(Alert!  Go to Bits & Pieces for latest post on Political Fringe Tantrum at Council . . . Welcome to the Political Farside.  Following is the link:  Bits & Pieces)

The Milton Herald and Amber Perry have done an exceptional job over 2+ years covering Milton’s election initiative, publishing over 4 dozen (often in-depth) articles and opinion pieces.  Following are 3 links to this week’s Milton Herald articles that provide a hard-to-believe story about Milton’s now thoroughly discredited Election Feasibility Committee (EFC).  Citizens, this stuff is really troubling.  Miltonites deserve much better than this.

Milton Herald: Election Feasibility Report Was Reshaped Before Council Presentation

Milton Herald: Mystery Surrounds Mark Amick’s Nomination to Milton Elections Panel

Milton Herald: Interactive Explore Differences in Draft Final Milton Elections Report

I was especially impressed with Reporter Perry’s interactive that shows what the partisan EFC members deleted and added to staff’s report to produce a poorly supported and highly biased final report.

I submitted the original Open Records Request (ORR) that uncovered this election misconduct.  On September 12th, based on that ORR, I published an in-depth post explaining the misconduct exposed by the City Manager in his email to the mayor.  Following is the link:  Elections Interference (Part 5):  City Manager’s Insider Perspective Reveals a More Deeply Flawed, Biased, and Dishonest Process Than Milton Coalition Investigation Uncovered. 

Led by Council Member Rick Mohrig, some partisan members of the Election Feasibility Committee (EFC) disrespected, marginalized, and eventually excluded staff from the committee’s work.  Staff’s risk analysis was deleted.  Some costs were excluded or underestimated . . . this includes costs for staff’s time devoted to elections design, planning, preparations, and conduct.  City Manager Krokoff has stated that biases of some non-staff committee members were such that the committee’s work resembled a “justification exercise” rather than a true feasibility study.  The final report was not provided to citizens for comment or input and was never put to a full committee vote.  It is unclear how and who finished the final report.  The final report was also not provided to council in advance of first presentation.  I strongly believe that the EFC’s final report was so flawed and biased that Council was thoroughly scammed and consequently made the wrong decision to proceed with running Milton’s municipal elections . . . a decision that has brought much shame on the city and one that will end up costing the city MORE of your tax dollars to self-run its elections than would have been the case if Fulton County ran Milton’s elections . . . higher costs at much lower service levels:  fewer voting locations; reduced voting days/hours; and only 1 early voting location.

These revelations come on top of many other damning revelations . . . including that the EFC initially met in secret and kept few/no records of these meetings.  After disbanding, some EFC members continued to exercise undue influence . . . mostly in the shadows . . . this includes forcing on the city manager an elections consultant who did not meet minimum qualifications and who was later terminated.  Considering all the egregious election misbehavior, I believe the city has no choice but to launch a full-scale and wide-ranging independent investigation of Milton’s wayward election experiment.

Once again, Rick Mohrig is at the center of a roiling scandal at City Hall.  Recall that just 2 weeks ago, the latest Rick Mohrig scandal focused on his meeting with poll workers and his hacking allegations.  And the week before that, Mohrig was circumventing the City Manager (in violation of the city charter) to direct city staff in his efforts to use government authority to suppress his political opponent.  (Following is the link to my blog post on this scandal:  Election Interference (Part 6):  Mohrig Alleges Computer Hack . . . Cover-up For Meeting With Poll Workers and His Misuse of City Resources? (Long Version))

New week, new Rick Mohrig scandal.  It is just one scandal after the next.  Following is a link to the Milton Herald’s article on Mohrig’s hacking allegations and meeting with poll workers:

Milton Herald: Claims of Hacking May Spark Second Milton Investigation

Advocating For Election Integrity,

Tim

(News Alert! This coming week, the Milton Herald will be running a front-page, in-depth story about Milton’s Election Feasibility Committee’s flawed and biased report that conned city council into proceeding with self-running Milton municipal elections.  See details at Bits & Pieces.)

Once again, the City of Milton is in the news . . . and once again, the news is embarrassing . . . and once again Council Member Rick Mohrig is at the center of a swirling controversy.  Last week, I and the Milton Herald reported on the scandal involving Rick Mohrig’s meeting with poll workers and his (so far unsubstantiated) allegations of computer hacking.  (Links to my and the Herald’s stories are provided at the end of this post.)  Today, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is the latest media outlet to expose Mohrig’s lack of integrity.  Following is a link to the AJC’s story published this morning.  A pdf of the article is provided at the end of this blog post.

AJC: Milton Councilman Under Fire For Privately Meeting with Election Workers

Following are the relevant quotes from the AJC article that relate the events and commentary surrounding this scandal:

1. “Mohrig has said his email was hacked when an invite for a meeting with the poll workers was sent from his email address.”
2. Mohrig “told his colleagues that he didn’t know anything about the meeting.”  “’Someone may have hacked my email,’” Mohrig wrote on Sept. 6. “’This was not from me, nor do I have any idea what the meeting invite is about.’”  (This was not true as you will read in bullet 8.)
3. Krokoff said “the Milton IT department and a third-party network security provider found that neither Mohrig’s email address nor the city’s computer system were hacked . . . councilman’s efforts to hide it (the meeting) raises questions and concerns.”
4. “the poll workers . . . have since resigned.”
5. “The police and city council are looking into possible false allegations by Mohrig that his email was hacked.”
6. “Mohrig declined to comment to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ‘while there is an active police investigation.’”  This is total nonsense and just more of Mohrig’s dodging the scandal and essentially pleading the Fifth.
7. “The councilman did not respond to questions from Councilwoman Carol Cookerly . . .  asking if he in fact met with the poll workers.”
8. “Krokoff told the AJC that Mohrig met with the poll workers on the date and time of the invite . . . he surveilled the poll workers’ subdivision entrance on that date and the time of the proposed meeting and saw Mohrig turn into the community.”
9. Mayor Jamison said “elected officials are expected to hold high ethical standards.  Any appearance of wrongdoing can undermine the integrity that voters have in the voting process.”

For nearly two years, Council Member Rick Mohrig has constantly demonstrated a singular lack of integrity in his actions relating to design, planning, and implementation of Milton’s municipal elections . . . elections in which he is running!  Furthermore, his misbehavior has extended to the conduct of his campaign, including his circumventing the City Manager (in violation of the City Charter) to direct city staff in what Krokoff stated might be viewed “use of government authority to suppress a political opponent.”  The optics of Mohrig’s meeting with poll workers is positively awful.  Furthermore, significant city resources have been wasted in investigating his hacking allegations . . . unsurprisingly turning up ZERO evidence of outside intrusion.  Mohrig also continues to refuse to answer questions, or else he provides evasive or deflecting non-answers.  This fall, voters should Vote FOR Election Integrity by Voting AGAINST Rick Mohrig.

Advocating For Election Integrity,

Tim

Following are links to 1) my original blog posts about the meeting with poll workers and the unproven hacking allegations and 2) the Milton Herald’s September 22^nd article about this scandal:

Election Interference (Part 7):  Milton Herald . . . Krokoff Surveils Poll Worker Meeting and Confirms Mohrig’s Attendance . . . Mohrig’s Weasel Worded Responses . . . Council Investigation in the Offing?

Election Interference (Part 6):  Mohrig Alleges Computer Hack . . . Cover-up For Meeting With Poll Workers and His Misuse of City Resources? (Long Version)

Election Interference (Part 6):  Mohrig Alleges Computer Hack . . . Cover-up For Meeting With Poll Workers and His Misuse of City Resources?   Mohrig Dodging Questions . . . What a Tangled Web He Weaves . . .

Milton Herald: Email Hack Inquiry Sparks City Interest to Launch 2nd Probe