to stay with these machines. They are very solid, and they do what they are supposed to do."

Thomas was annoyed by Osborne's comments.

"This quote by Ms. Osborne directly contradicts your prior representations," Thomas wrote in a June 16 letter to Purcell.

Purcell fired back a June 24 letter assuring Thomas that the elections department was preparing to enter into a contract to upgrade the optical scanners with equipment designed to better detect marks on mail-in ballots.

Thomas returned the volley on June 30, once again berating Purcell for continuing to say there are no problems with the county's voting equipment, while at the same time telling Thomas that significant changes are in the works.

"This two-sided approach to these matters is troubling," Thomas wrote Purcell.

But Thomas was all bark and no bite.

When the chips were down, he decided it wasn't worth it politically to come down on Purcell's operation.

It's too bad that the county attorney has proved his critics right.
---------------



From phoenixnewtimes.com
Originally published by Phoenix New Times 2005-02-17
©2005 New Times, Inc. All rights reserved.

Litmus Test
County Attorney Andy Thomas must prove he can protect our constitutional rights
By John Dougherty




New county attorney Andy Thomas should hold Karen Osborne's feet to the fire.


Jackie Mercandetti

Karen Osborne




Last fall, I uncovered serious problems with the Maricopa County Department of Elections' handling of a September primary recount that cast a cloud over the county's ability to conduct fair and accurate elections. My concerns have now attracted the attention of the Maricopa County Republican Committee, which is demanding that County Attorney Andrew Thomas conduct a "thorough investigation" of the elections department's handling of the District 20 recount. Republican leaders made their request for an investigation based on the troubling facts that I uncovered and first reported three weeks before the general election ("Election Eve Nightmare," October 14). Their one-page resolution quotes extensively from my column detailing the events surrounding the now-infamous recount. The Republican Party Executive Guidance Committee passed a resolution in January stating that "to insure the integrity of the electoral process, a thorough investigation must follow any election when the outcome of said election is in question due to any irregularity." Republican leaders said there were "serious irregularities" in the elections department's handling of the recount of the District 20 GOP House primary race. My investigation discovered significant problems with the reliability of the increasingly popular early ballots and the accuracy of the county's optical scanning machines -- as well as arrogance and highly questionable actions by county elections officials. So far, the newly elected county attorney has done next to nothing on an issue that should be of extreme public importance: the fair and accurate counting of votes. Instead, Thomas' spokesman, Barnett Lotstein, says the County Attorney's Office is conducting a "preliminary review" to see whether a full-blown investigation is warranted. Lotstein gave no indication as to how long this review will take, although the Republican party's written request for an investigation is dated January 10. That's plenty of time to determine whether to move forward with a formal investigation, especially since there is a mountain of evidence of impropriety.

FOR THE REST OF THIS STORY GO TO:

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/issues/2005-02-17/news/dougherty.html

ALSO SEE:
Election Eve Nightmare Can the Maricopa County Elections Department ensure the accuracy of early voting? Hell No! By John Dougherty October 14, 2004
GO TO:

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/issues/2004-10-14/news/dougherty.html

[lady lib]

1. Recap: Date, Time, Location

Protest election fraud TODAY. Bring your signs to the County Attorney's office at 301 W. Jefferson (southwest corner of 3rd ave. and Jefferson), Thursday Jan. 12th, from 12 noon until 1 PM.

[lonestarnot]

2. Does anybody have a permit?

[lady lib]

3. Have you called the person who sent the e-mail?

Joy Marx-Mendoza
602-870-4714
Member of Phoenix Progressive Democrats of America (PDA)
Legislative District 10 Precinct Committeeperson

(BTW, I don't know anything other than what you posted for us. Unfortunately, I won't be able to attend this one because I have to work, but I would LOVE to go to other protests if we could get even a 2-3 days notice.)

[lonestarnot]

4. Yes and she didn't know... referred to code pinkers... waiting for email

response.

[lady lib]

5. If Code Pink is involved, then a reasonable assumption

would be that they do have a permit. (It's not like they haven't done this before many times :)).

[smartvoter]

6. Wish I didn't have to work. nt

[NMDemDist2]

7. holy crap! that's a lot of info

how do we push it up to Janet or the Attorney General?

[lonestarnot]

8. All I can say is if you can't make an appointment, write letters and make

calls.

[Humor_In_Cuneiform]

9. Email sent to SOS Monday January 9

"You referred to people who believe that there is a problem with Diebold as "conspiracy theorists" and anarchists.

Perhaps you would be interested in the opinion of a top Computer Science Network Security expert who has testified at HAVA hearings - Dr. Avi Rubin of Johns Hopkins University.

Below is an excerpt, the link to the complete article is below the excerpt.

"...Maryland, where I live, uses Diebold DREs, which are an ideal opportunity for cheating," said Dr. Avi Rubin, Technical Director, Information Security Institute, Johns Hopkins University. "In fact, you couldn't come up with a better opportunity for cheating. There's no ability to audit or recount, and the entire process takes place inside the computer, which is not transparent."... "
http://www.chronogram.com/issue/2006/01/news/index.php

Buying Diebold DRE machines is a great ticket for Arizona to follow in the footsteps of Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004.

I'm sure that kind of publicity is just what you're looking for? I hope not.

Please get rid of the Diebold machines."