AUDIT-AZ’s lawsuit challenging the Arizona Presidential Preference Election (primary) began this morning and will resume tomorrow morning at 10:15 am in the same courtroom.
Join us! Watch history being made!
Judge: Honorable David Gass
Courtroom 5-A South Court Tower (Judge Myers’ Courtroom)
175 West Madison Street
Phoenix, AZ 85003
Here’s our summary of today’s proceedings:
The day began with Judge David Gass combining a number of defense motions to have the case thrown out, and denying them all, allowing us to proceed to present our case.
The first witness’s testimony was perhaps the most powerful. Dianne Post, premium poll worker in Maricopa County and herself an attorney, testified at the presidential preference election her role was to check voters in using the electronic poll book system. She testified that the system prevented her from giving the correct ballots to 36 Democratic voters. This problem may well have been repeated at the other poll book stations in the same voting center and at some or all of the other polling places.
Post further testified that her polling place ran out of ballots. As a result, hundreds of ballots were placed into ballot boxes for the wrong Congressional District. This is significant both because it’s a violation of the law and because in the presidential preference election, delegates are awarded by Congressional District. (Arizona has eight Congressional Districts. Seven of those include parts of Maricopa County.)
Poll worker Dianne Post testifies powerfully in today’s court hearing.
(Rob Schumacher/The Arizona Republic via AP, Pool)
Our Attorney Michael Kielsky and AUDIT-AZ Co-founder and plaintiff John Brakey
(Rob Schumacher/The Arizona Republic via AP, Pool)
Pima County voter Alisa Wolfe testified that her party registration had been changed without her consent. She’s one of many, many voters who have reported this problem. Alisa Wolfe took action to find out why this occurred. You may have seen her tell her story previously on YouTube.
Douglas Jones was another powerful witness for our case, even though he was limited by defense objections and unable to convey the full importance of the report by Anonymous that he wanted to bring to the court’s attention. The “hactivists” calling themselves Anonymous apparently hacked into the Arizona election system after the Presidential Preference Election to prove it could be done. Jones attests that Anonymous’s claim is plausible and that their discoveries about the AZ election system should be taken seriously.
Jones is the past chair of the Iowa Board of Examiners for Voting Machines and Electronic Voting Systems. You can read Douglas Jones’s affidavit, in our collection of exhibits, available online here (Note that this is 382 pages of evidence! Use the “find” command to search for his name.)
AUDIT-AZ Co-Founder John Brakey, the plaintiff in this case, testified today as well. The defense tried to prevent him from testifying as an expert witness. Although John has previously been certified as an expert witness, apparently the rules for certification have since changed and some paperwork was required that we hadn’t made available. As a result, John’s testimony was somewhat limited.
About the day as a whole, John says, “The judge paid very close attention, which was encouraging.” It was a great day for the cause of transparency and integrity in elections. “I’m very proud of what we did today. I’m proud of the whole team.”
The case is garnering media attention and much public support, as evidenced by the size of the audience, which filled the courtroom to overflowing even though the case had been moved to a larger courtroom to accommodate the anticipated crowd. “People are asking, who’s defending their vote?” John Brakey said.
A case as technical as some portions of this one presents a challenge for news reporters. Stories are beginning to appear in news outlets both local and out-of-state. We anticipate more stories will appear on the late news tonight and in tomorrow’s newspapers.
The proceedings today were videotaped. We’re working to obtain that video and make it available.
You’re invited to join us for tomorrow’s continuation of the case. We have more witnesses to present, and then the defense will present its case. We’ve been informed the hearing must conclude tomorrow.
Thanks to all who showed up today, to our donors, to those of you helping circulate the news about the case, and to our attorney, Michael Kielsky, who’s doing a fantastic job especially considering how quickly this case had to be put together!
The struggle for democracy, integrity, and transparency in elections is a crucial one, and we couldn’t do it without all of you! Every bit of support you offer means the world to us.
To integrity and transparency in elections,
John Brakey and the AUDIT-AZ team
P.S. If you want to see the evidence we’ve amassed for this case, you can check it out here This is all public information, so you’re welcome to share it.
P.P.S. We’ll do our best to provide updates throughout the day tomorrow on Twitter (@ForcedAgenda) and on Facebook (see links below).
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