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For Immediate Release – June 3^rd, 2008

Media Contact: Vince Rabago, Chair: 520- 861-0833

MEDIA RELEASE

Board of Supervisors accepts the Judge’s ruling and ends public records lawsuit: votes to release all past and future electronic election records to the Democratic Party

Tucson, AZ (6/3/08) Today the Pima County Board of Supervisors voted to accept the judge's ruling in a public records case, conceding a hard-fought legal victory won by the Democratic Party to obtain access to electronic election records, both past and future. The records will be released by June 9th, 2008.

In May, a judge ordered the release of past and future electronic election databases, after the county failed to prove there was any security risk to future elections by releasing the records.

Vince Rabago, Chairman of the Pima County Democratic Party, applauded the vote and declared, “It was long past time for the board to end this unnecessary fight and cauterize the self-inflicted wound the Board caused to themselves and the public by refusing to disclose public election records.” Raabago added, “It's a simple proposition. If you are going to have electronic voting and election records, you need electronic oversight by the public. The release of the records is an important step toward more accountability, oversight, and transparency in our election process.”

Since late 2006, the local Democratic Party sought the public records to conduct its statutory oversight role, after finding anomalies in post-election data. Pima County refused to release the records, forcing the Party to file a public records lawsuit. After a four-day trial in December, the judge ordered the release of the 2006 primary and general election databases. On January 8, 2008, the Pima County Board of Supervisors was met with public pressure from citizens, including representatives from the Democratic, Republican and Libertarian parties, and agreed to go beyond the judge’s initial ruling by releasing records for the 2006 RTA election. A week later, Supervisors Bronson, Valadez and Day reversed course and voted to continue fighting to keep past and all future election records secret.

On May 5, 2008, the Democratic Party went back to court seeking records dating back to 1998 and the ability to obtain records in future elections. The Party presented testimony from national experts that there was no security risk from releasing the databases. The judge decided in favor of full disclosure, and amended his earlier ruling to release all past and all future electronic election records as well.

Today's vote to end the case includes paying approximately $228,000 in legal fees to the Democratic Party's attorney, as required by Arizona law whenever a public entity wrongfully refuses to turn over public records. It is unclear how much money the county spent on fighting the losing battle: the county had 3 to 5 attorneys working on the case.

Still pending is the judge's decision to award attorney fees in a related public record victory by the Democratic Party to obtain previous records of "early voting" summary reports that tell who is winning or losing when printed, which were apparently improperly printed early by a county employee days before election day in the 2006 elections and later hidden from view in sealed ballot boxes (ordinarily sealed by law absent an election challenge). Those reports will be released on June 25th, 2008.