Seattle, Washington FBI Bureau File - Paperless Archives

Case #07-120588
May 24, 2007 rev]
Witness Statement
Det.L..1 ____.....
b7C
Witness:
Steve Hobbs:
Witness:
Steve Hobbs:
Witness:
Because 1 only dealt with the Pierce County Auditor. .. uh ... none of the people ... nobody
went out of Pierce County ...
Right.
... occasionally we would have cards nonetheless from people who resided in other
counties but had been registered to vote while they were present here but urn ... we ... we
never sent those any other place but. .. by mail and 1 remember pretty clearly that we had
a batch on the day the books closed ... the deadline for the primary. And 1 mailed them at
the post office. With a minute and a half to spare. And they informed me at that time
that there's a machine out in the lobby .. .it's here in Tacoma on Pine Street ... that um ... 1
could take that too and urn ... after hours but before midnight. .. weigh it ... pay for it .. .!
imagine with a credit card or debit card ... but 1 could be mistaken it could include
cash .. .like a vending machine. And then it would have that day's postage stamp on it.
And I thought that was a marvelous ... a novel change and 1 so informed the leadership of
ACORN that they should check to see if those were in fact in use in other locations
because it had historically been um ... a real problem because often the deadline is on a
Saturday and the office isn't open so urn ... there was a real contention about what to
do ... and I had a big event on the Saturday urn ... before the primary and part of my being
let go may have had to do with the fact that I had people registering folks anyway on that
day.
On the Saturday?
On the Saturday that was the deadline. And 1 collected the cards that we had and had
them maiL .. properly processed and mailed by three o' clock when the post office closed.
But urn .. .! was told that because of the restriction ... because it was important that
uh ... that they be mailed before the deadline that 1 should not collect cards on Saturday.
Steve Hobbs: So ACORN wanted them mailed the day before the deadline .. .is that ...
Witness:
They ... ACORN wanted them mailed on Friday and not on Saturday when there was a
deadline on Saturday because .. .it's difficult to make the copies and process them and do
any quality control and ... and then it's difficult to convey the information to the auditor
when you're doing it by mail rather than in person ... which one's are suspicious and
while they didn't really give our ... our separation of those various kinds of cards any
credence.
Steve Hobbs: Who ... who didn't give the ...
Witness:
Steve Hobbs:
Witness:
Steve Hobbs:
The auditor didn't assume that we were right.
Right.
The auditor didn't ... the auditor didn't change their procedures based on our procedures.
When you submitted it to the Pierce County Auditor ... welllets back up ... so if you
thought a ballot was suspicious ... the decision ACORN'S policy was it was submitted
anyway.
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