John Dougherty   Phoenix NewTimes    06 October 2005

A monumental screw-up by the Maricopa County Elections Department will be the target of legislative hearings early next year.

State Senator Jack Harper informed me he will hold hearings about the September 2004 District 20 Republican primary recount in which 489 new votes inexplicably appeared. The sudden appearance of the additional votes changed the outcome of the election.

"I think there may be some negligence on the county's part," said Harper, who's chairman of the Government Accountability and Reform Committee.

Harper, a second-term Republican from Surprise, said he's particularly upset over the county's failure to require a representative of Elections Systems & Software, Inc. to appear in court to explain why there was such a wide variation in the total number of votes. Elections Systems' optical-scanner voting machines detected the variance between the primary and recount.

The county deliberately took steps to make sure Elections Systems employee Tina Polich wasn't served with a subpoena to appear in court to explain how the machines could've had such a wide variation in tabulating votes ("All Bark and No Bite," July 14, 2005). Although she's employed by the private company, Polich keeps an office in the elections department.

Polich's absence from a one-day hearing before Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Eddward Ballinger on September 23, 2004 to certify the results of the recount allowed Elections Systems to cover up evidence that there may have been a malfunction of a voting machine during the District 20 recount.

Polich later told investigators from the County Attorney's Office "that there could have been a malfunction with the machine," which resulted in the 18.3 percent increase in the number of early ballots during the recount.

Senator Harper said the county's contract with Elections Systems requires the company to appear in court if questions arise over the performance of voting machines. He said evidence now shows that the county actually helped the firm prevent any court appearance from happening.

"There's pretty damning evidence that the county allowed ES&S not to fulfill the terms of its contract," Harper says.

I applaud Harper for stepping up the pressure on county elections officials. I hope he gets to the bottom of a mess that's undermining the public's already flagging faith that elections can be fairly and accurately conducted in this county