Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

I'm working on a bunch of new things but most of them aren't ready yet. Oh well.

Your turn.

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

The Orlando Sentinel has posted a good article by Robert Perez called Opponent, where art thou? asks Democrat in which Perez does a very good job covering the lead-up to the Democratic Primary in the 24th District, between Clint Curtis and Andy Michaud. The winner will earn the right to run for Congress --- against Tom Feeney!

Many election integrity advocates have been hoping for a Feeny-Curtis race, which would certainly focus more light on some very key issues. But Curtis has to get by Andy Michaud first. And as Perez describes it, Michaud's strategy at the moment is very difficult to grasp.

Guest Blogged by Emily Levy

Claims that electronic voting equipment sleepovers are just peachy sound mighty defensive in an issue paper titled "Voting Equipment 'Sleepover' Practice" issued July 27, 2006 by the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials (CACEO).

It may come as no shock that the president of the CACEO is none other than Conny McCormack, Registrar of Voters from Los Angeles County, pictured here on a Diebold brochure. San Diego RoV Mikel Haas is on the Board of Directors. Despite the CACEO not being a government entity, it has an important job to do. Why, its motto is even "Officium populi, office of the people." But wait! In their bylaws we find, under "Objects and Purposes":

Guest Blogged By John Gideon

Just released by the Green Party US is a Press Release from San Diego County, CA that states, in part, "The Green Party of San Diego County does not endorse the protocols used for obtaining and tabulating votes during the June 6 primary and previous elections. As we outline below, the process is fundamentally insecure leading to election results that are neither accurate nor verifiable."

The complete Press Release is below:

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

According to ABC News and AP: Bob Ney Won't Seek Re-Election

AP writer Joe Danborn has some other details, including:

The Pittsburgh Tribune Review has more, including some quotes from an exclusive interview with Ney: Ney drops out of fall race

Who went on that trip to Scotland? Let's see ...

Guest Blogged By John Gideon

Vote-PAD is a low-tech, voting assistive device that was developed with input from the disabilities community. Because it is inexpensive to purchase and maintain, Vote-PAD is a threat to electronic voting systems. Vote-PAD also makes voting a possibility for a wider range of voters with disabilities than do almost all of the Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) or touch-screen voting systems.

Even though some northern California counties had already purchased Vote-PAD for use in their elections as their HAVA compliant voting system for voters with disabilities; the Secretary of State decided that they would have to certify Vote-PAD for use with the optical-scan systems that are in use in each of the user counties.

The state then wrote a test plan that was totally unfair to the voters with disabilities who were expected to test the Vote-PAD. The state did not use a Human Factors Usability Testing Expert, an expert in writing test procedures for disabilities access. Instead they wrote a procedure that would have been better suited to testing a computerized voting system and they appear to have done this without really understanding how voters with disabilities actually use the device.

It is important to note that the state of California has certified for use many voting systems produced by Sequoia, Elections Systems and Software, Diebold, and Hart Intercivic. These devices have been certified by the state as being HAVA compliant and usable by voters with disabilities. Yet, not one of the electronic voting systems has been tested specifically by the disabilities community or even advocates for that community. Instead, a cursory inspection was made by unqualified staff and/or unqualified consultants and they were all accepted for use.

Blogged by Brad on the Road from Minneapolis/St. Paul...

Just a quick personal blog item to touch base from out here on the road. I'm currently in St. Paul for just a few more moments. We drove up Friday (from St. Louis) to tape two episodes of John Forde's Mental Engineering for PBS. Not certain when these episodes will air (some time this fall, I believe) but I'll try to let you know when I find out.

I was honored to sit on a four-person panel with the brilliantly hysterical comedian Tom Rhodes, the delightful and smart media literacy professor Renee Hobbs from Temple University and the lovely and deviously clever actor Desi Doyen (DISCLOSURE: Desi is also my girlfriend)...

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Matthew Cardinale has the details:
BREAKING: Donzella James Contesting Primary in Georgia

A few choice excerpts:

And:

Please read the entire article.

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

A few days ago, on a long and very interesting thread, texaslady wrote:

Thank you WP and Brad for sacrificing time and careers to keep those who want to learn informed.

This was a strange and difficult comment for me to read. I was reluctant to accept the obvious truth behind texaslady's kind words. Ever since I started working with Brad, I have known that he walked away from a successful career in order to do what he does now --- investigating, blogging, keeping VR running, and many other things that we don't usually notice.

So I didn't have any trouble with texaslady's comment as it applies to Brad. But I had a lot of trouble with it as it applies to me. Apparently I've been blocking out the fact that my career is gone, too.

We love what we do, we would do it for free, and we often do so. But that's not always enough.

Now Brad and I are both up against the wall, and that's why we are turning to you --- again --- and asking for help.

If you can make a contribution --- large or small --- please do so! Find the blue box near the top of the right sidebar and follow the instructions from there.

We will appreciate it immensely. And even more important, we will use the money to keep the blog running, to keep the truth flowing, and in my case at least, to keep my little guys eating.

We really couldn't do this without you. But that's ok. Because without you, it wouldn't be worth doing!

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Lord, we don't need another mountain,
There are mountains and hillsides enough to climb
There are oceans and rivers enough to cross,
Enough to last till the end of time.

A hat tip to Burt Bacharach, and Hal David, and I hereby declare this thread OPEN!

[And a hat tip to "middleworld" for making us check. --99]

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

I've been reading the most incredible editorial, from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
THE LAME VOTE-RIGGING CRIES RETURN

It's also available here and probably elsewhere too.

Here's how it starts:

Well, I for one did see this coming, but I don't think this means we all should have.

You can see right away how "clever" Jay Bookman is! He admits that the result was "surprising" and that the explanation posed by her campaign was a "likely" one. It almost seems he's interested in telling the truth ... but not really.

Even on the cold hard web-page, Bookman's words are clearly dripping with sarcasm. And, in an era when unintended irony is all the rage for supporters of the current corrupt bunch of war-criminals posing as statesmen, I am not shocked to see a true statement such as this one, disguised as ... um ... listen: this is a family blog, for the most part, so let's just continue.

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

USA Today has the "latest":
U.S. commander expresses fear about possible civil war in Iraq

Much as I hate to disagree with the top U.S. military commander in the Middle East, I have to question this assertion. Waddaya mean: "move toward civil war"? How many civilians have to get blown to bloody smithereens every day to qualify this mess as a civil war? How many death squads have to roam the country simultaneously before we can all just can the sleazy rhetoric and admit that the Iraqi Civil War is here now?

And as the Washington Post reported recently, some of our guys are starting to get the impression that they are simply 'Waiting to Get Blown Up'.

Did you ever wonder why they can't live in unity now even though they could live in relative peace before the Americans came to destroy their country?

Did you ever wonder why American soldiers in Iraq are considering the possibility that maybe the country "needs" a civil war?...

Motel Blogged from the road by Brad...

In addition to the previous article mentioned in Florida, more Voting Machine 'Sleepover' coverage today, this time from Marc Songini in ComputerWorld...

Blogged hastily by Brad from the road...(I think I'm in Cedar Rapids, Iowa...though not actually running for anything)...

From an article in today's Daytona Beach News-Journal...

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Things have begun to stink so badly in Alabama that even the New York Times has noticed.

An unsigned editorial titled Strong-Arming The Vote ran on Thursday. And we have some excerpts from it here:

Seems to have been a driving force, indeed!