Pima County Election Integrity Blues on Trial

Please see the Election Integrity Homepage for complete coverage and the latest news.

Starting today, BlogForArizona will be given over to live blog coverage of the lawsuit by the Pima County Democratic Party against Pima County, Arizona, seeking to force the county to respond to a public records request for the databases containing the actual vote totals from recent elections, and to continue to provide copies of that data to all political parties in future elections.

12/4, 7:01am: It is still undetermined whether the judge will be allowing video and audio recording, or live blogging in the courtroom. My request for media pool access is still being considered pending input by the parties at this mornings initial hearings at 8:30am. My first updates will likely be about media access to the trial. LinkTV, Robert Greenwald, are confirmed for the press pool, with Dan Rather's HDNet show also being interested. In addition several local media outlets and a number of internet outlets are interested in covering the trial. Hopefully that broad interest will help convince the judge that media access is warranted.

I discussed the trial with Cynthia Black of Air America's Action Point show on Sunday: Download CynthiaBlack_MichaelBryan_1207.mp3

If you are local and would like to observe the trial, here's the info:

Scheduled for Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 
Starts December 4th, 2007 at 8:30 a.m.
Superior Court, 6th Floor
110 West Congress
Tucson, Arizona
Judge Michael Miller

I wrote a summary of the issues up to now, and the attorney for the Pima County Democratic Party in this case, Bill Risner, gives a great preview of the case in the following interview with Tucson's own John C. Scott: Download bill_risner_on_john_c_scott_show.wmv

Or see the slideshow version:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Tune in next week, or sign up for email or RSS delivery of posts to keep abreast of the trial as it happens next week. I will be cross-posting daily coverage of the trial on Brad Friedman's election-integrity-focused BradBlog, as well.

Though this lawsuit has obvious import for the security of our votes all across Arizona, it also has a national importance. I've been informed by election integrity activists that almost every state in the nation has electoral districts using this same fundamentally flawed software, GEMS, to count their citizens' votes. If you think hanging chads were bad, that was nothing in comparison to millions of Americans votes being vulnerable to manipulation and outright theft by unscrupulous and unaccountable elections insiders, who often as not have a political ax to grid. This lawsuit may awaken voters and activists around the nation to the danger to our democracy posed by election tabulation software with less security built in than the browser or email program with which you are reading this post.

The fundamental issue at stake in this lawsuit applies to every electoral district in this country: does the public have the right to verify the result of our elections, or must we simply trust that bureaucrats are doing their jobs competently and honestly?

I strongly feel that the public has the right expect the same degree of openness and accountability regarding the computer systems that count our votes that we have always enjoyed over every other step of the election process. The American tradition is that when it comes to elections we follow Ronald Reagan's famous paraphrasing of Russian folk wisdom: trust, but verify. The more eyes that are on the ball, the less chance there is for anyone to cheat.

Elections officials, either because of the natural tendency for bureaucracies to want to hide information to limit accountability, or through sheer incompetence to make wise decisions regarding the security of the computer systems they purchase and employ, or simply due to arrogance, have been systematically trying to close the electronic processes at the heart of our modern elections to public scrutiny. We would never tolerate such secrecy regarding the handling of ballots, or the oversight of a polling place, yet we seem willing to tolerate it regarding the computers and programs that actually tell us what the vote totals are.

In hundreds of counties around the nation, there are administrators like Chuck Huckelberry crossing their fingers, hoping that what is happening in Pima County doesn't spread to their county. If Pima County sets a precedent that the public can't be denied access to the very data that determines the outcome of our elections, such wise policy will spread, and any systems that cannot provide both security and transparency, must rightfully fall into disuse.

GEMS is just such a system; it is not secure, and cannot be made secure. Pima County will maintain in this lawsuit that the only way to keep GEMS secure is to keep it secret; that is a lie. Even keeping GEMS data secret and locked away can only hope to secure against outside manipulation; our voting data still remains fundamentally vulnerable to manipulation and corruption by those inside the elections process.

How can we hold insiders accountable without the oversight that Pima County claims will destroy the security of GEMS? We can't. And that's the problem with GEMS. It cannot provide both security and transparency. We can have the illusion of security through secrecy and a profound vulnerability to insider corruption due to lack of oversight, or we can have transparency and a general awareness that our elections computer systems are fundamentally flawed as to security. Pima County desperately wants to avoid the latter, because that realization by the public will almost certainly come with a demand for accountability for such a poor outcome. Accountability is last thing any bureaucracy wants.

The only way to reconcile security and transparency is to replace the GEMS software, which Pima County is now making noises about doing after the 2008 election, due in large part, I suspect, to this lawsuit. Is that soon enough for you? Do you want Presidential contests across the nation tabulated on systems that allow insiders to manipulate counting with no way of detecting such manipulation? The scale of the problem make hanging chads, caging lists, and unauditable DRE machines (which few jurisdictions use more than a handful of because of their cost) look positively Lilliputian.

This trial should prove edifying. I hope you'll tune in to find out if the public's interest in oversight of our elections wins over the bureaucracy's right to keep secret the very life-blood of our democracy - our votes.

Comments

[John R Brakey]

Yes, this is a huge case that could have national consequences, and the Defendant 'Pima County' has nothing except "SECURITY THROUGH OBSCURITY" as a defense.

Through the Diebold/GEMS audit logs we have found huge problems such as the illegally printing of ‘election summary reports’ from the early processing of vote by mail ballots, the possibility of vote flipping and/or hacking, we need the databases to confirm the election fraud.

Mark Kimble Associate Editor, Tucson Citizen, June 7, 2007 wrote a piece and you can read it by goggling: “Kimble: Does the RTA vote really add up?” You’ll see part of one Diebold/GEMS audit log and problems mentioned above.

If "We the People" win we get access to databases going back to May of 1997.

The right of "We THE PEOPLE" to access a computer database is pivotal to the upcoming three day trial, December 4-6.

Our elections must rest on verification, NOT blind trust. Fact is until now, no one has been asking questions or holding the election department accountable.

The public right to have access to information reduces temptations for insiders to cheat during high stakes elections.

If 'WE THE PEOPLE' prevails in this important case, the decision will set an important precedent that it is vital for 'WE THE PEOPLE' to be able to analyze the electronic, debris, left over from high-tech voting.

William 'Bill' Risner Esq., the Pima County Democratic Party, its Election Integrity Committee (PCDP-EIC), EDA, Black Box Voting and AUDIT-AZ is fighting for the people's right to see that elections are conducted transparently and fairly so that we can lay to rest doubt about anyone's motives or actions.

Yes, Margaret Mead was right: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has"

Please be one of those citizens and be with us in court: Tuesday; December 4th, 2007 at 8:30 a.m.
Superior Court
Judge Michael Miller 6th Floor
110 West Congress
Tucson, Arizona

Any question call me; 520 578-5678 Cell 520 250-2360

Hope, Peace and Democracy,
John R Brakey
AUDITAZ@cox.net

[Frank Henry]

Hi All,

Lets hope all Arizona voters win this one.

Thanks and Good Luck.

[Duke the Dog]

I find this quite funny yet sad at the same time.

Pima County is in the control of the Democrat Party (3 of the 5 Supervisory seats). They can quickly remedy this problem in two ways. One is Fire Prince Huckleberry, the other is institute a policy of independent audit/oversight wrapped around strict security.

Why the GOP didn't jump on board with this escapes me. This would be a great way to expose crap the Democrat county supervisors let Chuck the Huck get away with.

Where is Ray Carrol? Where is Ann Day? Where is Mayor Bob, Judy White? Bruce Ash, Jonathan Payton, Tim Bee, Marian McClure? All should be out there screaming about this.

Sorry Mike, this is not an indictment of the Diebold machines but of the process the county uses to tally and track votes. Counting votes during the mail in period prior to the official Election Day would clearly help candidates and ballot initiative chairs with last minute media blitzes if they had access to data and it would also open the door to manipulation (RTA vote?).

I'm glad the Dems had the guts to stand up and fight their own party to get this straightened out.