AZ: FBI seizes ballots in close '04 legislative race

[Wilms]

FBI seizes ballots in close '04 legislative race

Casey Newton
The Arizona Republic

Feb. 1, 2006

Federal authorities seized ballots cast in a 2004 Republican primary on Wednesday, a move that could put to rest a long-running dispute over who won the race.

FBI agents met with staff members from the Maricopa County Treasurer's Office in the afternoon to take control over the ballots, which have been stored in a secure air-conditioned facility near Sky Harbor International Airport.

At issue is the outcome of the close race between John McComish and Anton Orlich. McComish prevailed after an automatic recount found nearly 500 new votes, reversing the initial outcome.

snip

Ever since, Orlich and his supporters have questioned how so many new votes appeared during the recount. After reviewing the voting machines used in the election, Douglas Jones, a University of Iowa computer scientist, said he could not rule out the possibility of fraud unless he examined the ballots to determine whether there had been tampering.

snip

http://www.azcentral.com/community/ahwatukee/articles/0201recount01-ON.html





2/1/2006

FBI Subpoenas Ballots from Contentious 2004 Arizona Republican Primary Election!

Expert Report Said Tabulating Machines Were 'Improperly Calibrated', But Only Examination of Ballots Can Explain Mysterious Appearance of 439 Ballots During Recount of LD20 Race!

Guest Blogged by John Gideon

As we reported in January the Maricopa County, AZ elections officials and county attorney have done all they can do to keep anyone from looking at the ballots from the Nov. 2004 District 20 race. As you may recall, the matter came into question after a recount in a Republican Primary race revealed 439 ballots magically appearing and which resulted in the final results of the election being changed. The county has even gone to the lengths of refusing subpoenas from a State Senate committee to provide the ballots, even after an expert was brought in to examine the voting machinery and found the optical scan counters completely out of calibration. The expert said that examination of the ballots was the only way to determine what had actually happened.

Today The Arizona Republic announced that the FBI has now stepped in and provided a court ordered subpoena for those ballots.

snip

http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002361.htm

[RagingInMiami]

1. I have a fantasy

That this will lead to the even bigger story of Bush's stolen election.

[Mnemosyne]

2. .

:kick:

[kster]

3. Kick-n-Recommended..nt

[druidity33]

4. I agree with Brad...

we'll see where this takes us. I'm not sure a fair investigation will come from either the DOJ or the FBI. Though the prospect is delicious that something could be uncovered. Maybe a reason to look at the source code... do we know what kind of machines these are? Diebold, ES&S? We should keep an eye on this, maybe make a little noise to make sure the recount is legit... a little transparency would go a long way here!

[OnionPatch]

5. I never really looked at this aspect of election fraud

Republican primaries! Here's hoping they'll start using their little vote-getting secrets on each other and start crying foul about the machines.

Edited to change "voting fraud" to "election fraud" before someone jumps on me for it. :spank:

[Wheezy]

6. This is my county.

For a brief second, I debated whether I should start reading the AZ Republic, but then the feeling went away, thank God.

Thanks for the link -- I hadn't heard this.

[RagingInMiami]

13. Remember

They wrote an editorial backing Bush's spying, telling the people to just trust him. They also endorsed Lieberman in the last primary. That should tell you something right there.

[Robeysays]

14. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! n/t

[John Q. Citizen]

7. An interesting mystery.

Much more on the story and the background from the one news source in the area actually covering this strange saga. They have a ton of archived articles on it stretching back to near the election.



http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/Issues/2006-01-26/news/dougherty.html

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/Issues/2006-01-12/news/dougherty.html

[Mythsaje]

8. Hmmm...

everything I've been given to understand about the Feebs is that they're real sticklers for the rule of law. They may tend toward arrogance and being tight-assed, but most of them really believe in what they're doing, and believe that they serve justice.

That's not to say that politics doesn't play a part in it all, but I think this could really be a good thing.

[MissWaverly]

10. I seriously doubt it, I smell cover up

remember the FBI investigated the fake terror alert in Warren County, Ohio, in 2004.
What was the result of that, nothing, and it was phony as can be.

[Mythsaje]

11. Yeah, the downside is that the FBI

is very hierarchal...individual agents have very little autonomy.

[MissWaverly]

12. the only thing that might help is that this is so widespread

so obivious, surely someone has to realize the implications, surely they can see this
is not a Osama issue, Osama did not sneak in there and alter those machines, this is
not National Security, it has nothing to do with terra, terra, terra. I am sure that
the FBI has been told a zillion times since 9-11 that this is National Security. This
is not National Security.

[bleever]

9. With today's "overvotes" in the Repub majority leader vote,

perhaps a new chapter begins on the unraveling of the stolen election of 2004.

:thumbsup:

[trudyco]

15. So which is the Wingnut and which is the moderate candidate?

I'm curious if it looks like the ballots were stuffed or if the machine was jinxed. And who benefitted from the altering one way or the other.

[Stevepol]

16. This may be the only way the criminality of the machines is uncovered:

two Republicans dueling in a primary. The Dems are afraid of offending their own shadows. The Repubs, arrogant and asinine and idiotic as they are, at least have enough spine to stand up for what's obvious. Here's a case where votes magically appear. It's not as bad as the 02 GA election or the 04 national election and certainly not even close to the OH referendum of 05, but IT'S TWO REPUBLICANS.

Maybe that's the only case where it will ever be investigated.

I'd be willing to bet the machines will be found at fault, as they always are. When confronted with the truth, the companies will say what they always say: that it was somebody else's fault for calibrating the machines wrong or reading them wrong or God knows what. The one thing it was not (according to the companies) is fraudulent programming or hacking or patching or just lousy machines.