Legislator?s tie to New Times paper questioned  
By Dennis Welch,    East Valley Tribune 
December 21, 2005 
A state senator could be illegally misusing his powers by allowing a weekly newspaper to pay for an investigation into the results of a 2004 election, the Maricopa County attorney said Tuesday. 
 
Sen. Jack Harper, R-Surprise, agreed to allow Phoenix New Times to pay up to $3,000 for an election consultant after he could not get the money from Senate President Ken Bennett, R-Prescott.

Harper, chairman of the Government Accountability and Reform Committee, said he wants to find out why an additional 489 votes turned up during a recount of a District 20 House primary race.

The recount overturned the election in that district, which covers parts of Mesa, Tempe and Phoenix.

Some state and county officials are concerned that the relationship between the senator and the newspaper could be unethical, if not illegal.

Bennett, who said he never authorized Harper to investigate the election results, called the entire process "troubling."

"What?s being done is un- der the powers of a committee chair," he said, adding that committee chairmen have the authority to issue subpoenas.

"We should remain as true to that as possible," Bennett said, adding that he is powerless to stop Harper?s action.

Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, in a letter to Bennett, stated that he is concerned whether "Senator Harper is misusing his committee?s subpoena and police powers at the service of this (New Times) private, nonlegislative organization."

The letter went on to say that there were serious questions about legality and the ethics regarding the relationship between the New Times and Harper.

However, Harper said there?s nothing wrong or illegal about using an outside source to pay for a Senate investigation.

He referred to the 2000 presidential election in which a consortium of media outlets paid for a recount of the disputed ballots in Florida.

However, in that case, those media outlets had sued for access to the ballots and paid a private company to recount them without government involvement.

Harper dodged questions regarding the ethical issue of allowing the New Times to buy access to the results of the investigation before anyone else.

He said he would release the results as soon as he received them, but said he could not control whether the New Times would receive them first.

In dispute is the 2004 primary election involving Rep. John McComish, R-Ahwatukee Foothills, and Anton Orlich as well as three other candidates.

The election came into question after a recount overturned original results and gave McComish the victory.

Harper wants an explanation as to why the recount turned up the additional 489 ballots not originally counted.

On Tuesday, Douglas Jones, a computer expert from the University of Iowa, began examining the voting machines at a county building in downtown Phoenix.

Jones, who has worked as a election observer in Eastern Europe, said it was too early to say what or if anything is wrong with the voting machines.

Karen Osborn, county elections director, said the additional votes were counted after they were run through a more sensitive counting machine.

She said that some voters do not use the right kind of pen to mark their votes, which would cause some machines to skip counting those ballots.

However Maricopa County Treasurer David Schweikert ignored Harper?s subpoena and did not release the actual ballots for examination.

Schweikert, a former state lawmaker, said he would not release the ballots until there was an official court order.

While ignoring a legislative subpoena is a misdemeanor, releasing ballots without a court order is a class five felony, he said.