Pandora's Box

Is Arizona's Speaker of the House afraid of what might happen if the truth is learned about a local election?

A A A Comments By John Dougherty Thursday, Oct 27 2005

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"[Robson] said he could virtually guarantee it would be McComish," Torgeson said.

Robson's brash prediction puzzled Torgeson.

Speaker Jim Weiers

State Senator Jack Harper

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"I thought it was weird," Torgeson says. "How did he know that?"

Robson said he has no recollection of such a conversation with Torgeson but that he told everyone during the primary campaign that he expected McComish to win the second Republican seat in District 20.

Which McComish did. But only after the strangest and most troubling election recount in recent county history.

The District 20 fiasco has attracted the interest of Douglas W. Jones, a computer science professor at the University of Iowa. Jones is an expert on voting machines who has served as a consultant to elections officials across the country.

"It's hard to tell whether they are covering up incompetence or fraud," says Jones, who has studied the District 20 situation extensively. "And it's hard to come up with a hypothesis that doesn't include, to some degree, one of these things or the other."

But here is the question that lingers in my mind: What is the back story behind Speaker Weiers involving himself in this battle between fellow Republicans? Is he afraid that a Pandora's box of election problems might be opened up in the state's largest county if the truth is learned about how Karen Osborne's office mishandled District 20?

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