J.T. Waldron

Attorney Michael Kielsky will represent AUDIT AZ and the voting public in a suit brought against Arizona’s Secretary of State, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, the Maricopa County Recorder and possibly others with regard to the 2016 Presidential Preference Primary.

In 2008, Kielsky and AUDIT AZ worked together on a suit against Maricopa County Elections for violating state election laws by refusing to allow Libertarian Party observers into the hand count audit, performing the hand count audit before committing to the total votes, conducting the hand count away from the primary counting center and refusing to maintain video surveillance on the ballots while they were stored in the Maricopa County Sheriff’s training facility under the care and control of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

 

Here is a 2008 interview with Attorney Michael Kielsky:

The judge ruled in favor of allowing the Libertarian Party observers into the hand count audit, but refused the Plaintiffs’ proposed remedy of redoing the the hand count audit. He also refused to order Maricopa County to follow the law for elections procedures, which is probably a major contribution to the debacle in 2016.

Here is our assessment of the verdict at the time:

1. This verdict contends that because Maricopa County is such a large county, logistics and cost allow the county to ignore the statutes passed by our state representative government.

Since Maricopa is the fourth largest voting district in the United States, shouldn’t that mean they should take every measure possible to comply with state statutes designed to provide election transparency?

2. The findings of fact did not include the testimony in this case that Maricopa elections division did not sign the polling tapes.

This is an indication that there is no reliance in the hand count audit. Since emphasis on the verdict was placed on how well the hand count validated the machine count, unsigned poll tapes should at least be addressed in the findings of fact.

3. Contrary to what the verdict states, there is no evidence presented in court that the hand count in fact “validates the machine count overwhelmingly”.

There is no evidence presented in this case that shows that the hand count validates the machine count.

This lack of verification was the point of the trial. The plaintiffs demonstrated at trial that the chain of custody was compromised, so nobody can state definitively that the hand count validates the machine count. We simply do not know.

4. The sheriff’s training facility could not have been a secure facility. There were times when only the sheriff’s deputies were with the ballots. It was uncontested at trial that there was no video camera surveillance at the facility. So the court ignores the conflict of interest involved with storing ballots in a facility under the supervision of a candidate and closely “guarded” without video cameras by those that work for the candidate (Arpaio). When the court concludes that the sheriff’s training facility is a secure facility, the court is being disingenuous.

Here is the audio of John Brakey and Jim March discovering problems with the hand count audit in Maricopa County, Arizona (2008)

Who checks to see whether the votes are counted correctly in Arizona?