The Cleveland Plain Dealer is reporting today that over 1,500 ballots were sent out to absentee voters with the party designation swapped on one race.

According to Plain Dealer:

Guest Blogged by John Gideon

"A growing number of communities all across the country are now saying they simply want nothing to do with electronic voting machines. They've decided not to spend a dime of their taxpayers' money on those machines until they can guarantee that the votes of their citizens will count on Election Day and that those votes can actually be recounted with confidence." said Lou Dobbs at the top of Thursday's "Democracy At Risk" segment. The Lou finishes with this understatement, "Cook County [IL] saying it usually takes three or four elections to get it right. You are just writing off three or four elections? That's an insane statement."

The text-transcript of Thursday's segment on Lou Dobbs Tonight follows in full...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

Another voting system has been hacked and the hackers claim they could even change the software to a chess game. Liberty Systems, which is being marketed in the North East including heavily in New York, was hacked by a team of Dutch IT professionals. / Cook Co, Illinois elections staff admit to the County Board that there will probably be problems in Nov. and testing of their Sequoia equipment certainly reveals there will be problems. One elections manager told the Board that it takes 3 or 4 elections before there are no longer any problems. / Suffolk Co. New York officials are suing to keep their lever machines. / Maryland will use the e-poll books even though it took three software patches and the inclusion of a mouse, none of which have been certified federally....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon

On yesterday's show Kitty reported that Cuyahoga County, Ohio is concerned enough about their ability to count the votes that they have asked for assistance from an outside auditor. A good idea for sure. Also discussed is an ongoing investigation of one supplier of voting machines to Indiana counties; machines that were not certified for use in the state.

The text-transcript of Wednesday's segment on Lou Dobbs Tonight follows in full...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

A group of voters in Alameda Co California has stepped-up with help from VoterAction to file a lawsuit against the use of the Sequoia voting system in Nov. / VoterAction is also active in Wisconsin where they 'asked state regulators today to revoke approval of four types of electronic voting machines before next month's election.' / Testing of the E-Poll Books by Maryland has been completed and Diebold is declaring the testing a success though there were still a minimum of problems and the state has been quiet on their decision. The most troublesome problem from the primary has not been fixed, however. In Tuesday's testing a computer mouse was used instead of the normally required stylus and the touch-screen / ES&S is, again, having problems meeting contractual dates in delivering paper ballots. Counties in Montana have waited over two weeks for their ballots....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

Early voting for the Nov. general election has started in Ohio. / Winnebago Co. Wisconsin is threatening to withhold payment for their Diebold voting machines because the company failed to meet promises. / Voter turnout was higher than expected in Snohomish Co. and Kitsap Co. Washington. This was the first use of all vote-by-mail by Snohomish and the second even year VBM election for Kitsap. / Michael Shamos appeared on CNBC with Warren Stewart of VoteTrustUSA last night. Shamos again threw up the tired red-herring that there's never been a verified instance of voting machine tampering. Correctly Stewart pointed out that the recent Princeton test proved that tampering can be done without anyone ever knowing about it. It's time for Shamos to find another diversion. ...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon

Yesterday Lou reported on the "We Count 2006" gathering in Cleveland, Ohio which featured Bev Harris, Bob Fitrakis and many others. Also reported is that the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections has asked for oversight of the complete election process from the Center for Election Integrity at Cleveland State University.

UPDATE: Video now available below, hat-tip to the democracy-lovin' folks at Election Defense Alliance whose banner can be seen at the conference in the video!

-- Windows Media Player version...

The text-transcript of Monday's segment on Lou Dobbs Tonight follows in full...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

A patched E-Poll Book will be tested by Diebold and elections officials in Maryland on Tuesday. Past reports in the Baltimore Sun have stated that the poll books have never been used before then Diebold admitted that they were used in Georgia's primary but that version was an earlier machine. Diebold also admitted that the Georgia machines had the same problem as those used in Maryland. Diebold thought the problem was a hardware failure and that it would not happen in Maryland. Now they have had to install three patches in software, two written by Diebold and one by their hardware supplier. Will Diebold tell the rest of the states that are going to use these e-poll books in the November general election? Will patches be installed? These machines are a part of the overall federally certified voting system. Will the Independent Test Authorities (ITAs) test the certified software now that it has been modified? ...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

I hope that everyone had a chance to read the San Jose Mercury News article from Thursday. Our overseas military voters will now have an option of emailing their ballots to the Pentagon. Those emails will then be sent to a contractor, who makes partisan contributions, and the emails will then be copied and fax'd to those states that do not allow email but will allow faxes or forwarded on to those states who do allow email. The military voters are not told that their personal information and voting choices may be released and they are required to waive their right to a secret ballot. The article is posted again, below / Ever hear of voting problems in Oklahoma? In over three years of doing DVN I don't think I have ever included an article from OK. Today I did and it's a good one. / ...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

Diebold responds to criticism from Avi Rubin. Diebold's Radke claims the e-poll book problems were just a minor 'glitch' though reports are that it took three software patches to correct this minor 'glitch'. / Louisiana is conducting an election today with local and state elections and issues / Voters in Caddo Parrish, Louisiana had problems with some races on some machines today. The media hid that fact under a headline discussing voters finding their polling places. ...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

It appears that the qualification to become a voting system technician in Maryland has gotten a bit tougher. They now require a high school diploma. Class work only will not make the grade any longer. / The Nov. 7 ballot in Belmont Co. Ohio will be 12 pages long. Look for long lines here. / Lou Dobbs of CNN has been doing semi-regular segments on voting machines for several months now. He is now being joined by CBS Evening News and ABC Radio News to name a few. / Boone Co. Missouri is withholding $800,000 from ES&S until the vendor fixes faulty machines it has delivered. / A majority of the House of Representatives has now endorsed HR-550 ...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon

"Congress today heard alarming testimony on the threat of electronic voting machines and experts at the hearing testified that e-voting machines are vulnerable to tampering, outright fraud, and political manipulation. They also testified it's uncertain whether the votes of millions of Americans will count on election day," said Lou Dobbs at the top of yesterday's report.

Thursday's Lou Dobb's Tonight Democracy at Risk segment centered on a hearing before the House Administration Committee yesterday where experts told the committee about the possibility of tampering, fraud, or political manipulation.

Dobbs closed with: "I think, we're at the point...that this country [has] got to start thinking about going to paper ballots because these machines --- it's obvious. The training is not there. The backup, the lack of a paper trail. If there is a close election anywhere in this country, we're in deep, deep trouble."

Princeton University's Ed Felten was on hand among those testifying to demonstrate his Diebold Virus Hack originally reported by Brad the week before last. Here's a taste:

The text-transcript of Thursday's segment on Lou Dobbs Tonight follows in full...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

Maryland Gov. Ehrlich feels so negatively about his state's use of e-voting machines that he is actually using an automated phone message to encourage his supporters to vote absentee in Nov. / Overseas e-mailed ballots from the military are handled by a Pentagon contractor with partisan ties, according to an article in the San Jose Mercury. / Mississippi may disenfranchise all voters who use absentee ballots. They cannot get them mailed in time. How can that be all right? How can the military not be given time to vote? / Today was the House Admin. Committee hearing on voting technology. The AP reporter who attended must have fallen asleep after ten minutes. He only touched on one small part of what was discussed in the hearing. / The Tarrant Co. Texas Democratic party is preparing a federal lawsuit against the SoS for refusing to allow the county to have a vvpat. ...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon (Augmented by Brad Friedman)

Wednesday's Lou Dobbs Tonight on CNN picks up on the Emergency Paper Ballot legislation now filed in both the U.S. House and Senate.

Additionally, the story was also covered on MSNBC's Hardball yesterday (video with RFK Jr. here) and the NY Times picked it up the day before.

The Media is beginning to get it, the Democrats in Congress (those who have sponsored it, anyway) are beginning to get it. So where are the Congressional Republicans? Do they not want American citizens to be able to vote this November? We're just asking.

Said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), one of the original sponsors of the Senate legislation to Kitty Pilgrim on CNN last night: "I really have lost a lot of faith in these machines and it's expensive. Why not just go back to the simple paper ballot, at least until we're really sure that we've resolved all the problems?"

Dodd, Feingold and Kerry have now joined here on the Senate bill (S. 3943) and Holt's bill has several Democratic co-sponsors in the House (HR 6187).

The BRAD BLOG proposed the idea of Emergency Paper Ballots early last week, but the legislative session will likely adjourn this week for the Election Recess. Action is needed now in order to mitigate the possiblity of millions of Americans being disenfranchised this November. Please call and/or write your Congress Members of both parties now.

UPDATE: Video Now Available here... (Hat-tip BRAD BLOG commenter "Stop_George")

The complete text-transcript of Wednesday's segment on Lou Dobbs Tonight follows in full...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

Diebold has now divulged that there were three software problems with the e-poll books used in Maryland in the primary a couple weeks ago. These poll-books were federally certified. Why were these problems not found when they were certified as part of a complete voting system? Is the EAC going to track the software updates and ensure they get inspected prior to use in other states, if Diebold even makes the corrections in other states? / Diebold has also now divulged that the same e-poll book failure in Maryland also happened in July in Georgia. How many other states are using these machines and will they be told of the failures? ...