I live in Tucson, AZ, home of the successful Democratic Party lawsuit against the county elections commissioner last spring. My friend John Brakey, who discovered evidence in 2004 of precinct level vote count discrepancies, and has worked tirelessly since to be sure our votes are counted, was arrested Saturday while questioning the chain of custody of bags of ballots. There is a complete account, published on Op-Ed News, shown below the fold.
All the campaigning and sloganeering in the world will not help if we can't trust that our votes are counted.
John Brakey found evidence of vote tampering in 2004 by going through the trash of his precinct after the polls had closed, and thus started his hero's journey, networked with many other heroes across the country to restore our confidence in our democracy. He is fond of saying, "This is not a matter of right or left, it is a matter of right or wrong."
The NONPARTISAN election integrity movement has been a grassroots and netroots attempt to stave off another stolen election. It has been treated as "tinfoil hat" extremism by much of the national Party and of elected Democrats around the country for several years, but is becoming an increasingly well understood problem. In Arizona, activists have been worked successfully with elected state officials from both parties to assure we got at least a paper ballot and random automatic recounts to protect us.
Just imagine the last four or eight years had Gore or Kerry been in the White House rather than the crooks that went instead And the results of Congressional and Senatorial races have also been called into question.
It has been an uphill battle to get the public to understand the grave threat to our democracy from stolen elections...not just voter caging, not just inadequate voting equipment in Democratic precincts, and all the other dirty tricks, but actually changing the vote count, both by electronic and physical machinations...precinct by precinct... in ways that are hard to catch...
In Pima county, we have paper ballots that are read by a scanner, so that the chain of custody of the ballots from the precinct to the central computers is important.
Pima County, Arizona experienced a 24% turnout on September 2nd of 471,187 registered voters. Two-thirds cast "early" ballots while the rest voted at the polls. All the votes were counted on Diebold-Premier optical scanners. Diebold-Premier recently admitted a flaw in its GEMS program that drops votes, which the company said could not be fixed before November's presidential election. The flaw exists on all Diebold voting products sold in the last ten years.
AZ Election Official Arrested for Flagging Tampered Ballots: Charged with Criminal Trespass
http://www.opednews.com/...
During Saturday's audit of Pima County ballots from Arizona's primary election, official observer John Brakey was forcibly removed by sheriffs when he raised questions about possible ballot tampering. At least seven ballot bags arrived unlocked or lacked proper chain of custody documentation. Elections Director Brad Nelson had Brakey arrested and charged with criminal trespass.
There have been some excellent lists of media email, and the story of a (another???) possibly stolen election must become part of the conversation BEFORE November 4. So please be on the lookout for stories to feed them that will alert them to possible shenanigans.
I have one by diarist robertacker13 as a comment in this diary: http://www.dailykos.com/...