CHASIN’ THE CHICKENS AGAIN

CHASIN’ THE CHICKENS AGAIN: Well thanks to Ian Lind’s posting of the actual filings in the latest Dance of the Headless Chicken court case, at the risk of turning into a 24/7 “All Kevin Cronin All the Time” blog, we do have more news to clarify and supplement yesterday’s review of the latest Cronin machinations.

Yesterday we reported on the old switcheroo someone pulled in getting an Aug 7 court ruling that Chrystn Eads was “disqualified” from the House race for Kirk Caldwell’s old state house seat and that he was citing her case now as the reason for allowing replacement candidate Isaac Choy to run- this after Choy had been chosen to replace Caldwell causing the Republican Party to sue saying the replacement was outside the three day window for replacement candidates.

We wondered who filed the suit heard on Aug 7- how did it get into court? We hypothesized it might have been the Republicans or the Honolulu County Clerk.

But we should have know because the filer was none other than Cronin himself.

We have no inside info as to why Cronin did so but the only reason would be that he was ready to be reversed on the Caldwell decision pegging his date of withdrawal to when the elections office received his withdrawal in writing the day after the filing deadline, not his verbal withdrawal before the deadline.

To review the actual law again HRS 11-117 says nothing about written withdrawals except in cases of “ill health”

It says:

§11-117 Withdrawal of candidates; disqualification; death; notice. (a) Any candidate may withdraw not later than 4:30 p.m. on the day immediately following the close of filing for any reason and may withdraw after the close of filing up to 4:30 p.m. on the twentieth day prior to an election for reasons of ill health. When a candidate withdraws for ill health, the candidate shall give notice in writing to the chief election officer if the candidate was seeking a congressional or state office, or the candidate shall give notice in writing to the county clerk if the candidate was seeking a county office. The notice shall be accompanied by a statement from a licensed physician indicating that such ill health may endanger the candidate's life.

Despite this as we reported exclusively earlier an official state produced Candidate Fact Sheet says that, the law be damned, ALL withdrawals must be in writing.

The fact sheet says

Candidates may withdraw for any reason not later than the day immediately following the deadline to file nomination papers. To withdraw, the candidate must submit a written notice to the Chief Election Officer (for state and federal office candidacy) or to the appropriate City/County Clerk (for county office candidacy). (HRS Section 11-117).

Yesterday we weren’t quite sure how the news reports regarding the fact sheet fit into it all. But an examination of Cronin’s filings to have Eads’ “withdrawal” re-trigger Choy’s placement on the ballot puts the false fact sheet at the heart of his case for dating Caldwell’s withdrawal.

Cronin goes to great lengths to use the fact sheet to justify his decision, even getting the Ballot Operations Section Head of the Office of Elections, Lori Tomczyk, to file an affidavit saying that all candidates got the fact sheet, even Caldwell

Cronin uses the fact sheet that misrepresents the law as the sole legal justification for his decision in the Caldwell-withdrawal-date decision he made last month and, even though this was a filing for summery judgment in court the actual citation of the relevant law- HRS 11-117- is nowhere in the brief, only many mentions of the “fact sheet”.

Oh and by the way the fact sheet says on it’s cover

This Fact Sheet is intended for informational purposes only and should not be used as an authority on the Hawaii election law and candidate deadlines... Consult the Hawaii Revised Statutes and other sources for more detailed and accurate requirements.

Cronin, under fire for the Caldwell ruling and knowing that the actual law says nothing about withdrawals being in writing in all circumstances, knew he was vulnerable if a ruling on it ever got before a judge.

Just the fact that Caldwell wasn’t challenging his ruling wasn’t enough because there was an outstanding Republican Party-filed suit contesting the “in writing” decision. And if a judge read the actual law he was pretty sure to overrule Cronin- overrule him in a case that was high profile, one for which Cronin has been under continual fire in the press and the blogs and only one of the myriad of Cronin’s actions that have put the elections chief’s job in jeopardy.

What to do, what to do?. How could he make his Caldwell decision go away?

Easy- by essentially suing himself to put the situation with Eads before a judge and getting an official ruling on her case without anyone to challenge it (because no one knew) and fait accompli allowing the Democrats to re-select Choy based on Eads case, not Caldwell’s... all before anyone knew about the done deal.

We had suspected that maybe in the early confusing days after the filing deadline- when the chickens were all first decapitated- someone filed a case thinking it was Eads who was being replaced by Choy rather than Caldwell due to erroneous press reports.

Eads, for those who don’t remember, did not get her papers filed with enough signatures until after the 4:30 p.m., July 22 deadline but was allowed by Honolulu County Clerk Denise Decosta to collect signatures and file at 4:50 p.m.- an action that Decosta said constituted a non-filing in a decision she made that week.

But Cronin, seeing a little wiggle room revived the filing, saying essentially that the clerk’s mistaken action in accepting the papers late constituted a filing.

And so he went to court to challenge the filing, got a ruing on Aug 7, wrote to the Democratic Party Chair Brian Schatz- who had earlier used his influence to get Decosta to accept Eads filing- who then re-selected Choy to be the replacement candidate, this time for Eads.

And that, Cronin claims, makes his Caldwell decision irrelevant, so moot.

This is sure to cause Republican’s heads to explode when they realize that Schatz’s phone call to Decosta at the 4:30 July 22nd filing deadline asking her to “err on the side of inclusion” and allow Eads to go outside, gather signatures and then file her papers, ended up assuring the Democrats would have a candidate in the race for a House seat in a Democratic stronghold district which otherwise would go to the only person left in the race, a Republican.

Cronin is claiming that even though Eads filing was not legal and should by all reason be adjudged to have never happened, because of Decosta’s error in accepting it- at Schatz’s request- Eads had to be “disqualified” for the office she never qualified for.

The file contains no briefs from anyone but Cronin and his brief goes into convoluted detail as to supposed legal reasons why no one needed to be notified or allowed to challenge it.

Even though Decosta had ruled the filing wasn’t complete, Cronin now says it wasn’t “officially” not filed until he got a ruling from the court – a ruling that re-opened the door for Schatz’s Democratic Party to re-insert Choy’s name on the ballot without having to deal with the actual law in the Caldwell decision.

We’re not sure what’s contained in it but, as reported today in an article about an appeal of a recent administrative hearings officer’s ruling blasting Cronin for selecting an overpriced, second-rate-security election system from Hart InterCivic :

The Republican Party filed another suit Aug. 8 alleging that Cronin and the Office of Elections improperly allowed Democrat Isaac Choy to stand as a state House candidate for the 24th District (Manoa).

We haven’t seen that suit but fear it will spur another chapter in the Hawai`i Shyster Chronicles... making the three main mayoral-wannabe dunces and 15 or so clueless council would-be-clowns on Kaua`i very happy we suspect..

Don’t worry- we’ll get to you

OUTFOXED AGAIN

OUTFOXED AGAIN: Just when it couldn’t get any more devoid of rationality it turns out that there’s now another wrinkle in the Dance of the Headless Chickens in the Honolulu filing deadline debacle today after Honolulu Advertiser reporter Derrick DePledge dug up an Aug 7 court ruling certifying a “replacement” for a candidate that was never an official candidate.

The replacement candidate, Isaac Choy, is the same one that was named in the Kirk Caldwell mess on July 26. But in a “that was our story and we were sticking to it but this one is much better” spiel from self declared “De Facto” Elections Chief Kevin Cronin, it is now Chrystn Eads- who never filed completed papers- that was “disqualified” to put Choy on the ballot.

And that didn’t happen until a formerly secret Aug. 7 court ruling.

Cronin claims that Eads’ whatever-it-was was not official until Aug 7 when a judge ruled on a case apparently filed by Republicans in the confusion as to who was being replaced when they filed the challenge.

Conflicting newspaper reports in the days after the filing deadline resulted in the Republicans originally challenging the “replacement” based on erroneous-at-the-time reports by Richard Borreca in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin that Eads was the one that “needed” replacing

But DePledge’s report at the time that it was indeed Caldwell that was being replaced turned out to be the correct one.

Caldwell was eliminated for filing for a second office-Honolulu County Council- at the same time he was still running for his House seat. Cronin ruled Caldwell’s verbal withdrawal wasn’t sufficient and when Caldwell filed “in writing” the next day Cronin’s subsequent ruling left him not running for anything.

The Republicans challenged the date of the Caldwell withdrawal saying it happened the day of the filing deadline, July 22, and in a ruling that flies in the face of the actual law Cronin ruled that the withdrawal came the day after the filing deadline and a “three day replacement” rule let the Democrats put Choy on the ballot- and do it via telephone on a Saturday after Cronin had ruled that Caldwell’s withdrawal via telephone was not sufficient.

But, it appears the Republican case or perhaps one from Honolulu County Clerk Denise Decosta, either on her own or as a reaction to the Republican challenge in the Eads matter (the article doesn’t make it clear who filed for the court ruling), went to court and in an August 7 ruling Eads was “officially” not on the ballot, which Cronin appears to be interpreting as a “disqualification”.

There was no explanation of how a candidate who never officially filed could be disqualified.

Therefore the state is claiming that Decosta’s ruling a few days after the filing deadline that Eads filing was incomplete wasn’t official” until the Aug. 7 ruling and therefore- get this- the Democrats had three days from Aug 7 to pick Choy (again).

And therefore, supposedly, the date of Caldwell’s withdrawal is moot because now Choy is replacing Eads.

Borreca is obviously psychic.

Actually though, the law requires that county clerks go to circuit court for these rulings and though we have some reason to believe it was Decosta who filed for the Aug 7 ruling, she refused to get a court ruling for the one she made that disqualified Caldwell.

This all means that, Cronin and the state is contending, it doesn’t matter when Caldwell withdrew for purposes of the actual Republican challenge saying that the withdrawal took place Tuesday July 22 and therefore the clock ran out on Friday- and therefore the Democrats missed the three day deadline.

And since Caldwell is not challenging when his withdrawal actually took place- even though he would be eligible to run for council if it had been “official” on July 22 instead of the 23rd- Cronin’s ruling in that case that is wasn’t official until the 23rd is for all intent and purpose now irrelevant.... and so it’s legality is no longer a question

In another odd yet relevant tidbit, today it was reported that, in trying to justify his contrary to law ruling in the Caldwell withdrawal, Cronin cited a state “Candidate Information Sheet” we exclusively reported on a week or so ago.

The sheet contains erroneous “written withdrawal required” information but contains a disclaimer that says the pamphlet may not be in compliance with the law and to check the actual law if need be

Cronin’s list of dirty deeds grows. So far he has:

-Failed to register to vote, a requirement for his job, until this month after being hired in February. He said he was too busy and always intended to take the required 30 seconds to complete, stamp and put the form in the mail. He declared himself the “De Facto” Elections Chief when the lack of voter registration came light.

-Ruled that Caldwell’s withdrawal had to be in writing despite past practices of the clerk’s and elections’ offices, and the clerk’s assurance to Caldwell that his withdrawal was official. Caldwell’s oral withdrawal was followed by a call by Decosta’s office to Cronin’s office saying he’d withdrawn. Cronin’s ruling came despite the fact that the law itself does not call for a written withdrawal except under for “health reasons”.

-Sent the ballots to the printer without the legally required review by non-partisan and party observers. Cronin said it was all ok because they turned out to be accurate- and has parsed rulings and manipulated the courts to keep them correct.

-Was severely chastised and reversed by a hearings officer for picking a known-to-be-remarkably-hackable Hart InterCivic election system- a firm he reportedly has had ties to- at a cost almost three times that of a competing bid. Cronin blamed the procurement laws rather than take responsibility

-Was reported here, in an exclusive report, to have been a defendant in a suit regarding keeping blacks off the ballot in 1988 when he was a lawyer for the Wisconsin elections office. After two lower court rulings apparently said he had acted so negligently or purposefully that he had to stand civil trial, a US appeals court ruled he had immunity from the suit- the type of immunity that all officials have for decisions in their official capacity.

We probably left out something. Perhaps the most egregious thing in all this is that the Elections Commission has given him a clean bill of health and is not even considering firing him.

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UNTRAINABLE

UNTRAINABLE: When we heard that the 2000 elections Florida fiasco was spurring election balloting reform we thought maybe there would finally be a universal, impeccable criterion for casting and counting the vote- maybe even (gasp) a national standard.

But the dolts in Congress instead thought that electronics and technology was the answer and so decided to promote the use of the most easily compromised of all balloting techniques- computers.

Then the states followed suit selecting big-black-opaque-box methodologies rather than the obviously superior paper ballots and optical scanners.

The latter is the method endorsed universally by international election observers and national organizations like FairVote and The League of Women Voters (LWV) - not to mention standardized school-test providers- as the most accurate, transparent and untamperable technology of all.

Not only was a national standard not on the table but some of the individual states’ elections bureaus seemed as though they never gave a thought to how to run an accurate, fair and verifiable election.

Inquiring minds wanted to know- “who are these idiots who don’t get it - where do they come from”? Who were these people who were ignoring all the protests over a lack of a verifiable paper trial and potential electronic hacking- not to mention the absurd use of outside, contracted, propriety systems rather than transparent in-house arrangements?.

Now we know. They apparently come from Wisconsin and their name is Kevin Cronin, the new Hawai`i Chief Elections Officer .

Today an administrative hearings officer tore Cronin a new one- or more accurately widened the one that was originally augered by a slew of other self-induced orifice expanding procedures- finding that Cronin used “a ‘reckless disregard” for state procurement laws (and) attempted to manipulate both the data and the facts in order to justify the award of a contract” to Hart InterCivic to conduct our next election, according to today’s Honolulu Advertiser.

The article says that Cronin, who reportedly had previous business ties to elections equipment provider Hart “was unqualified to do the cost analysis” and according to the administrative ruling his conclusions were “incomplete, inaccurate, unreliable and misleading”, in approving Hart’s bid of $52.8 million over an $18.1 million bid by Election Systems & Software (ES&S) to provide election equipment.

The judge called Cronin’s decision "clearly unreasonable." according to the article.

The shenanigans of King Cronin- who last month claimed he was still the “de facto” Elections Chief when it was found he didn’t comply with the requirements for the job in not registering to vote in Hawai`i - have reached the point where lunatics like racist Ken Conkin and Republican stalwart State Senator Sam Sloam sound like reasonable, sane people in calling for him to be fired.

Cronin has apparently succeeded in doing something no one in the islands has been able to do- bring the Democrats and Republicans together.

But let’s remember how this “new” chief elections officer came to the office.

Arguably Dwayne Yoshina administered Hawai`i elections as flawlessly as could be expected for a decade.

But in the election when Hawai`i switched from the old punch cards to the new optical scan of paper ballots, horror of horrors, they took until way after midnight to get the count right what with the use of new equipment- mostly because the usual election observers and the staff were not yet experienced with the new system so kept asking for reviews and safeguards to make sure everything was accurate and all the new procedures were being followed.

This was described to us by a source at the elections bureau- one who we know to be of impeccable integrity- who was “at the podium” in the vote counting center in the State House chamber with Yoshina that night as his assistant-in-charge.

Well the media blew a gasket. “How dare Yoshina keep us waiting” they whined. In the days after the election the actual results were give short shrift compared to the recriminations over the delays that inconvenienced the reporters from the papers and TV news outlets.

And, sensing political gain, joining them in their sniveling and taking up the battle cry was gubernatorial loser Linda Lingle who called for Yoshina’s head.

Then, after a long somewhat ugly battle where all the pols distanced themselves from Yoshina, Lingle was elected four years later and they finally had the wherewithal to replace all the election commissioners with enough anti-Yoshina-ites to force him out by refusing to renewing his contract.

And who did they pick as a permanent replacement? Some government lawyer from Wisconsin who had not only never been involved with Hawai`i elections and was unfamiliar with our election laws and procedures but had never even been involved in any elections anywhere.

And they picked a guy who makes the words “arbitrary and capricious decision making” sound like a compliment..

Cronin’s imperial administration has become the biggest laughing stock in Honolulu and across the state- and that’s hard to do considering the usual band of connected, appointed baboozes that head up many of our state government entities.

Perhaps the “tearing of a new one” we referred to earlier helped facilitate the extraction of some of Cronin’s other rulings of late, such as the one that held that all withdrawals from election races had to be in writing despite the fact that the actual law doesn’t require it and in fact denotes the singular circumstances- for health reasons- under which a written withdrawal is necessary.

Or his order to print the ballots while challenges were still pending and failing to let anyone examine them beforehand, both of which are violations of state law.

As we detailed* quite a few times the candidate withdrawal ruling threw the Honolulu County Clerk’s office into turmoil since it called into question whether a replacement candidate for Kirk Caldwell was selected in the “three day window”- as a lawsuit filed by the Republican Party this week claims- and therefore in fact who would be on the ballots... which were already printed.

Through the Kaua`i and State LWV we often worked with Yoshina and many in his office as observers and never had a complaint about his running anything but a fair and transparent election.

Dwayne bent over backwards to integrate all observers into the process and no one we ever heard from left the tabulation centers without all reasonable concerns being addressed.

Yet political hacks like Lingle and some in the legislature-especially the leadership at the time- couldn’t leave well enough alone. They had to bring in an inexperienced pompous ass from 4000 miles away to do things as wrong as he could for as long as he could and then, rather than acknowledge mistakes, defend them and claim the privilege to make more.

And the big winner in all this? Well let’s just say don’t expect to hear much about Rex “got Porn?” Johnson this week.

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*Correction and Note: We reported in error last week that only withdrawals after the filing deadline could spur a replacement but, though the wording in HRS 11-118 was a little unclear, we did misinterpreted the plain meaning. Strangely enough no one pointed out our mistake. We regret the error.

ISN’T THAT FLEA BAG DEAD YET?:

ISN’T THAT FLEA BAG DEAD YET?: Well it’s all over- except it isn’t.

In case anyone hadn’t heard Honolulu County Clerk Denise Decosta “disqualified” Kirk Caldwell from the Manoa Council race based on the decision we highlighted yesterday by State Election Chief Kevin Cronin.

Ian Lind did a masterful job - with one typo- in analyzing the whole thing this morning and the articles in the two Honolulu newspapers presented their version of the facts, with the Star-Bulletin even publishing a surprisingly accurate and on-point editorial about Cronin’s shenanigans and incompetence.

We won’t recount that and readers can review our and Ian’s posts over the past few days for a catch up.

But there are numerous ways that the leads in the papers proclaiming that, since Caldwell won’t challenge the ruling it’s all over, are probably anything but accurate prognostications..

Because the ruling by Cronin- upon which Decosta said she was forced to based hers- flies in the face of the actual law

HRS 11-117 says:

A candidate may withdraw not later than 4:30 p.m. on the day immediately following the close of filing for any reason and may withdraw after the twentieth day prior to an election for reasons of ill health. When a candidate withdraws for ill health, the candidate shall give notice in writing to the chief election officer if the candidate was seeking a congressional or state office, or the candidate shall give notice in writing to the county clerk if the candidate was seeking a county seat.

So a written withdrawal is required only for reasons of health. Apparently Cronin “erred” in the matter of law by saying Caldwell’s post-filing, written withdrawal was the only “official” way to withdraw

Cronin’s ruling was that Caldwell’s verbal withdrawal from his state house race before filing for county council was insufficient even though the Decosta’s office accepted it and apparently the state did too because they noted it on the official list after a phone call from the clerk’s office..

And another problem may be that Decosta was not really allowed to make the decision.

In a letter of challenge by Honolulu attorney Amy Mizono says

The Clerk must file a circuit court complaint whenever an objection “may” warrant disqualification

The elections statute requires the Clerk to file a complaint with the circuit court for a determination of an objection whenever the objection “may" warrant disqualification of a candidate. $ 12-8 (e), Haw. Rev. Stat. As such, the Clerk is not designed to be the final arbiter of whether a generally meritorious objection merits disqualification. Rather, the Clerk is charged with the statutory obligation to seek final determination in the circuit court whenever an objection "may" reasonably warrant disqualification.

So not only is the content of self-described “de facto” Election Chief Cronin’s decision wrong but Decosta- who in her “ruling” described a loosey-goosy deadline as the clerk’s office’s past policy - wasn’t even legally able to make the determination that the mainstream press has swallowed as the “final say” on the matter.

Perhaps the most insane part of yesterday’s events is Caldwell’s statement that he won’t challenge it all since he actually spurred the challenge by getting one of his own people to challenge his candidacy, supposedly in the public interest of sorting all this out. And now when we really need a ruling to avoid stupidity and confusion from reigning, he’s suddenly happy to leave “F” part of the SNAFU intact.

But for now, unless someone challenges it, Cronin’s head-scratching “what orifice did you pull that out of” determination is the “de facto” law of the land

And what concerns us on Kaua`i is how this late Friday afternoon series of events could effect our own mayor's race.

We’ll have to wait for Monday to ask County clerk Peter Nakamura but we’re not sure how this new requirement for a written withdrawal- submitted BEFORE filing for another office- will effect Councilperson and mayoral candidate Mel Rapozo.

Rapozo originally pulled papers for council on February 6 and officially filed them on Feb 22. But then he pulled papers for mayor on July 7 and filed them on July 22, the final day to file.

The question is did Rapozo withdraw in writing and did he do so before he flied for mayor?

The documents should be public information and should have date and time of receipt stamped. And if Rapozo is to stay in the Mayor’s race the Clerk should have two chronologically-successive, stamped documents, the first being Rapozo’s official written withdrawal from his council race and the next his filing for the mayor’s race.

Although the “official” list shows a “(w)” for withdrawn after Rapozo’s name on the list of council candidates, so did Caldwell’s name for his house race on the evening of July 22 after his verbal withdrawal. His “in writing” withdrawal- the one Cronin says is the only official one- came in July 23.

It seems that by law this has to go to circuit court and Decosta is required by law to file the case.

But if she doesn’t and Cronin’s and her decisions are allowed to stand- and the press plays dead as they did today- we can just imagine the game of chicken that will occur at the filing deadline for the next election

It’s 4:25 p.m.- five minutes to filing deadline Lined up at the counter stand multiple candidates with multiple filings for multiple offices and multiple withdrawal letters wagging and shoving their papers under the noses and screaming for attention from elections’ office staff while jostling each other and jockeying for positions both at the clerk’s desk and in elective office... all the while craning their necks to see what office or offices the other ones are filing for and withdrawing from.

When the music stops and they scramble for seats precisely at 4:30 p.m. they may have to figure out which office they finally wound up running for.

Conversation outside the clerk’s office at 4:31 p.m. Filing deadline day, July 2010

PNN- What’d ya’ll get?”

Candidate A- Oh! Look- State House!- just what I always wanted. I didn’t even know I filled out those papers. What’d you get?

Candidate B- (looking at paper) Prosecutor? I’m not even a lawyer.

Candidate C- Well you’d better go to law school quick because I thought I had prosecutor but wound up with county council because I didn’t get my mayor withdrawal in first.

Candidate D – Darn I got so confused I submitted the wrong withdrawal letter and now I’m not running for anything. But apparently I am somehow now entered in next year’s Brown Bags to Stardom.

Candidate E- Aw damnit- I wound up with Mayor- I’m gonna be sick

Candidate D – Oh good. If you’re sick then you can withdraw for health reasons and name me as your replacement. Lemme look in my wallet...

Candidate C Wait a minute Would you take an appointment to the planning commission and two other appointments for your cronies to be named later?

Candidate B- I’m out. All I got is all these filing and withdrawal papers and oh, look... the clerk’s office’s time stamp.

Candidate A- That’s ok guys- I’ll just make sure you all get appointed judges.

Head of the Chamber of Commerce- When you guys sort it all out gimme a call. I gotta know who to bribe next year.