Sunday,

J anuary 1 8, 2 015 at 1 0:28:22 A M M ountain Standard Time

Subject: FW: Egregiously unfair and inaccurate Editorial on Mizel and Pueblo elec9on
Date: Sunday, January 18, 2015 at 10:27:52 AM Mountain Standard Time
From:

Marilyn Marks

From: Marilyn Marks

Date: Wednesday, January 14, 2015 at 1:40 PM
To: "shenson@chieKain.com" <shenson@chieKain.com>
Cc: Harvie Branscomb
Subject: FW: Egregiously unfair and inaccurate Editorial on Mizel and Pueblo elec9on
Mr. Henson,
Please see the letter I sent to the Denver Post regarding their editorial.
Im very disappointed in the Chieftain for such slanted reporting and taking the side of those who would
skew our elections against those who are attempting to obtain some election transparency.
I cannot begin to understand why a well-respected newspaper has taken such a consistently slanted
view against election fairness.
Marilyn Marks
970 404 2225

From: Marilyn Marks

Date: Wednesday, January 14, 2015 at 11:31 AM
To: Vincent Carroll Alicia Caldwell
Cc: Harvie Brancscomb
Subject: Egregiously unfair and inaccurate Editorial on Mizel and Pueblo elec9on
Vincent and Alicia,
Sometimes we are misled into supporting a harmful agenda without recognizing the goals of those who
fed us information. I believe that is what happened to the Denver Post here in accepting Progress
Now's and Clerk Ortizs attack on citizen election oversight in the anit-Mizel opinion piece. The goal of
the accusers is to shut down election transparency. The DP should be very aware of the full story here.
The DP has now been unwilttingly complicit in encouraging election malfeasance and discouraging
transparency and citizen oversight.
Those who are close to the situation and facts (including Republicans, American Constitution Party
members, unaffiliateds, watchers for Libertarian and Green Parties, and expert election consultants)
recognize that the Pueblo election was one of the most questionable, unverifiable, unlawful and highly
irregular elections we have seen in the state in recent times. Those who tried to bring transparency to
this election were threatened, ridiculed and repeatedly denied access to the point that the citizen
watchdogs were publicly perceived as the bad guys. The attempt to have a recount to try to expose the
highly questionable data and processes was met with the Clerk being allowed to price the requestors out
of the recount, by demanding extreme high prices for services that are actually banned by SOS Rules.
In the end, after being harassed, marginalized, and threatened with litigation, and exorbitant recount
prices, the recount requestors had to back down and just let it go. And the public will never know what
the recount would have revealed.
Throughout the experience the experts, canvassers, watchers were harassed and called names by
partisan operatives who were fighting election oversight at every moment.
So little research has been done by the DA or the press about the fact that the document that Mizel took

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from the room (by mistake) would be a meaningless and in no way worth taking in a questionable
manner. All she had to do is ask for a copy if she wanted one. She obviously thought that the printout
was hers to take. No person would risk stealing a record they could easily get a copy of. Particularly
stealing it on video recording that she had arranged. Canvassing documents are ALL public and
generally many copies are made of all of them for the participants to review.
While I was not present during the canvass board meetings, long time Democrat and election expert
Harvie Branscomb was there beside Becky Mizel and handling the same papers also as a authorized
watcher. I was on the phone by Skype for hours of the various canvass board meetings and texting and
emailing with Becky, Harvie, Suzanne Staiert (the deputy SOS), and others during many of the
procedures of canvass. I have seen the distressing videos of the obstruction the watchers had to
tolerate. I have a pretty accurate sense of what went on. The DP, Chieftain and the DA have it
backwards because of drawing conclusions from a snippet of out of context information. And erroneous
information at that.
Scores of documents were being reviewed at that canvass board tables by canvassers and watchers.
Most were copies and virtually ALL were just printouts of computer files that can be easily printed again
by hitting the print button. As I understand it, there were no markings to note the original from the many
copies. The documents were certainly not confidential as they were being used in a public meeting,
and in the canvassing operation. It would be very rare indeed for a canvassing activity to require any
confidential records. There should be almost NO confidential election records anyway. I urge you to
CORA request that document and you will see that there is no private information on it. And you will see
that it is NOT a document worth taking.
It would be much like the DP editorial board meeting to review a guest opinion piece sent by email with
paper copies provided to each member of the board. Someone walks away with the original that looks
just like every other copyand someone tries to claim someone else stole" the original document.
Mizel was handed a stack of documents by expert election auditor Harvie Branscomb (a life-long
Democrat), and she was reviewing them for anomalies. In this stack of papers was this claimed original
document. She would have had no way to distinguish it from any other of the public document copies
there. And virtually no reason to think that any of the documents were worth taking and creating any
risk.
The reason that the watchers were removed from the table (where they have every reason to be) and
asked to leave and remove their papers was because of the embarrassing fact that the tabulations by
precinct were not reconciling. Ortiz went on the attack against the watchers rather than addressing the
inaccurate data.
The editorial board should be aware that in 2013 Ortiz sent the DA after me attempting to charge me with
a crime of Tweeting out interim election results after 7 pm on election night before Ortiz announced
them. Of course there is absolutely NOTHING wrong, (and much to be said for) publicly displaying
interim results as they come in. In fact, in the City of Pueblo municipal elections, the law still REQUIRES
that partial results be posted on the door of the polling place for the public to see. The state law also
required it until recently. And there is surely NOTHING in the law that prevents public knowledge of Vote
Center level results after they are run at 7 p.m. But because of the harassment of the DA, I had to
engage a criminal defense attorney to handle thisalbeit he made short work of it. The point is that
Pueblo is consistently using thuggery to obstruct reasonable election oversight.
The high pressure tactics on this canvass board on certification day were unbelievable. Some members
signed the certification statement with comments that they were signing under duressbecause of
legal threats, etc. if they did not sign. Knowing what I know about the details of that election, I would have
never signed the certification had I been a canvass board member. What transpired would be beneath
the dignity of most banana republics. If the people of Colorado knew what REALLY went on in that
room over the course of many days, they would lose all confidence in the election process. The
presence of the SOS should not be taken as an indication of proper oversight. SOS was insistent that
the board certify and all problems be swept under the rug.

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The sad truth is that investigating the fairness (or not) and accuracy of an election is extraordinarily time
consuming and beyond the reach of most newspapers. Yet there is nothing more important to a
functioning democratic nation than fair elections. Attacking those who are attempting to bring
transparency and expose the problems is attacking self-governance itself. In this case, the Denver Post
has been unwittingly co-opted into attacking transparency, verifiability and citizen oversight of elections.
Who now will dare stand up to the thugs who improperly control some elections in this state?
To prove the point, the City of Pueblo is having a real election in 2 weeks. Ortiz is conducting it for the
city under a set of bogus, made up, unlawful rules, that are sure to impact the result. (They will even
decide AFTER the votes are first tabulated whether to count ballots of newly improperly registered
voters!). When the voters learned of the improper rules planned, they chose not to even protestas they
knew that they would be harassed, marginalized and attacked by the newspaper if they do. Some of the
recall leaders have told me, we just have to accept the fact that it will be an unfair election here. That is
what we have come to expect and know that there is nothing we can do without putting ourselves in
harms way, and attacks in the press. The Denver Post in todays editorial merely reinforces such
resignation to unfair elections and an unlawful scheme.
Please reconsider your position in this editorial.
See Harvie Branscombs comments below. He was a constant eye-witness to the events. And definitely
NOT politically aligned with Mizel.
Marilyn Marks

From: Harvie Branscomb

Date: Wednesday, January 14, 2015 at 12:34 AM
To: Vincent Carroll
Cc: Marilyn Marks
Subject: Fwd: [Colorado Voter].4785 Pueblo Poli9cal Party Chair forewarns of CORA release
Vince
I am writing to you because I know you. Perhaps you are not responsible for what concerns me.
Your paper's provocation for a prosecution of Becky Mizel is beyond the pale and I would know having
been sitting next to her at the meeting where her supposed crime took place. She arranged for the video
that is being offered as evidence against her- I argued that the video should be made public - and the
DP editorial board is making presumptions without learning enough facts.
It disappoints me when I have personal knowledge that a newspaper is in error and misleading perhaps
hundreds of thousands of people.
Please reconsider after a bit more research.
What follows is a message I wrote to Progress Now giving them enough facts that they could have called
off their attack.
I have posted it to the DP blog along with a few other comments. I would suggest taking a look there.
Harvie Branscomb

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-------- Forwarded Message -------Subject:[Colorado Voter].4785 Pueblo Political Party Chair forewarns of CORA release
Date:Sat, 27 Dec 2014 11:45:43 -0700
From:Harvie
To:Colorado Voter Group (ColoradoVoter@googlegroups.com)
<ColoradoVoter@googlegroups.com>
CC:Maria Handley <maria@progressnowaction.org>, alan@progressnow.org, Becky Mizel ,
michael@huttnergroup.org, Harvie Branscomb
I was at most of the Pueblo Canvass Board meetings as a watcher for Libertarians and Greens. During
the first of three meetings dedicated to canvassing two printouts were placed by Clerk Bo Ortiz on the
table near myself and Becky Mizel amid other printouts. We had been allowed to sit at the table as
watchers because we were previously limited to looking over board members' shoulders to see the
preprinted notebook provided to board members. By then we had been given our own copies also on the
table.
I suggested to Becky to look over the two printouts for any anomalies. One of two was a basic unadorned
unofficial printout from the Sequoia Optech scanner of precinct level results for over 50,000 ballots. The
other a print of DRE results by precinct. In Pueblo there is significant use of DRE.
They were placed by Bo Ortiz on the table for review and were the only "original" election records
provided to the canvass other than 11 ballots that had not yet been counted. (There was the preprinted
abstract too that was provided to board and later to watchers at the table.)
When I later asked, Bo gave me the reason for his concern after the incident. Bo said that the two
printouts were original election records and were not to be removed. His reason was not voter privacy
but the arbitrary (and unannounced) fact that the county printed only one copy of each precinct report.
Perhaps just to save paper or to limit opportunities for pre-certification review?
Therefore each printout was considered by clerk Ortiz to be an "original" election record even though
another identical copy could easily be obtained. They had not been marked or announced as rare
originals. Later another identical copy was produced with a large stamp indicating: "COPY". I thought that
was either hilarious or pathetic. When Bo pursued a witch hunt to regain control of his unique-by-design
copies of a public record and then pursued Becky through the DA I realized it was only pathetic.
Yes it is true Bo Ortiz prevented everyone's departure and opened the door only when the mail ballot
precinct report was found and returned by Becky.
No truly original irreplaceable records - seal logs or inventory manifests or cure letters etc. were made
available to the canvass board in any way at meetings I attended ( unlike in other more transparent
counties.) Not even in the same room. The closest approach to a pollbook for the canvass board was an
aborted attempt to reconcile cast ballots for five precincts using SCORE reports created on the fly.
Printed SCORE voter list reports for the 5 precincts were delivered only to canvass board members and
then immediately taken away. If any records were made available at the final meeting where the board
was pressured to certify these were only made available through SOS staff who sadly chose not to dig
beyond the surface.
The amount of disruption by decision of the clerk of access by canvass board and watchers to election
records in Pueblo was phenomenal, outrageous and dangerous. The three appearances of SOS
personnel in Pueblo did help some but in reality little to improve transparency and in some cases
worsened it. Pressure? A well known partisan lawyer was carrying in hand a civil suit against
conservative canvass board members ready to file if the outcome did not treat the dominant party in

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Pueblo as they are accustomed to.

Progress Now would be on the wrong track to election quality if they think pursuit of this case will be
beneficial. I guess nothing will come of it.
See the link below for other ProgressNow hijinks. (BTW I have been a ProgressNow suporter). This isn't
how election quality advocates act. It ought not be how progressives act. Its not how I would want
anyone attempting to represent me to act:
http://blogs.denverpost.com/thespot/2014/12/24/progressnow-spokesman-offers-scott-gessler-seasonalgreetings-twist/115881/
I'm not impressed that this is considered to be a story in the Denver Post either.
Perhaps ProgressNow will find a way to conract Becky Mizel for her perspective and pursue election
transparency improvement. We dearly need it.
Best wishes for a rational patient constructive transparent progressive new year.
Harvie Branscomb
progressive but probably not ProgressNow, thank you very much

From: Becky Mizel

Sent: Friday, December 26, 2014 12:27 PM
Subject: Fwd: Update
Friends,
I hope all had a joyous Christmas with friends and family and are now looking forward to a prosperous
New Year! Again we would like to thank all of our wonderful candidates and membership for the support
and on-going efforts of having a dynamic presence in our community! It is very appreciated.
Most of you realize the certification process of the election by our canvassing team was to put it mildly a
contentious one. Some of you are aware during this process while sitting at the table with Ron Schwartz,
Normagene Ricci and our election expert Harvie Branscomb we were reviewing numerous copies of
election information spread across the table. I inadvertently placed two of these copies in my stacks of
files. I was not aware at the time these copies laying all over the table were not for our personal
information. We had a video producer we had hired all within three feet of me that showed me looking at
the copies and placing them within my other files. During this time Clerk Ortiz became upset and angry
when precinct data did not reconcile and at that point had myself, Ron, Normagene and Harvie removed
from the table and told we could no longer speak in the meeting. In this chaos I had left these copies of
files among my other papers on the table. Shortly after this the canvassing meeting ended the
atmosphere was hostile as the election was not certified.. At this time Clerk Ortiz announced all copies
were not turned over and locked us inside the election department until the copies were produced. I
realized I had placed what I thought was a work sheet of precinct data ( I had marked it and dogeared it)
so returned it immediately not realizing I had another file in my numerous stacks of papers. I attempted
to leave along with another PCRP member but we were still locked in - eventually he released us. The
next morning I realized I had another copy of precinct data while looking through my files (public data)
and returned it.
Clerk Ortiz made the decision to try to criminally prosecute me for "Theft of an election document" and
turned it over to the DA for investigation. Needless to say this was very stressful, however, I made the
decision to go in without counsel and just tell what happened. I spent two and a half hours going through
the details of what occurred. The DA office made the decision what I did was not a "deliberate act and
caused no harm", but I did receive a confidential letter of reprimand. That was to be the end of this
stressful situation . However this week a Watch Dog Group - Progress Now Colorado, has CORA
requested the investigation that the DA was forced to release.

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I wanted membership to be prepared for this situation to be spread around in a most embarrassing light
in case it does hit internet, social media and perhaps now the Pueblo Chieftain. Please feel free to call
me personally if you would like me to answer any concerns.
...
As always please feel free to call me if you have any questions
In Liberty,
Becky Mizel, Chair
Pueblo County Republican Party
-Becky Mizel
*"Always do what you are afraid to do."*
Ralph Waldo Emerson --

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