Guest Blogged by David Safier of Blog for Arizona
The Pima County, Arizona, Diebold vote tabulation system was manipulated to “pass” a 2006 ballot initiative when, in fact, the measure was actually voted down, according to a startling new allegation revealed today by the election watchdog group Audit AZ.
The long-running election integrity battles in Pima flared up again this afternoon as an explosive affidavit from a former county official was released at a press conference held by the tenacious local organization. On the heels of several recent Audit AZ court victories, resulting in the unprecedented if long overdue release of mountains of previously “proprietary” Diebold election databases, today’s presser was well attended by much of the local media.
The conference was held as news comes that the ballots for the 2006 Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) election are set to be destroyed, according to a letter sent by the Pima County Treasurer to the Chair of the Pima County Democratic Party, Vince Rabago. The June 2008 letter, posted at the end of this article, says that Rabago has the right to request that the ballots not be destroyed, which would save them temporarily. Bill Risner, the lawyer for the successful suit to obtain copies of the county’s election databases, said at the press conference that the State Attorney General needs to step in and not only demand that the ballots be saved but order that they be counted to see if the total agrees with the “official” numbers that came out of the election department’s computer given the extraordinary new allegations.
The potentially explosive new piece of information introduced during the press conference was a sworn affidavit from Zbigniew Osmolski, a former Pima County employee, stating that Bryan Crane, the computer operator at the Pima County Elections Division, told him, during a conversation in a bar, that the RTA Election was “fixed…on the instructions of his bosses.”
According to Osmolski’s affidavit (posted in full at the end of this article):
The affidavit is the latest in a series of red flags concerning the RTA election. Other red flags include: (1) This was a sales tax increase, the type of vote that usually fails, and it looked like it was going down in the days prior to the election; (2) The database on the vote counting computer was erased and replaced a day into the early ballot scanning; (3) Unauthorized vote total summary reports were printed during the counting; (4) A tape of the original ballot layout stored with the Secretary of State — which could have indicated if the vote was flipped — was sent back to the County, which lost it; (5) An investigation into the election completed by the Attorney General’s office was cursory and inconclusive.
A video of the press conference is now available here…
The Osmolski affidavit and County Treasurer’s letter concerning the impending destruction of the ballots from the RTA election follow below…
I think there are hundreds it not thousands of people just like the man in this post who know elections have been bought and paid for. Check out the recent FISA vote. 2/3 of the bought and paid for dems. voted with repubs. Maybe instead of investigating….we should all start going to bars in racist states where the worst election theft goes on….just hang out. Don’t forget to include NC, the deep south , Ohio and Fl.
With McCain being from AZ, this scares me a bit.
Some Facts Related to the RTA Election
1. The RTA passed by a surprisingly large margin. Polls taken before the election showed it losing. Sales tax increases for roads had lost badly in four previous elections.
2. Election Division staff printed unauthorized vote total summary reports after the first day of RTA early ballot scanning.
3. Before the second day of RTA early ballot scanning, Election Division staff erased the first day’s database backup by over-writing it. This required responding to two warning messages, one from GEMS and one from Windows.
4. Election systems expert Michael Shamos of Carnegie Mellon advised the AG investigator of possible RTA fraud to hand count ballots, echoing advice from local election activists.
5. The AG Investigator lied to Shamos in an email, saying that “local naysayers” were onboard with not looking at ballots. The opposite was true and the investigator knew it, because he had engaged in a shouting argument with local naysayers about this issue.
6. IBeta tests conducted under contract with the AG investigator of the RTA election should have included looking for possible swapping of yes and no votes, but did not.
7. County staff directed all aspects of the IBeta testing, and led the testers to look at irrelevant items and to disregard potentially important items.
8. A whistleblower has come forward saying in a sworn affidavit that Bryan Crane told him privately that he had “fixed” the RTA election, under direction from his bosses.
9. The County Treasurer has announced a plan to destroy the RTA ballots ASAP.
10. A Microsoft Access manual was seen and photographed in the vote tabulation room on election night. Use of MS Access on an election computer was and is illegal.
11. Democratic Party observers were prevented from investigating cables connected to the tabulation computer after the RTA on the pretext that it was a non-partisan election.
12. A tape of ballot layout held by the Secretary of State for use by the Attorney General in any fraud investigation was never examined during the RTA fraud investigation where it was potentially key evidence. Instead it was returned to the suspects, who “lost” it.
13. The Pima County Board of Supervisors, through their lawyers, claimed there was a substantial risk that all election employees handling the election computer would “take the fifth” and refuse to answer questions based on a fear of criminal prosecution.
14. The Pima County Board of Supervisors has never requested an internal investigation of the Election Division.
15. Neither Brad Nelson nor Bryan Crane nor any Election Division employee has been reprimanded for any violations of rules or procedures.
16. At the end of the RTA Election Day, the database was NOT backed up, as it has been in virtually every other election. The database was not backed up until three days later, after all results had been published.
17. The Pima County Election Division purchased a “crop scanner” computer-hacking tool ten months before the RTA election. This tool had no other purpose in the Election Division than to illegally alter the programming of precinct voting machines.
18. Jim Berry retired from his job as the County Administrator’s assistant in early 2005 and was immediately hired by the County to do a precinct by precinct study of how Pima voters had voted in bond elections, and “other duties” as assigned. Mr. Berry collected $75,000 from the County for this contract, while at the same time collecting $12,000 from a pro-RTA group for helping them with the RTA campaign.
…and multiply Mr. Brakey’s findings by about…how many counties around the country? times .75, you’ll probably end up with a total shenanigans figure in the US elections.
Wow. My gratitude to the Brad Blog for keeping these issues front and center.
Hi,
If all early vote ballots are counted on election
day at their respective precincts only…
If all absentee ballots are counted on election
day at their respective precincts only…
If we rid ourselves of the provisional ballots and
alowing voters to vote with a regular ballot…
If a post election 100% “VERIFICATION COUNT” of
every position of every ballot by a manual
hand count is done…
If the VERIFICATION COUNT is performed after every
election (fed, state, county, local,,,etc.)
We will then (and only then) have our full voting
rights in reality. And the County of Pima would
not be in this mess 2 years after an election.
We Voters want our FULL rights NOW!!!
The implications are even greater than the actual statement:
“During that conversation Bryan Crane told me he “fixed” the RTA, or Regional Transportation Authority election on the instructions of his bosses and he did what he was told to do.”
“Did what he was told to do”…IMPLIES…that elections around the country are hacked “on command” of superiors, and it implies widespread knowledge of the ability to hack elections.
It also implies DIEBOLD trains election officials how to swing elections on their e-vote machines. They might “train” them how to do it, how else would they know?
Use your heads, people!
Hope everyone who never believed e-vote machine hacking, is having a ball paying higher taxes. Good for all those who never believed it! Money talks.
Maybe all it took was hitting idiots in their wallet. Tune into Rush Limbaugh…this never happened…
…and maybe let’s revisit Clint Curtis’s claims, too while we’re at it!
Brad: I agree that this is a potentially explosive story, but I have been unable to confirm that Osmolski is a former Pima County employee.
My reading of the affidavit is that he went to a bar and there met Crane who, according to Osmolski, admitted to rigging the Pima County election.
We need whistleblowers, but we need to ascertain the facts about the whistleblowers — if you have information that Osmolski worked for Pima County, that would help with the plausibility evaluation. If this was the first time Osmolski met Crane, it’s hard to understand why Crane would get to know his new buddy by confessing to a felony. If they had known each other for a while, that’s another matter.
The smoking guns are all over the place on this story, and it is not acceptable to destroy the ballots.
Why would you name your kid Zbig anyway?
Now we know who the real terrorists are! They are those who do not wage war with weapons, but rather the enemies of freedom, with the stroke of a pen.
Not a word on this in the Tuscon citizen. http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/ss/politics/
Bev –
Can’t speak specifically to the details, as this piece was edited by me but Guest Blogged by David Safier.
However, several of the local papers today reported Osmalski as a 16-year former transportation employee with the county. Also, when I spoke w/ John Brakey yesterday, he also confirmed that Osmalski was an employee, and a former one at that.
Haven’t confirmed directly or personally however beyond that. But, as mentioned, several local papers reported him as a former cty employee.
Zbigniew Osmolski blew the whistle on county road contract fixing scams– as reported in the Star around Christmas of 2000. He had confirmed to the press all the allegations made by the Pima County Transportation Director at the time, Brooks Keenan.
The FBI came in and investigated. Dan Eckstrom was implicated, however they were no indictments, but eventually Eckstrom stepped down from the board of Supervisors in mid-term, citing health reasons (but he has been healthy enough to work as a lobbyist and consultant since).
Zbigniew was technically/officially fired for insubordination, after 16 years as a county employee with an excellent record. In reality he was fired for backing up Keenan’s testimony.
Brooks Keenan would later quit and now works for the Tucson’s transportation department.
Later news reports showed the county’s messy procurement practices allowed some contracts, particularly those with campaign contributors, to balloon with little oversight. Dan Eckstrom was the Chair of the Pima County Board and a big part of that over site.
Our attorney “Bill Risner” and I stand by Zbigniew Osmolski. Soon more will be forth coming out to back up everything Zbig has stated and more.
I hope this doesn’t get swept under the rug & forgotten along with all their other crimes. I love you guys–Brad, Bev, all you fighters–
My kids are moving out of the country, expecting that one day soon they’ll shut down the borders.
Are we “just being paranoid”? Yep.
Floridiot (#4)~righto! My thoughts exactly after my neurons realigned themselves from the exploding grey matter effects of reading this story. For a moment I thought it had permanently snapped my last synaps.
Brad, Bev, Mr. Brakey–O! Do keep us up to date on this most critical of investigations.
And yes, Molly, I for one will happily volunteer to ferret out potential whistleblowers at bars in suspect states; ply them with enough Hennessey to soak their bloated conscience into speaking out involuntarily. In fact, I’m already half-way there, got the first part licked…
Don’t mind me, I’m just testing a spam treatment. Treatment testing?