Our friends Bobby Kennedy Jr. and GoLeft.tv interview another of our friends, Election Integrity hero Ion Sancho, the legendary Leon County, FL, Supervisor of Elections, on the election messes in New Hampshire, Florida, Los Angeles, and everywhere else. (And thanks for the kind hat-tip, guys...even though The BRAD BLOG never claimed there was fraud in NH. But we're happy to let that slide, since the interview was live, and you might have been talking about someone else. And we know you mean well.)

WARNING: Markos Moulitsas and the other front-pagers and gatekeeping denialists at Daily Kos should not watch the above interview! If Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has a user record over there, you should go ahead and ban him right now! Make sure he's never allowed to write at dKos! In this interview, he has the temerity to talk about concerns with the way the New Hampshire Primary Election was conducted! Can you believe it?! And he's even a Hillary Clinton supporter! Clearly, he, like The BRAD BLOG, is "doing far more harm than good," as you like to say, for the Election Integrity movement! What will the Democratic Party and the Mainstream Corporate Media say about your site if that "nutter" Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is allowed to post over there?! Quickly --- before he damages the credibility of your site --- you better go ahead and ban RFK Jr. in advance! As you know, better safe than sorry, boys!

In response to critical comments by former Republican Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, rightwing talker and self-proclaimed "Dean of the Limbaugh Institute for Conservative Studies," Rush Limbaugh, offered a fresh and perhaps telling explanation this morning for his ongoing attacks on presumptive Republican Presidential nominee John McCain.

"We're trying to avoid a fifty state landslide!" Limbaugh shouted angrily in reply to the comments from Eagleburger, who had slammed him and fellow Republicanist entertainer Sean Hannity of Fox "News" and ABC Radio.

"I don't know who elected Rush Limbaugh or Hannity as the heads of this conservative movement," Eagleburger says at the beginning of a clip from MSNBC last night that was aired on today's radio show. "They throw that word around as if it was theirs and theirs alone."

"I thought I was a conservative, but that doesn't mean that I have to buy off on everything these poobahs thinks is what's necessary to be a conservative," continued the former Sec. of State, before defending what he sees as McCain's conservative national security credentials.

Eagleburger's slam would lead to a telling outburst in reply from Limbaugh (full audio posted at the end of this article)...

Breaking late tonight on the Cleveland Plain-Dealer's blog comes news that the Summit County, Ohio, Republican Party Chair, Alex Arshinkoff, is being removed from his position on the county Elections Board by Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner.

According to the report, Boss Arshinkoff has been running the party machine out of the county election office, which even Republican State Senator Kevin Coughlin --- who is currently the first to vie for Arshinkoff's job as party chairman during his 30-year reign --- says has led to his having "abused his power...abused his position [and his having] abused employees at the board to strengthen his grip on the local party apparatus."

Arshinkoff becomes the latest in a series of Board of Elections officials who served under former Sec. of State J. Kenneth Blackwell to face either criminal sentences or disciplinary action since Brunner has taken office.

Writes Michael O'Malley and Laura Johnston at the P-D tonight...

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has used the "F" word to describe what may have taken place when zero votes were registered for Barack Obama during unofficial results at nearly 80 precincts in New York City on Super Tuesday, including several in heavily African-American areas such as Harlem.

"If you want to call it significant undercounting, I guess that's a euphemism for fraud," the tin-foil hat-wearing conspiracy theorist Mayor --- who would not be welcome to post at the Daily Kos --- is quoted telling the New York Post today.

Politico's Ben Smith follows up today to report that a Bloomberg spokesman "reiterated the charge in an e-mail," but curiously notes that Bloomberg, who "controls the police department" in New York City would not be launching an investigation.

"Loeser said he didn't think there was actually a legal issue at stake in the preliminary, unofficial vote counts," reports Smith.

So if we have all of that straight, the NYC Mayor's office confirmed they believe there was "fraud" at work in the city's Primary Election, but don't believe there are any "legal issues at stake." Interesting position.

For our part, The BRAD BLOG covered the curious issue of NYC's zero vote totals as it emerged last week from a report by the New York Times (which included some misleading information, by the way, as we noted). We don't know if the matter rises to the level of fraud or not. But if we were to use that word, we'd also be calling for a full investigation by every appropriate legal authority.

How the anti-Election Integrity folks who control the front page at the Daily Kos will have to twist and contort themselves to cover this news is beyond us. So we'll simply continue seeking out information from knowledgeable and uncompromised news sources instead.

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.Org

The Newark Star-Ledger is reporting that New Jersey election officials have found a discrepancy in the state's Primary Election results as reported on the Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines used on Super Tuesday. Voter totals reported by the internal paper tapes on their Sequoia AVC Advantage DRE in a number of counties are failing to match up with totals found on the memory cartridges, used for both ballot definition and results storage, on the same machines, according to the report today...

Problems with Sequoia's AVC Advantage systems also emerged early on the morning of Super Tuesday, forcing a 45 minute delay for the state's Governor, who was unable to cast his vote when the machines failed to boot up on Election Day. In February of last year, the same machines were hacked by a Princeton University Professor after he'd been able to purchase a number of the $8000 systems for just $86 apiece on the Internet.

The Star-Ledger today goes on to report some of the details on the latest failures now emerging in New Jersey during the state's post-election canvassing...

If it wasn't for the damage they're doing to the very core of our nation, the billions of dollars in fraud they've perpetrated on American tax-payers, the insider trading at the expense of rank and file stockholders, and now the hundreds of employees that will be laid off due to all of the above failures by the e-voting machine company, Diebold would be one of the funniest corporations in America!

The latest chuckle comes by way of the company's latest press release, natch, as issued yesterday by their newly lipsticked pig renamed election division which they are calling "Premier Election Solutions" instead of "Diebold Election Systems." (Try not to notice the bait-and-switch, please. They would appreciate that.)

"As the next step forward in its revised corporate governance structure, Premier Election Solutions has named a new, independent board of directors to guide the realigned company," reads the release.

And who comprises this "new, independent" board of directors? Back to the geniuses at Diebold...

Granted we don't have the accurate tabulating expertise of the folks at Diebold, but by our count, out of 5 board members on the "new, independent" board of directors, there's 1 former election official just through the revolving door (Priest) , 1 20-year military intelligence man who should come in handy (McMillan), and 3 senior Diebold officials.

Brilliant! We can smell the new independence from here!

The release explains the formation of the board is part of the company's plan to "increase its operational independence from its corporate parent, Diebold, Incorporated."

Well, they're off to a great start!

"Forming an independent board of directors continues our focus and emphasis on providing the best election solutions for current and future customers," said Premier's President and new board member Byrd, in Premier's press release about Premier's new independent board featuring Premier's Byrd and his fellow independent Diebold officials.

Keep up the bad work, boys! And good luck finding those "future customers"!

Another Election Director with the temerity to speak out with concerns about E-voting has been done away with. This time in Texas.

As Early Voting starts today in the crucial Texas Primaries, it looks like we've got yet another new martyr --- from the rare ranks of Election Officials --- who has reportedly been taken out by "the powers that be" during a fight for the ideas of Election Integrity, which he even went so far as to mention on a Houston television news report, if you can imagine such a thing.

The following details come from today's FortBendNow...

In advance of an upcoming screening of the new documentary film, UNCOUNTED: The New Math of American Elections (Feb. 21 at Sojourner’s Church in Charlottesville, VA), David Swanson covers the problems with the electronic Hart Intercivic DRE voting systems in his own home town for the Charlottesville Weekly, and unearths the following gem...

Ah, well. Glad that's settled. God bless American faith-based democracy. Long may she wave. You folks in Charlottesville can now rest easy.

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

Fidel Castro, Cuba's supreme leader since January 1959, has announced he will retire:

His announcement left little wiggle room for a comeback: "I do not aspire to and will not accept, I repeat, I neither want nor will accept, the position of president of the Council of State and commander in chief."

Via Mark Crispin Miller, from New Yorkers for Verified Voting's tireless Election Integrity champion, citizen Bo Lipari...

Kudos to NY's EI folks! Please keep up the great work! Read Bo at NYVV for more details...

California Sec. of State Debra Bowen wants Los Angeles County's acting Registrar of Voters, Dean Logan, to check the poll rosters of thousands of precincts in order to help accurately count tens of thousands of currently uncounted ballots cast in the Super Tuesday Democratic Primary.

As The BRAD BLOG pointed out last week, tens of thousands of currently uncounted ballots cast by Non-Partisan voters who chose to cross over and vote in the Democratic Primary, but who failed to ink in a second bubble meant to instruct voting machines to count the ballots as Democratic votes, can be counted accurately, as per the voters' intent, if Logan bothers to check those poll rosters.

Bowen, who sent a 3-page letter [PDF] to Logan after our article pointed out that he was simply wrong, in his own report [PDF] to the County Supervisors, when he claimed that it was "impossible" to determine the intent of the voters on those ballots.

It's not, and Bowen clearly seems to understand that, as evidenced by both her letter to Logan and comments she made last Friday on Northern California National Public Radio affiliate KQED, where she said she was "shocked" to hear that the debacle had happened in several elections previously...

L.A. County's former Registrar Recorder, Conny McCormack, who quit just prior to February's Super Tuesday Primary Election, turned into Condi Rice today. She's quoted in an Los Angeles Times' front page story confirming, as we pointed out over the weekend, that Election Officials did nothing about the "Double Bubble" ballot problem --- which may well disenfranchise a conservatively estimated 50,000 county voters --- despite massive disenfranchisement with the same design over last six years, since McCormack first implemented it.

In her best Condoleese, McCormack is quoted by the paper today saying, "This is an unfortunate, unanticipated result...No one could have predicted this."

Sound familiar?

She is shortly contradicted, in the same article, by a spokesperson from her own former office, before she continues on to blame voters and poll workers for the problem that she created --- as now confirmed by both the LA Times and California's Secretary of State Debra Bowen --- before then proceeding to do absolutely nothing about it...

UPDATE: We desperately need your support. So we're cutting prices in half on our monthly sustainer Premium Offers! -BF

We hate to ask, but we must. We've promised to continue our fight for American democracy in 2008, and against the continuing failures of the mainstream corporate media (and even against the failures of the supposedly-Progressive blogosphere and any other organizations who are failing their promise.) We believe we're keeping our promise, but we continue to need your help.

Please consider a sustaining monthly contribution to The BRAD BLOG. Sooner, rather than later, if possible.

Please see the blue form on the right side of this, and every, page to quickly sign up for a monthly sustaining subscription for any amount you like. We're also happy for a one-time contribution as well, of course, but sustaining our work on a regular basis is very much needed right now!

Remember, your crappy cable subscription likely costs you upwards of $50 or more per month already. Isn't what we're doing here at The BRAD BLOG worth at least a fraction of that? We wake up every day hoping so.

We receive no corporate or foundational support for our work, so it's all up to you! Hopefully, what we do is already well worth your support, but we're happy to up the ante with a few new collector's edition premium offers courtesy of several generous folks. See below to take your pick of one or more of 'em!...

Kudos the Dallas Morning News for becoming the first U.S. corporate mainstream outlet to run coverage of former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds' startling allegations of high-treason and the sale of U.S. nuclear secrets to the foreign black market, with the cooperation of high-ranking U.S. officials, originally published weeks ago by UK's Sunday Times, and papers in virtually every other country --- except for this one.

Today, the Morning News runs a lengthy version of former CIA officer Phil Giraldi's "Found in Translation" essay, originally published at American Conservative Magazine several weeks ago. Though the Morning News version is labeled as "Commentary" and replaces the named identity of former #3 at the State Department, Marc Grossman with "high-ranking official," along with other edits, the piece succeeds in breaking the U.S. media silence on the bulk of the details recently revealed in this remarkable story.

This version of Giraldi's story is sub-headlined, "Why is her story being covered up?" and begins as follows...

Go read it. Then take five minutes to write a letter to your local papers and/or news stations (Dem-based web tool, Rep-based web tool) to ask them why they are not investigating and/or reporting this story.

The BRAD BLOG's extensive, years-long catalog of too-frequently-exclusive coverage of the Sibel Edmonds story can be read here.

Given the potential disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of voters, and maybe even hundreds of thousands of voters, from Super Tuesday's Los Angeles County Democratic Primary election, which the county's current acting Registrar incorrectly claims to be "impossible" to count accurately, we believe it's time to place some blame squarely where it belongs for the entire mess.

A Los Angeles Times editorial this week, where, it seems, the paper may have finally found religion on the issue of Election Integrity, serves up a great starting point...

So it happened before. 44% of Non-Partisan cross-over ballots went uncounted in March '04 and 42% in June '06. And yet, the county went into '08's primary with no plans to change a thing.

The woman who dreamt up the ridiculous scheme, former Los Angeles County Registrar and Diebold cover girl Conny McCormack, quit just over a month before the election, and knew about the problem from years past, but did nothing about it. Or, she didn't know about, and was thus criminally negligent in her job as chief voting official for the nation's most populous county...