John Braky: Clean elections fuel party expansion - don't have to fund local candidates

Thanks to Clean Elections, the AZ Democratic Party is no longer only a candidate-based party led by special interests. Clean Elections has empowered grassroots activists. Previously, anyone wishing to have a serious run for office had to be anointed by the Party Machine or grab the label and ran; then, become obligated to big business to get funding to run. Now activists can recruit candidates from within their ranks. Any activist can run for office because they don't need the blessing or approval of the Party to do so.

Before Clean Elections, Democrats only came together around election season and our goals were always short-sighted. Now, we have become a year-round Party that helps develop activists and recruit candidates. The shift to year-round party activism has allowed us to expand the scope of our work. In particular, we have been able to establish an Elections Integrity Committee that conducts examinations and audits of election processes, uncovering sloppiness and breakdowns in security, voting records chains-of-custody, and actual breaches of the law. Clean Elections has allowed us to engage in much-needed everlasting watchfulness to ensure that every voter can vote and every vote is counted.

What we all are doing in the Arizona Democratic Party needs to be better understood from within, analyzed, further developed, defined, bottled and exported to other states. "Arizona Clean Elections" and "Election Integrity" are connected at the hip in our party.

We are now a party that knows the real value that "Clean Elections" brought to our table and now, how Election Integrity is connected to "Clean Elections". Our state party Elections Integrity Committee, (EIC) also must be expanded to include our 6,000 Democratic poll workers state wide. Our party job is to oversee the total elections process and be that vigilance.
We even could appoint all of our poll workers and etc, etc, etc.

Best regards to all and THANK YOU!!

John R Brakey, Special Task Force Leader of Arizona Democratic Party
Election Integrity Committee and Co founder; Americans United for Democracy
Integrity and Transparency in Elections - AUDIT-AZ