Arizona Activists Outline Evidence of 2006 Electronic Vote Theft

By Bill Risner, Election Defense Alliance. Posted July 22, 2008.

Editor's Note: Electronic vote count fraud is very hard to prove. Yet for several years, a group of election integrity activists and Democratic Party officials in Tuscon, Arizona, have made as much progress as anyone in the country. At issue was a 2006 regional transit bond vote that was behind in pre-election polls but won on Election Day. Attorney Bill Risner, the Pima County Democratic Party, and AuditAZ, an election integrity group, sued and won the release of the vote's electronic records. That established for the first time in the country that such data was a public record. Now Risner and the activists have a sworn confession from a whistleblower who says he was told the transit bond vote count was altered and much related evidence. In this recent letter to Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, Risner asks the state to reopen its own investigation and recount the 2006 ballots.

Dear Mr. Goddard:

I sent you a short letter on July 9th, 2008, together with Mr. Zbigniew Osmolski's Affidavit,. I will be out of the County from July 15 through the end of the month. Accompanying this letter are various materials that may help you to better understand the nature of the allegations and more fully understand the past investigation by your office staff.

At the beginning of the database lawsuit, the Pima County Democratic Party, and I personally, had confidence in your Office's integrity. Additionally, I was sensitive to political currents. That is why I informally told Jim Walsh what we were finding out in our lawsuit against the Pima County Board of Supervisors. It was a "heads up" conversation relating to him that we were acquiring evidence suggestive of criminal activity but not enough in my opinion at that point for your office to open an investigation and none was requested.

Later, attorneys for the Board of Supervisors forcefully suggested that I was obligated to make a criminal complaint if I believed crimes had occurred. At that point, I made an appointment with John Evans of your Office who agreed to open an investigation. The "suspects" were listed on your office form as the "Pima County Election Division." The Pima County Democratic Party offered technical expertise. Your office chose not to accept our technical expertise and we did not complain then nor do we complain now about that decision as your office can investigate in the manner that you choose.

I subsequently had a conversation with Mr. Evans in which I asked him what our role was in the investigation. He said it was a "one way street in which he could not give me information but he could receive information from us." I then gave him the names of two witnesses including Robbie Evans, Jr., who for four years was the computer assistant to Bryan Crane. I explained that Mr. Evans, Jr. would testify that Mr. Crane regularly printed unofficial tallies or summary reports of actual votes before election day. Your Office investigators chose not to interview that witness, even though they knew his testimony would contradict Mr. Cranes' prior testimony. Instead your investigators accepted Mr. Crane's fourth different under oath story without comparison with the prior explanations nor did they question any contradictory witnesses. [Video from trial testimony of Robbie Evans, Jr., testimony of Chester Crowley and trial testimony of Isabel Araiza (20 years with Pima Election Department)]

During a subsequent conversation with Mr. Evans, I learned that your offices' report from iBeta would be provided to the suspects, but a copy would not be provided to the Democratic Party, although Mr. Evans concluded the report would be a public record, he said he would require us to retain a copy from the County suspects. I have attached several of the letters that I subsequently sent to John Evans.

I am sure you are now aware that your office joined with the suspects in a joint study, permitted the suspects to direct the investigation and gave them a copy of the investigative report before conducting any interviews. [Aug 6-Sept 13, 2007] Before commenting on the iBeta report, I would like to review the background of the decision to proceed in that manner. Mr. Evans had initially contacted Michael Shamos, a nationally known voting systems expert at Carnegie Mellon University. Mr. Evans and Mr. Shamos' e-mails are attached. Mr. Shamos immediately recommended the ballots themselves be examined as he said: "Ultimately the proof of the pudding is in the ballots." "My suggestion would be to re-tabulate from the original records. This should tell us very quickly whether the GEMS results were fudged. What is the difficulty with this approach?" Indeed!

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