Multipartisan plaintiff group challenge to AZ SOS recount in Barber/McSally race UPDATE 8:20 pm MST, 12-2-14

Late Monday afternoon, Tucson attorney Bill Risner filed a Special Action petition for a writ of mandamus in the Arizona Supreme Court seeking to ensure the statutorily required recount in the Barber/McSally race be conducted lawfully.

The action, CV-14-0319 lists seven plaintiffs, three Democrats, one Republican, one Green, one Libertarian and one Independent.

Additional documents include:

• Appendix to the special action
• Request for interlocutory stay
• Request for oral argument
• Declaration of expert Duncan Alan Buell (filed with the appendix) 

The petition argues that the recount procedure the Secretary of State along with Pima and Cochise counties plan to implement violates Arizona Revised Statutes § 16-664.

C. The programs to be used in the recount of votes pursuant to this section shall differ from the programs prescribed by section 16-445 and used in the initial tabulation of the votes.

From the petition,

Plaintiffs allege that the Secretary of State intends to then exceed his legal authority and to violate A.R.S. § 16-664. It is of statewide interest that the recount proceed according to law and that the process not be repeated because the Secretary of State intends to ignore the statutory requirements of a recount.

The two counties directly involved are in one court of appeals and the Secretary of State in another. A uniform interpretation of our recount statutes is of state wide importance. Finally, a recount that confirms the accuracy of the vote count as required by statute to protect the purity of electronically counted elections is fundamental to our democratic system.

It doesn't appear that the Arizona Republic has yet caught wind of this special action. This recount will become a national story and the lawsuit will be subject to widespread scrutiny.

Stay tuned for more, either here or in national media.

The Brad Blog has a more detailed explanation of the issues surrounding the CD2 recount.

The Arizona Republic, in a sort of related story, on early ballot counting delays, quotes pollster Earl de Berge,

Pollster Earl de Berge, research director for Phoenix's Behavior Research Center, said the public is skeptical that elections represent the true will of the voters — and that the election results are not manipulated by those in power. Delayed early-ballot counts fall into that line of thinking, he said.

However, he said the Barber-McSally recount will allow voters to see what actually happened in the race, showing that their votes really do count at the end of the day.

Such skepticism is magnified by election issues in Pima and Cochise counties during recent elections. Cochise County had to pull its results down off the secretary of state's website and restate them in the primary, and had to send ballots to Graham County on Election Night to have them double-checked.

Meanwhile, Pima County "found" 213 extra ballots cast in the Barber-McSally contest just as it was finishing the count in that race. The ballots had been put inside special school-district election envelopes from the Green Valley area that had been set aside to be counted later.

Those comments underscore the serious nature and critical importance of protecting election integrity. Unfortunately, the wrong person was elected to actually do anything substantive to improve the situation.

UPDATE           UPDATE           UPDATE

The Arizona Republic reported this afternoon that, in a two-page order signed by Justice Ann Scott Timmer, the state Supreme Court,

In a brief two-page order, she dismissed the request without detailed explanation, saying it was considered by the full court. McSally's legal team opposed the lawsuit, the order noted. 

Elsewhere a recent report published by The Intercept decries the fact that "Hackers could decide who controls Congress thanks to Alaska's terrible internet ballots."

This is no joke, people. It is also NOT a crazy conspiracy theory. It's based on analysis of election systems worldwide by computer scientists.

When Alaska voters go to the polls tomorrow to help decide whether the U.S. Senate will remain in Democratic control, thousands will do so electronically, using Alaska’s first-in-the-nation internet voting system. And according to internet security experts, including the former top cybersecurity official for the Department of Homeland Security, that system is a security nightmare that threatens to put control of the U.S. Congress in the hands of foreign or domestic hackers.

Every American voter should be very concerned about the many ways our election systems can be compromised. The only remedy, ultimately, is eternal vigilance.