Rebuttals to Banberger Affidavit

Note: Below in black font is a copy of Shana Banbergers June 27th Affidavit. I have
converted it as accurately as possible into this Word document format to rebut her claims
in context. The italicized comments are my responses. Marilyn Marks 7.9.16

AFFIDAVIT OF SHANA KOHN BANBERGER
IN SUPPORT OF RESPONDENTS' STATEMENT OF POSI TION

I, Shana Kohn Banberger, being first duly sworn, depose and. state
as follows:
1.
I am a citizen of the United States and have been since my
birth. am an adult over the age of 18 and a resident of Colorado.

2.
I am the Executive Director of the Colorado Republican Committee
f'CRC"). This is my second stint as Executive Director of the CRC. My first stint
was from 201.,1
015. I rejoined the CRC as Executive Director early this year.
3.
In my role as CRC Executive Director, I had primary responsibility for
the 2016 State Assembly and Convention. I was present for all stages (including
set-up and tear-down) of the 2016 State Convention on Saturday, April 9.2016.
4.
In my prior stint as CRC Executive Director. I organized both
the 2012 State Assembly and Convention and the 2014 State Assembly .

5. In planning for the 2016 State Assembly and Convention, I was
concerned that the timeline for printing ballots was much shorter than had been
in previous years. For example, in 2012, we received a final list of county parties
State delegates and State alternates at least six weeks prior to the State
Convention. This allowed us to finalize and print ballots well in advance of the State
Convention.


The State Party chose the April 9th date voluntarily. They could have

chosen April 16th. In September they knew the legally required convention
calendar window when March 1 was chosen as the caucus date. There was
plenty of time to get ballots finalized and printed even with an April 9th
date. The Party cannot choose an early date and then argue that the selfimposed early deadlines are too tight to comply with the bylaws, and that
bylaws become optional in such a case.

5.

Because the final county conventions were not concluded until Saturday, March
26, 2016, the final county party lists of State delegates and State alternates could not
be submitted to the CRC before March 31,2016 - less than two weeks before
the State Convention on April9, 2016.

This grossly misrepresents the timing and availability of delegate
names. 61 of the 64 counties completed their conventions by March
22, and could and did submit their information earlier than March 31.
The three remaining counties meeting on March 26 merely ratified the
already available list of delegates chosen at the precinct level.
Approximately 150 delegates were approved at county conventions on
March 26, which should have required only a few hours of clerical
time to verify on the State Party master list by March 30. That allowed
a full 10 days before the convention, leaving plenty of time for ballot
printing. Ballot printing did not begin until April 4-5.

Hence, I solicited ballot printing service providers in early March, 2016 in the hope
that I would be able to secure a vendor who could to print State Convention ballots
including candidate presidential candidate pledge as required by Article XIII, A(5)(c) on
an expedited timeline.


The review of the records of the Teller (El Paso County Clerks

office EPCO) shows consistent correspondence between Banberger and

EPCO that EPCO (not Banberger) was responsible for providing for ballot
printing. In fact, until approximately March 1 , EPCO planned to print the
ballots on their own specialized in-house ballot printers. In-house ballot
printing would have required 4 to 5 hours.
There is no indication that Banberger solicited any ballot printing
services or had discussions in early March with ballot printers about timelines
or deadlines.

7.
I spoke with several printing vendors. Only one vendor could come
close to meeting our timeline. This vendor required ballots to be final by Monday,

March 28.

There is no indication in the EPCO records that Banberger solicited

any ballot printing services or had discussions in early March with ballot
printers about timelines or deadlines. Ballot printing and procurement was
EPCOs job and they committed to print ballots in house. It was only on
March 16 that EPCO began to contact IVS (commercial ballot printer) about
the potential printing job. There are numerous other specialized ballot
printers in the Denver area. April is off season for ballot printers, who have
little backlog at that time. Printing 5,000 ballots with fast turnaround should
have been quite easily arranged.

This vendor said it could print ballots later if names and presidential candidate
pledge were not required. I selected this vendor in order to preserve the
possibility of printing ballots including the candidates' names and presidential
candidate pledge.

The statement that a printer needs longer turnaround time to print

names rather than numbers is absurd on its face. Ballot content is uploaded
to ballot printers and the printing time is not dependent on how many
characters are in the ballot content.

Banberger did not select any printing vendor at all. The decision was
made by EPCO at the suggestion of voting system supplier, Dominion, to
contact and use just one printing vendor,-- IVS. No competitive requests
were attempted.
It is likely that Banberger never talked with any printer about this
printing job, much less in the context of deciding on ballot layout.
8.
Because it was not possible for county parties to get their final State
delegate and State alternate lists to CRC before Thursday, March 31,2016, the
CRC had to choose between printing a ballot with candidate names and
presidential candidate pledges that would include a number of ineligible
candidates (because they were not actually duly elected State delegates or State
alternates) or printing a ballot without this information and instead including it in a
supplement (which could be updated later because it did not need to be read by
voting machines).

This statement is egregiously false and misleading. Banberger

claims impossibility of obtaining information from the county parties on a
timely basis. It was not only quite doable for the State Party to obtain the
county party lists before March 31, but in almost all cases, they did so. 61 of
64 counties had completed their conventions by March 22. The remaining 3
counties, meeting on March 26, had information available for the State Party
for verification by March 28. The verification of the delegate list was indeed
possible and should have been accomplished on March 28.
The claim the Party had to choose between a ballot without
required names, and a ballot with unverified ineligible names is simply false.
The information was available for verification by March 28, and ballot were
sent to print on April 4. This small order of ballots (5,000) could have been
printed by EPCO in house up until April 8th. The claim of having no
choice is irresponsible and untrue.
9.

CRC chose to print a ballot with numbers and a supplement

because it believed that this would be less confusing and more accommodating
for any changes necessitated because of the tight timeline. CRC was also
influenced by the fact that a ballot containing candidates' names and preseidential pledge
would have had to be printed in four-point font.

The timetable was more than adequate for ballot printing

turnaround between March 28 and April 9. There was no reason to use
an unreadable small font size. The 2012 ballot had over 800 names and
pledges and was readable. ES&S (voting system) and Clear Ballot (two
potential vendors) submitted proposals for two-sided ballots with readable
names and pledge status. See ballots including the 2012 ballot at
https://www.scribd.com/document/317859459/Exhibit-10-2012-Ballot

and
https://www.scribd.com/document/317859478/Exhibit-7-ClearBallot-Sample900-Names-3-11-16


10. The number of ballot positions was set at the number of candidates .
who had timely submitted intent to run forms on or before Sunday, March 27,
2016. This was done in order that ever potentially eligible candidate could be
accommodated on the ballot. Once ineligible candidates were removed, this
resulted in some positions on the ballot being unassigned.



This is simply false. Dominion placed 948 target ovals and
numbers on the ballot. The maximum number of Intent to Run forms
shown in the available records never exceeded 700. Banberger asked on
April 2 to increase the number of ovals to prepare for additional
candidates, at which time 948 ovals were laid out. The excuse for adding
more numbers (almost 250 more than maximum required) was to
prepare for a floor flight to bring in additional delegates. That
statement alone implies that the State Party anticipated excluding some
eligible delegates.

11. A ballot supplement was created for the State Convention. This
supplement listed the name of each eligible candidate for National Delegate and
National Alternate, their ballot position and their presidential candidate pledge (if
any).

The claim is false. The ballot supplement did not list the name
of each candidate. It excluded at least 38 candidates
https://www.scribd.com/document/317860652/Ballot-Errors


An additional supplement was printed and distributed to account for
erroneously excluded candidates whose names were added to their county
parties' lists of State delegates and State alternates after Thursday, March 31.

The additional supplement was distributed without a title or

explanation and was incomplete, and only included candidates through
605, excluding 606 through 636. Some delegates thought it was campaign
material, not an official ballot listing.
In addition a few final late-added candidates were displayed via video screens
at the State Convention and on the CRC website.

The additional list were not late adds. They were delegates
with timely filed credentials. The list shown on video screens for a few
minutes was inaccurate and contained erroneous and duplicate ballot
numbers, further confusing the delegates. This list did not have the effect
of mitigating the harm done to these candidates.
12.

The CRC contracted with Dominion Voting Systems to tabulate ballots at the
State Convention. This was done because Dominion machines were recently
selected by the Colorado Secretary of State as the Uniform Voting System for the
State of Colorado. The CRC also valued the ability of Dominion machines to
catch potential over-votes or corrected ballots and to refer these ballots for
hand-tabulation. In all cases of such ballots, they were hand-tabulated.

In truth, Dominion was the only one of the three vendors EPCO
considered that could NOT meet the specifications of tabulating a two
page (one contest) ballot. That Dominion constraint is what caused the
ballot to be printed with only numbers and without names.
The ability to detect over-votes has been standard required
technology in voting systems for over 50 years. It was not a Dominion
special feature. This statement shows the strained effort to justify this
vendor selection.
The claimed hand-tabulation of over-voted and corrected
ballots does not appear anywhere in the documentation supplied by
EPCO. The vote totals do not appear to have been adjusted in the Tellers
report for over-votes. The totals were not corrected for candidates with
multiple numbers. It appears that there was no hand tabulation or
correction.

13. The CRC contracted with the El Paso County Clerk and Recorder's
office to serve as the State Convention Teller Committee. This office handled
ballot distribution, collection and pre-and post balloting control. The El Paso
County Clerk and Recorder's office is one of the largest in the state of Colorado
and is widely known for its transparent, fair and accurate elections process. In its
capacity as the Teller Committee for the State Convention, the El Paso County
Clerk and Recorder's office repeatedly gave clear balloting instructions both prior
to and after ballot distribution to county delegation chairs.

14. Terry Campo, Esq. served as the parliamentarian for the
State convention. The RNC provided his services at CRC's request.

15. Microphones were available at both the CRC Central Committee

meeting at 7:30am MDT on Friday, April 8, 2016 and at the State Convention on
Saturday, April 9, 2016. At the CRC Central Committee meetings, there were two
microphones on the floor. At the State convention, there was one microphone in
the center of the stage and another at the left side of the stage.

Having Microphones only on the stage did not permit delegates to

be recognized and raise objections.

16. The results of the election of National Delegates and National
Alternates were announced almost immediately after the Teller Committee had
finished tabulation. The results were also posted on the CRC's website.

This is false. The results (vote counts and invalid ballot count)

were not announced as required by Rule. The only announcement made

was calling out the names of the winning delegates and alternates. A list of
names is not the election result. The Chairman failed to disclose
required balloting information concerning anomalies to the convention.
The detailed results were not available to the convention until after a vote
was taken.

17. The CRC extended in invitation for all presidential candidates to

speak at the State Convention. The CRC also notified each presidential campaign
that if the candidate would not be able to attend a surrogate was encouraged to
attend and speak on their behalf. The same opportunity was extended to every
presidential campaign, including the opportunity to display their logo, or any art
work (including an official slate) on the large screen directly behind them during
their allotted speaking time. The Cruz campaign is the only campaign that took
advantage of this opportunity, it appropriately displayed its slate on the screen during
Sen.Cruz's address.

18.

The CRC did not accept any late-submitted intent to run forms.

The EPCO records indicate that there were candidates put on the
ballot lists who were not on the State Partys March 28, or March 31 lists of
letters of intent received or approved. We have had numerous reports of
Chairman Houses agreements to accept late Intent to Run forms, but witnesses
have declined to submit affidavits out of fear of retaliation.

iIt bears noting that March 27 was Easter Sunday. No CRC staff or volunteers
were available to process forms received over the holiday weekend.

Names that appeared on the CRC website after the March 27 deadline were
simply a result of late manual entry of the information from timely-submitted
forms.


The selective timing and posting of names on the website,

benefitted some and harmed other candidates. By April 1, only

candidate numbers though 587 were posted, and by April 5th, postings
were through 605. By April 8, only 619 of the 636 ballot numbers had
been posted. If the ballot numbers had been timely posted as promised
by House, the duplicate and inaccurate numbers would have been
caught by candidates in time for correction.


I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States and
Colorado Law that the foregoing is true and correct to the best of my knowledge.

SUBSCRIBED AND SWORN TO BEFORE ME this 27th of June,2016 by

Shana Kohn Banberger.


Witness my hand and official seal:

My Commission expires: tf l. / 6 t /2c.fl

STATE O F COLORADO