No Vindication

I have great respect for Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry. I really do. However, I don't know what in the hell he was thinking when he told (what's left of) the Tucson Citizen that Attorney General Terry Goddard's investigation into the 2006 Regional Transportation Authority vote "vindicated" the county.

Goddard's ballot look-see proved that the 2006 RTA vote was indeed counted properly. However, Goddard's investigations also pointed out serious security issues in the Pima County vote-counting process. Thankfully, many of these issues have been addressed, to the credit of Huckelberry and other county officials.

However, these security improvements don't change the fact that Elections Division employees were doing some really, really stupid things before the election-integrity folks started squawking—like taking home elections files for no reason, and futzing around with a crop scanner, a device known to be helpful in election-hacking efforts.

A few members of the elections-integrity crew act like complete nutballs, and some of them (particularly John Kromko) acted appallingly by pronouncing falsely that they KNEW that the RTA election was fixed. However, I've said it before, and I'll say it again: The election-integrity crew also deserves thanks from all Pima County citizens for bringing up these election-security issues and forcing change.

Meanwhile, I still don't know why some people in the Elections Division, like head honcho Brad Nelson, still have their jobs after all of these revelations.

The results of the RTA election have been confirmed. But there's no vindication here.