Election Records are Declared Open Records
Last week between the Iowa Caucuses and the New Hampshire primary the coalition of a citizen group, AUDIT-AZ, and the the Democratic Party of Pima County (with the help and support of the Republican and libertarian parties of the county) won a stunning open records victory.
The details of this can be found a Blog For Arizona, but here is the synopsis.
Back on May 16, 2006, Pima County Arizona had a controversial tax referendum proposed by the Regional Transit Authority. The irregularities uncovered by AUDIT-AZ prompted the local Democratic party to join in a open records request to release the election databases which produced these anomalous log entries to the three parties of standing in Pima County: Democratic, Republican, and Libertarian.
For two years they slogged while Diebold (now Premier) and the Pima county election staff stated election data was a trade secret or that releasing the election data posed a national security risk.
In the interum, there was a questionable
The Judge in a very conservative decision ruled otherwise. He order the release of only the databases subject to the matter directly before him and made no sweeping statement about the other databases from other elections asked for in other legal actions.
After much passionate discussion (see video here)the day, the Pima County Board of Elections over-ruled their staff and directed than not only the court ordered database be released to the three political parties, but all databases requested over the last two years should be released as well. This effecteively ended all of the open records lawsuits pending before the Board of Elections.
The transfer of data was completed Friday, January 11, 2008. The next step is for academics and interested parties from around the country to study the data. I look forward to see the contents of the wiki proposed as the organizational structure presented and available to the general public.
The details of this can be found a Blog For Arizona, but here is the synopsis.
Back on May 16, 2006, Pima County Arizona had a controversial tax referendum proposed by the Regional Transit Authority. The irregularities uncovered by AUDIT-AZ prompted the local Democratic party to join in a open records request to release the election databases which produced these anomalous log entries to the three parties of standing in Pima County: Democratic, Republican, and Libertarian.
For two years they slogged while Diebold (now Premier) and the Pima county election staff stated election data was a trade secret or that releasing the election data posed a national security risk.
In the interum, there was a questionable
The Judge in a very conservative decision ruled otherwise. He order the release of only the databases subject to the matter directly before him and made no sweeping statement about the other databases from other elections asked for in other legal actions.
After much passionate discussion (see video here)the day, the Pima County Board of Elections over-ruled their staff and directed than not only the court ordered database be released to the three political parties, but all databases requested over the last two years should be released as well. This effecteively ended all of the open records lawsuits pending before the Board of Elections.
The transfer of data was completed Friday, January 11, 2008. The next step is for academics and interested parties from around the country to study the data. I look forward to see the contents of the wiki proposed as the organizational structure presented and available to the general public.
posted by John Washburn | 10:34 PM
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