Lawsuit Alleges Voter Suppression in Arizona’s Presidential Preference Election

[Uncle Joe]

For all those Arizonans out there worried about voter suppression during the presidential preference vote, rest assured that a local activist with a history of taking on problematic elections is trying to get to the bottom of what happened here.

John Brakey, co-founder of AUDIT-AZ (Americans United for Democracy, Integrity, and Transparency in Elections) filed a lawsuit in Maricopa County Superior Court against election officials, both accusing them of misconduct and demanding a partial recount of ballots.

As New Times has written previously, Maricopa County’s attempt to save money by drastically cutting the number of polling stations for the March 22 election totally backfired. Thousands waited more than two hours to vote – some as long as five hours – and the lines at some polling stations still were wrapped around the block as the first results trickled in at 8 p.m.

What’s more, hundreds of people showed up to the polls assuming they were registered as a voter in one party only to be told they were weren’t, and therefore they could only fill out a provisional ballot – according to Dianne Post who worked at a polling station in Phoenix and filed an affidavit in Brakey’s lawsuit, this disproportionally happened to Democratic voters.

(snip)

But for those like Brakey – who told New Times that in his estimation, Arizona is one of the most corrupt states in the country – promises about future elections fall flat. He wants Secretary of State Michele Reagan to nullify her certification of the March 22 results, and he wants counties around the state to be randomly subjected to recounts.

Following those recounts, should enough precincts come up with results different from what they reported, the entire state would be subject to a re-vote.

(snip)


http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/lawsuit-alleges-voter-suppression-in-arizona-s-presidential-preference-election-8210842

This is a good article.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. So this is not a bernie sanders made up CT?

Pass me the smelling salts!!!

[Uncle Joe]

2. No, but Bernie has condemned it calling the Arizona voter suppression a disgrace

Fewer than a million Arizona residents turned out to vote in the primary, and just over 400,000 Democrats. However, there are over 3 million Arizonans registered. Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders stressed that this is a much lower voter turnout than expected and that the issues behind it need to be fixed for upcoming primaries.

Today, protesters at the House Election Committee demanded the reinstatement of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a complete count of provisional ballots, and a public random recount of unsorted mail ballots (of five precincts in both Pima and Maricopa county).

“In Arizona, 50.5% of all voters under the age of 30 are registered independent. Thousands of independents turned out and waited in line for hours, only to be told they did not have the right to vote,” stated Amanda Melcher, outreach coordinator for Independent Voters for Arizona.

“I stand outraged because what I witnessed on Tuesday took me back to the 1950s when voter suppression was at an all-time high," said Reverend Reginald Walton, a pastor at the Phillips Memorial CME Church in Phoenix. "It reminded me of the stories my grandmother would tell about living in Texas when her she wanted to exercise her rights as a young black woman in the United States of America and those rights were taken away from her.”

Arizona was one of three states that voted on Western Tuesday last week and was particularly problematic for voters, some of whom didn't even get to cast a ballot before the race was called. Bernie Sanders called the reported wait times for voters in Arizona "a disgrace" and held a press conference to respond to voters' anger with the process.

(snip)

“We do not know how many thousands of people who wanted to vote yesterday in Arizona did not vote. We don’t know if they wanted to vote for Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump or whoever; we don’t know that. But in the United States of America, democracy is our foundation for our way of life," Sanders said. “How many people simply walked away? Were they thousands, tens of thousands? I don’t know

"What happened in Arizona is a disgrace and I hope that every state in this country learns from that and learns how to put together a proper election where people can go in to vote in a timely manner and then go back to work," said Sanders.

(snip)

http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/bernie-sanders-inspires-mass-protest-against-voter-suppression-arizona

and from Hillary

[1StrongBlackMan]

5. That is not what people were saying ...

they were saying HRC and/or DWS' involvement in this debacle was made up C/T.

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. Some were saying that (and they were correct)

some here were saying this was plain out CT. Or plain out finding it hysterical,

And by the way, I won't forget that at least a faction of the democratic party... I have no cue how large, laughed when the AZ democratic party brought this issue. I take their support for voting rights to be quite situational.

Have a nice day.

[1StrongBlackMan]

10. I must have missed that and the laughing part, too.

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. You did miss that.

and those of us who are concerned with voting rights...

Like the current discussion on closed primaries, I am all for it... as long as I, as a tax payer don't have to pay for them. In fact, I urge state parties everywhere to do this, in all 50 states and territories.

I think they will suppress the vote in the GE in indirect ways, and since more and more Americans are leaving organized parties, is a sure way to shoot democrats in the foot (and democracy in the long term), but since Courts have ruled parties to be private entities, sure I want the party to be stupid and do that. It has resulted in such amazing growth for the Rs in CA we are all baffled the lights are still on.

I will be over there munching on the fun popcorn, just don't make me pay for it. (And this goes for all parties)

I know the party, or at least members are getting stupid... but I will be over there enjoying the entertainment.

[1StrongBlackMan]

19. As a tax payer, you don't get to choose what your tax dollar pays for ...

don't pay for a lot of that you not only don't like; but, opt out of ... Why should primary elections be any different.

[nadinbrzezinski]

20. The parties need to pick a lane

if you are a PRIVATE ENTITY, with freedom of association rules, as my supreme court ruled, you get to play by PRIVATE ENTITY rules. If you want to be public, or more accurately semi-public, then you get to play for the public good.

If you want to close primaries, fine by me. As a private entity you get to pay your own way. And in that case you can say who gets to play... and the government has absolutely no say. And we the taxpayers can tell you to go have your primary, without using our machines, or precincts, or registrars. That way we are all happy.

Pick a lane. Because you know what? Sooner or later we will see class action lawsuits over this shit, and in my state, there is already a precedent. When BOTh wanted to decouple the primary from the June Election, after the state said NO MORE... because it failed to make a tinkers damn of difference. the state told both parties. FINE YOU PAY FOR IT. Both sat down and did math... and went... ok.ok. we will stay in June.

[1StrongBlackMan]

21. I see what you are saying; but, your tax dollar, also, goes to a lot of private entities ...

that you have no say about.

[nadinbrzezinski]

22. Like what? Oh yeah contractors

that should stop too.

As I said, there will be lawsuits. I suspect a good lawyer and class action suit and we will magically have a lot of open primaries in CA... for the record, we have one for the democratic party. So the one to be sued at the moment would be the Rs, Green Party, I think the American Independent Party and I think Peace and Freedom.

Or they all could do caucuses for all I care.

[1StrongBlackMan]

23. Aren't you concerned with the gaming of open primaries and caucuses that we know occurs? ...

I know you are an independent ... so you likely don't care; but, this smacks of laziness: Independents want to have party influence without doing the work of building their own party.

[nadinbrzezinski]

24. Nope for one simple reason

it turns out to be mostly mythical, up there, with voter fraud. Most people who cross do it because they like the candidate and remain with that candidate for the full process. That is why I am not concerned. There have been attempts at Op Chaos, just ask Rush in 2008, but they have mostly failed. What I am concerned though is that you keep closing primaries, people lose interest in the process and they don't vote period.

That is my concern ultimately. As is primaries, opened or closed does not matter, have lower voting ratios, but the little experiment we are running in this state with state level run off voting (a republican idea actually, we are all waiting for them to sue to reverse it, kind of backfired) is actually starting to reverse lousy voting turnout. After 2017, with the Motor Voter bill, we might see another increase.

That is what concerns me. Increasing overall participation.

Here... I would like us to at least make it above South Korea.



My hope, and that is delusion, is that if people start voting more, a few more idiots will actually show up at City Council and keep an eye on government. That is the best medicine for corruption

[Gothmog]

3. It is very very unlikely that a court will order a revote

Is there a link to the actual petition. I would like to read it

[Uncle Joe]

4. Here you go, Gothmog.

http://media.phoenixnewtimes.com/5229904.0.pdf

[1StrongBlackMan]

8. Take a look at the date, signed, and Line 7.

I stopped read at page two.

[Uncle Joe]

11. I had posted the wrong lawsuit from 2010, the correct one is on post #9. n/t

[Gothmog]

17. I am not imprerssed

I was not impressed by the pleading and the supporting affidavit. The petition is largely based on the concept that all voting machines are hackable and therefore no electronic voting machines can be trusted. That concept is not going to be sufficient to get a new election. I will look later but in Texas we have to have both parties present when the voting machines are reset to zero and parity checks are conducted. This is a very boring process but is required to make sure that machines work. It took me ten seconds to find that Arizona evidently has a similar procedure https://www.cochise.az.gov/elections-special-districts/voting-logic-and-accuracy-test-scheduled-cochise-county If the procedures mandated by Arizona law were followed, then it will be almost impossible to win this lawsuit.

As someone who spent more than a few days watching these tests, I doubt that this case has any merit.

I am more hopeful about the DOJ investigation which will not result in a revote may result in a DOJ lawsuit to force the county to use an adequate number of machines in the future http://www.salon.com/2016/04/05/department_of_justice_opens_investigation_into_arizonas_election_disaster/

[Uncle Joe]

18. I suppose time will tell but it seems to me the computer hacking is only one or two charges out of

multiple allegations.

The drastically reduced number of polling places from 200 to 60 stands out to me.

There is no doubt the vote in Arizona was a catastrophe which disenfranchised thousands if not tens of thousands of Arizonians.

[Gothmog]

26. This lawsuit is poorly done

The attorney who filed this case is from a 4th tier law school and it shows.

[Uncle Joe]

9. I posted the wrong lawsuit which was from 2010, here is the current one.

http://archive.azcentral.com/persistent/icimages/politics/ElectionContestlawsuit04082016.pdf

[1StrongBlackMan]

12. Okay ... Thanks.

[Gothmog]

27. Please compare the pleadings in the lawsuit you describe to the pleadings in the Elias lawsuit

Here are the pleadings in the federal lawsuit filed by Marc Elias (the head of the Clinton Victory Counsel program). http://kjzz.org/sites/default/files/Feldman%20v%20Secretary%20of%20State%20Complaint.pdf There are significant differences in these two sets of pleadings.

[Uncle Joe]

28. I just did and you are correct about the pleadings but I noticed the Prayer for Relief section is

weaker on this lawsuit, sort of like shutting the barn door after the livestock has escaped.

There is no pleading for relief in regards to the already held Presidential Preference Election for the already disenfranchised voters as in have the election redone.

[Gothmog]

29. Because there is no legal basis for such relief

Only a lawyer from a tier 4 law school would ask for that relief. That pleading is a piece of dreck that has no chance of being granted in the real world. The few election law cases where a re-vote was granted involved fraudulent ballots or ballot stuffing and even then this relief is rarely if ever granted.

Elias asked for the relief that can actually be granted by a court. The difference between the two sets of pleadings is clear if you know the law.

[Uncle Joe]

30. Do you know what happened in this case? This wasn't ballot stuffing or fraudulent ballots.

Judge grants late voting in Adams County after ballot shortage

QUINCY, Ill. (WGEM) - Adams County voters who were turned away from the polls Tuesday because there weren't enough ballots will get a chance to vote.

Adams County State's Attorney Jon Barnard went before Judge Chet Vahle Thursday to ask for late voting. The judge granted an order for a mandatory injunction to allow late voting for limited purpose to accommodate people who tried to vote Tuesday, but weren't given a ballot.

Voting will be open between March 21 and March 25, from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the county clerk's office. Some voters will need to sign an affidavit. County Clerk Chuck Venvertloh said Thursday night it applies to those who couldn't cast their vote because ballots were not available.

"They're stating on their honor that they were in line at the polling place, waiting and waiting, but had to leave," Venvertloh said.

Barnard says the polling places running out of ballots Tuesday was unprecedented.

Barnard stated:

"The mechanics of the contemplated process will be set out in the Petition for Mandatory Injunction, which is being prepared as I write this. Those mechanics will include proposed notice to all affected voters, limitations for eligibility, hours for late voting, and dates for same. The process will essentially mimic the early voting process."

(snip)

http://www.wgem.com/story/31494922/2016/03/17/adams-county-states-attorney-pushes-for-late-voting-after-running-out-of-ballots-tuesday

But then I saw people's "updates" on Facebook—thousands of voters in the Phoenix area waited in line up to five hours. Some left, some stayed and ordered pizza, others were still in line way after polls closed at 7 p.m.

A friend of mine showed up to his polling place in Tucson only to find out a mysterious force had deleted his switch from independent to Democrat. He was sent home. It turns out numerous voters, who switched from independent to Democrat (or Republican. But most complaints appear to be coming from voters switching to Democrat, according to several reports) could not vote. In Arizona, independents are only allowed to vote in the general election. Many who thought had switched were turned away and given provisional ballots.

In Maricopa County, the Board of Supervisors in February approved Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell's suggestion to reduce the number of polling sites, according to The Arizona Republic, despite the large national voter turnout for both major parties this primary election cycle. Purcell said, "she still believed there would be more people voting by mail early than showing up at the polls." People stood in line for five hours to vote.

Pima County did well: There were twice as many polling locations than Maricopa County, even though Pima is about one-third the size of Maricopa. In 2012, Maricopa had more than 200 polling places, compared to the mere 60 this year. To illustrate the gravity, The Arizona Republic says that Maricopa had one polling place per every 21,000 voters.

It was also reported that areas that are predominately Latino got either zero or one polling place.

(snip)

http://www.tucsonweekly.com/TheRange/archives/2016/03/23/what-the-hell-happened-in-the-arizona-primary-yesterday

Whether it's a shortage of ballots or a major shortage of polling places, the end result is the same and should be treated as such.

[Gothmog]

31. That is not a re-vote

On election day the voter protection boiler rooms have pleadings ready to ask for extensions of voting hours. Often this is done without contest by the republicans or the election administrator. Back when we had precinct voting one voting location was shut down due to a SWAT standoff and we got voting extended three hours with the support and cooperation of the republican election administrator (We have an active shooter barricaded across from a polling location for two hours). You got to be prepared to file the petitions asking for extended voting hours on the day of the election.

Keeping voting open for additional hours happens all of the time and here it was justified because there were insufficient ballots but this was not a re-vote. The petition in the state court case is asking for a revote that will not happen now that the results were certified. In addition, the hours were in effect extended because people got to vote if they stayed in line. If you are in line when the polls closed, you got to vote in Arizona. Having long lines will not justify a re-vote unless everyone in line at the closing of the polls are not allowed to vote. Both of my daughters work as election judges for the March Texas primary and both had voters voting two+ hours after the polls closed.

I volunteer as a voter protection attorney every election and try to serve as an election judge at least once a cycle so that I know how the mechanics work. The state court lawsuit is not going to get a re-vote that will stand up on appeal. There is a body of law here and the facts in this case do not justify a re-vote which is why Marc Elias did not ask for this relief.

[DianaForRussFeingold]

6. K&R This could happen in the general! YouTube videos:

[Uncle Joe]

14. The first video is extremely powerful testimony, the second one with Secretary of State Reagan

looks like someone trying to pull teeth in coming up with answers.

Thanks for the addition, DianaForRussFeingold.

[DianaForRussFeingold]

25. Thank you too--for bringing this information our attention!

And, thank you for your other post! It's so important!!!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141413717

[Peace Patriot]

15. NEW YORKERS, CHECK YOUR VOTER REGISTRATION!

Same for all upcoming primaries!

There is evidence that voter registrations have been altered in New York--people who registered Democratic and find out that this has been changed without their knowledge--just as happened in Arizona. There is currently no remedy in either place. All you can do is join a lawsuit and, if this voter suppression is significant enough (as it was in AZ), try to get a re-vote. Future remedies are inadequate for voters denied the right to vote NOW, in these primaries.

[Uncle Joe]

16. + All that exists.

[Gothmog]

32. Judge tosses lawsuit challenging Arizona presidential primary results

The court just threw out this lawsuit http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/04/26/judge-tosses-lawsuit-challenging-arizona-presidential-primary-results/83561630/

After two days of testimony, a Maricopa County Superior Court judge dismissed a lawsuit filed to invalidate the March Arizona presidential preference election.

The suit was filed against Secretary of State Michele Reagan and every Arizona county by attorney Michael Kielsky on behalf of a Tucson man named John Brakey, who says his occupation is "election integrity activist." In their pleadings, they alleged that voter-registration requests were mishandled and the number of polling places in Maricopa County was improperly cut.

Hearings Monday and Tuesday were to determine if there was legal cause to go forward with trial.

The state and the counties countered that the complaint was neither timely nor adequately prepared. And they questioned whether election law applied to presidential preference elections. Judge David Gass took the matter under advisement but allowed the evidentiary hearing to go forward.....

Brakey himself asked to testify as an expert witness in the case, but said under cross-examination that he had no formal computer or legal training and that he had not published peer-reviewed books or articles on the subject. He was denied the chance to testify as an expert.

"These are always emotional issues," Gass said. "Elections are human endeavors; they are never perfect."

"Otherwise, what we face is trying to undo an election," he said. Gass acknowledged that the number of polling places was inadequate — some voters stood in line for 5½ hours — but said that such issues should be worked out ahead of time.

After the hearing, Brakey said he did not intend to appeal the ruling.

It is never a good sign when your named plaintiff wants to testify as an expert witness when he is not an expert