Perils of Poll-watching: AZ election worker ARRESTED for raising questions about tampered ballots.

September 7, 2008 at 22:20:08

Headlined on 9/7/08:
AZ Election Official Arrested for Flagging Tampered Ballots: Charged with Criminal Trespass

by Rady Ananda - OpEdNews
http://www.opednews.com/articles/AZ-Election-Official-Arres-by-Rady-Ananda-080907-77.html

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.

"I was doing my job!" Brakey said, who represented the Democratic and Libertarian parties in an official capacity at the state-mandated audit. "The first thing you do is check the seals. Are the ballot bags locked? Do the numbers on the seals match the seal number listed on the documentation inside of the bag? This lets us know that the ballots were properly stored and sealed by election workers, and arrived with chain of custody intact."

Brakey's attorney, Bill Risner, called the noon arrest "outrageous." He plans to enter his appearance on Monday and will seek a trial on this matter. He wants Nelson and the sheriffs to explain, on record, their removal of an election official who questioned improperly received ballots. Risner explained:

"It's a bad situation here. We have an incompetent Elections Director who is working against the interests of our political parties. Nelson is intentionally creating confusion and slowing things up to blame the Democrats for his own internal problems.

"I'd be surprised if the prosecution proceeds. The whole essence of the crime requires that he be shown to have been unlawfully present at the counting center."

Election Defense Alliance < http://electiondefensealliance.org/ > is covering the story and dug up this television news video ...
http://www.kgun9.com/global/video/flash/popupplayer.asp?vt1=v&clipFormat=flv&clipId1=2885099&at1=News&h1=Election%20Official%20Arrested%20At%20Voting%20Center&rnd=54025466
of the incident from KGUN TV, Pima AZ. FatallyFlawedTheMovie.com posted this lengthier video providing deeper coverage of the arrest.

Brakey noticed that seals on three ballot bags arrived broken. He then asked nine counting teams if the documentation inside the bag, known as the "End of Day Certification Reports," were properly completed. At least seven bags did not contain the legally required documentation.

Why would primary votes be tampered with; and by whom?

I had the same question: what election? The OpEd article is dated Sept. 7, 2008.

The video of the local broadcast covering the incident talks about it as "the Primary"
... so I'm not sure .. to further confuse the TV News broadcast says "with the General
Election just 4 weeks away"??? very odd. Maybe I'll do some googling to check into
it further.

Thanks for the response.

Both cities like to pretend they are in different states than the other!

from the '08 Primary. So it IS a current event, as in Brakey was just arrested this weekend.

***************************
Pima County (Tucson), Arizona Election Integrity advocate and expert John Brakey was arrested last night while performing his job as an election supervisor, on behalf of both the Democratic and Libertarian parties, during a post-election hand-count audit of ballots.

Brakey becomes the latest in a growing string of EI advocates to be arrested and/or barred from observing (Brakey was lucky enough to merit both "honors" apparently) while attempting to assure accuracy, fairness, and transparency in voting and in the reporting of election results on behalf of citizens.

The problem erupted after Brakey had noticed a number of ballot bags being counted in the post-election audit were missing their proper security seals.
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6363

phx metro/maricopa county is NOT the center of the universe:rofl:

They are called primaries too. I just had them here in Florida.

Bill Risner is a bull dog and he is a good man - proud to know him.

Which could be corrected by a slew of false arrest suits, penalizing the arresting officers with loss of their jobs and civil damages. When those cops are unemployed, homeless and begging on the sidewalk, maybe then they will appreciate what the phrase "human rights" means.