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Somehow, RTA ballots must be recounted State has ongoing criminal inquiry on RTA election, Goddard confirms

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Surely there's a way to resolve continuing allegations of vote tampering in the 2006 Regional Transportation Authority election.

The official count had 60 percent of voters approving a half-cent sales tax and a regional transportation plan. Despite continued challenges and assertions about a corrupt vote, millions of dollars in work is already under way around the region. Most recently, a citizens task force presented a plan for a new six-lane Grant Road alignment (www.grantroad.info).

The ballots cast two years ago are in storage, but no one seems to have to authority to sit down and recount them.

Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard confirmed Thursday night that his office has an open investigation into criminal allegations against the Pima County Division of Elections, the Star's Andrea Kelly reported Friday.

The investigation stems from allegations the vote count was reversed, that "yes" votes were counted as "no" votes and vice versa.

The ballots, which normally would have been destroyed by now, have been preserved because the Democratic and Libertarian parties, the Pima County Board of Supervisors and the Pima County administrator all favor a recount. The RTA itself has offered to pay for a recount.

The law doesn't allow for an unofficial recount, Tucson attorney and RTA board member Si Schorr said last summer.

Goddard, Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall and county officials have all denied they have the authority to recount the ballots. Someone must get a judge to order the recount, we're told.

Unless he can demonstrate probable cause that a crime was committed, Goddard said, "I don't have the authority to count the ballots. With probable cause, we can go to the court and a judge can order it, but I cannot order it."

Kelly reported that the Attorney General's Office investigated allegations of tampering with election results on an elections division computer in May 2007, and concluded that there was no evidence of tampering.

But, she wrote, the report on the investigation said such evidence could have been manipulated, leaving the skeptical still skeptical and the allegations still alive.

Goddard said Thursday that the investigation is open and he invited anyone with information about a criminal act to come forward, according to Friday's Star.

So far the key accusation has been from Zbigniew Osmolski, a former county transportation worker, who said a county election worker he met at a bar told him the RTA election was "fixed" on orders from his bosses.

The same election worker, however, swore under oath in court that there was no deliberate improper handling of the ballots.

If nothing else, this is a story that has legs. As we say in the newspaper business: It keeps on slogging along.

But the reason it has legs is that the one action that could either silence or vindicate critics and conspiracy theorists has not been taken: There has been no official recount.

Let's figure out how to get the matter before a judge who will order an official recount — whatever it takes would seem acceptable at this point, given the toll the controversy has taken on voter confidence in elections integrity and the costs incurred by all the parties, including taxpayers.

Once an official recount is completed, we believe the entire controversy will finally fade away.