Blogged by Brad from somewhere in Colorado...

Have just been asked to fill in, at the last minute, as Guest Host for Mary Ann Gould on her Voice of the Voters radio program tonight at 8pm ET (5pm PT).

Please join us as I jump in to host her show as heard on the air on WNJC 1360AM in Philadelphia and South New Jersey (Rush Holt country!), and across the world via this online listening link.

We'll have more details on today's breaking Holt bill information, the Davis amendment, and other late-breaking voting news.

As we're doing this at the last minute, without guests or preparation, we'll be happy to take your calls, questions and thoughts at 856-227-1360. As usual, VoV and BRAD BLOG stalwart John Gideon of VotersUnite.org, a weekly regular on the show, will also be joining us to discuss all the latest!

Please join us, call us, and otherwise consider this an Open thread for use during the show! (Hit the Comments link below, let us know what's on your mind and then hit REFRESH to keep up with the conversation!)

POST-SHOW UPDATE: Thanks for those who tuned in! Apologies to those who had a bad net stream. Apparently we overloaded their stream. Here then is the archived hour, with all of the day's Rush Holt news, and guests Bob Fitrakis, Bruce Funk, Paddy Schaeffer and John Gideon.

Brad Guest Hosting Voice of the Voters, 9/5/07 (appx. 1 hour)...

By Brad Friedman from Glenwood Springs, CO...

[ED NOTE: Many updates have been posted throughout the day on this item. Please see bottom of article for the latest updates!]

An amendment to either ban or restrict the use of Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen) voting systems may be added to Rep. Rush Holt's (D-NJ) Election Reform Bill by California Congresswoman Susan Davis today, The BRAD BLOG can now confirm.

After learning of the possibility early this morning, we have now confirmed with Davis's office that she is mulling such an amendment to present to the House Rules Committee, which is set to meet this afternoon at 3pm ET to determine which amendments will be allowed for debate on Holt's controversial HR 811 election bill. The legislation is currently scheduled to come up for debate on the House Floor as soon as it's passed out of the Rules Committee.

UPDATE: Davis's office has now confirmed they will bring such an amendment if allowed by the Rules Committee and by Leadership.

The committee will decide whether or not to allow amendments to the bill at all once it's on the House floor. The BRAD BLOG has learned that the committee essentially has three options in that regard. They can move the bill forward with a "Closed Rule," meaning no amendments are allowed on the bill; a "Restricted Rule," meaning only certain amendments will be allowed for debate, or an "Open Rule," which would allow any amendment to be brought to the bill while it's on the House floor.

The phone and fax numbers for members of the Rules Committee are posted below, along with the contact information for House Leaders Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, who would be instrumental in allowing such an amendment to be brought.

At this hour, Davis's office is considering language for such an amendment, conferring with legal authorities and gauging potential support from colleagues. They may be considering restrictions on DRE usage, rather than a complete ban, along the lines of what California's Secretary of State Debra Bowen implemented recently after her independent "Top-to-Bottom Review" found severe vulnerabilities in all of the states certified touch-screen voting systems.

After the landmark study, carried out by the University of California, Bowen implemented restrictions on DRE systems made by Diebold, Sequoia Voting Systems, and other major manufacturers. Only one DRE per polling place will be allowed in California's 2008 elections in order to marginally meet federal accessibility requirements for disabled voters. Bowen's restrictions also allow for DRE use in Early Voting, though all such systems must have 100% of their "Voter Verified Paper Audit Trails" (VVPATs) manually counted.

Blogged by Brad from Colorado...

We've been in the woods and off the grid for the past several days, only to return to find that Rep. Rush Holt's (D-NJ) hugely flawed Election Reform bill, HR 811, is said again to finally be coming up for a vote in the U.S. House this week. The claim of an imminent vote on the House floor has been made many times in the past by Holt and his supporters, though this time it's now actually on the schedule of the House Rules Committee for a vote tomorrow on an amendment, as described yesterday by VotersUnite.org's John Gideon, that would move the bill forward even without a mandate that it actually be funded. As well, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) has the bill penciled onto his full House Floor calendar to come up as part of business as early as tomorrow, even though it's currently listed there as "Subject to a Rule" --- presumably in reference to whatever happens in the Rules Committee.

As usual, the scheduling, whether real or imagined, as it has been in the past, brings another surge of misinformation from the bill's powerful supporters. Leading the way this time around is MoveOn.org, which sent out an email to members over the weekend asking if it should support the latest "compromise" version of the bill as it's been hammered out, reportedly, between Hoyer and Holt and secretly brokered behind closed doors by longtime HR811 supporters People for the American Way (PFAW).

While MoveOn is asking members if it should support the bill, the mailing --- more accurately described as a "push poll" --- shows MoveOn's hand by misrepresenting quite a bit of what the bill actually does and doesn't do. So we'd be surprised if its members came out as anything but in favor of supporting the bill. But more on that deceptive mailer in a moment, along with some news on Holt himself reportedly now distancing himself from aspects of his very own bill!...

Blogged by Brad from Glenwood Springs, CO...

We've emerged safely from the woods after three glorious days off the grid up at 10,200 feet. No net. No cell. No bears. No mountain lions. Though we did have a few close encounters with a bald eagle and some moose (even if we avoided being trampled by the two who stampeded through our campsite at dawn one morning.)

Starting slowly this morning and catching up on some of the bear stories you guys posted in the the Open Thread I left on my way out the door. Thanks for those. Was only able to read a few of them before we set out, but CharlieL's amusing story provided a good laugh or two around the campfire.

From the real mountains to the mountain of email that has come in while we were gone, it may take some time to get cranked back up to full speed. So for the moment, here's a look at what I've been looking at over the past few days...

More photos later, perhaps, unless I learn I'm needed elsewhere after discovering what's really going on out here.

Oh, and btw, you folks in San Diego were in our hearts and on our minds even in the wilds over the past few days!

Glad to see it looks like Progressive Talk AM 1360 KLSD is still on the air at this hour! If you haven't already, please take the time to sign the petition to register your support for some semblance of both fairness and balance on the public's airwaves in the country's 6th largest city!

More soon(ish)...

Blogged by Brad from somewhere in Colorful Colorado...

After threatening, and trying for the last two months, to get fully "off the grid," by jiminy, I'm gonna do it. At least for a few days. Come hell or highwater. At least until after Labor Day.

Heading up to get lost in the mountains for a few days beginning today, and so the Guest Bloggers will do as they please here (or not). Whatever happens at The BRAD BLOG, will stay at The BRAD BLOG.

Goodbye cruel world! At least until next week at some point (unless the bears get me)...

Blogged by Brad from Boulder, CO...

Must get off the grid today very shortly (and will be gone until after Labor Day), so not much time for comment here. Rather, I'll give you quick pointers to three superb editorials in today's papers as the voices of the good guys return to counter the charlatans and propagandists who've been dominating the media pages for far too long.

Please read on, for some heroic cries for accountability --- finally --- from the hopelessly compromised U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC), Election Officials in general, and Sequoia Voting Systems in particular, all found in the op/ed pages today from Coast-to-Coast!...

Blogged by Brad Friedman from Boulder, CO...

"I don't want to preside over the dismantling of voter services that have been successful and accurate," LA County Registrar of Voters Conny McCormack tells the LA Times this morning. "I suppose I do take that personally."

McCormack's systems were "dismantled" after ES&S, one of her vendors, refused to supply its source code in time for testing of her paper-based InkaVote Plus system, and after her other vendor Diebold's touch-screen machines were disallowed for use because they were found vulnerable to hacking. Only one such machine will now be allowed per polling place in order to marginally meet federal disability voter accessibility standards, and the paper trails from those machines, as per Bowen's orders, will have to be 100% hand-counted.

Though that didn't keep McCormack from signaling, in a Bush-style signing statement, that she didn't think she had to actually count them prior to the final certification of the election. In a a statement [PDF] posted on the LA County Registrar's website in reply to Bowen's order, McCormack wrote, "However, it is important to clarify that the SOS Order does not require the 100% manual count audit to occur prior to completion of the official results certification."

The link to that document from the front page of the site has now been replaced by McCormack's resignation statement.

The LA Times Hector Becerra goes on to report that McCormack "angrily accused Bowen of unfairly attacking the voting machines to gain political points."

While we're not sure what "political points" Bowen gains (she was elected last November on the promise of doing exactly what she's done, won't have to run again for another three years, and has come under considerable criticism in the media for her courageous, principled stand), it's little surprise that McCormack, who has been fighting for the voting machine companies instead of the voters for years --- even appearing on a Diebold sales brochure to sing the company's praises --- would bug out of the nation's largest county just a month before the first Presidential Primary Election in 2008, leaving the voters to whatever may happen.

McCormack's official statement of retirement [PDF] didn't mention her anger at Bowen for taking away her toys and those of the companies she's concerned about. Rather she claimed...

So the question we pose to you is...

Let us know your opinion. The BRAD BLOG will, of course, let you know when we find out. It shouldn't be long. Something tells us, McCormack already knows where she's going from here...

UPDATE: I'm told the print edition version of Becerra's LA Times story on Conny was longer than the one posted on the web as linked above. In the carbon based version, there is a quote from yours truly, as Becerra interviewed by phone for reaction to McCormack's announcement late yesterday:

(Via All Hat No Cattle, hat-tip BRAD BLOG toon sherpa, Pokey Anderson!)

...and I love my wife too. (Even though I'm not married.)

Just wanted to mention that.

By Brad Friedman from on the road in Burlington, CO...

The recent Dan Rather report (complete video here) on the gaming of the paper punchcard ballots by Sequoia Voting Systems in Florida, just prior to the 2000 election, plugs up at least one important "hole" in the Clint Curtis story. We first broke Curtis's story back in late 2004 and have been reporting on it ever since.

You'll recall that Curtis alleged --- in sworn affidavit [PDF], live video-taped testimony before a U.S. House Judiciary delegation, and via polygraph test --- that he was asked by Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL) to create a touch-screen vote-rigging prototype program, just months prior to the 2000 election when they both worked at the same Florida software firm.

One of the main criticisms of Curtis's striking allegations at the time was that "nobody was even thinking about touch-screen voting systems in Florida prior to the 2000 Presidential Election debacle."

Dan Rather's remarkable investigative report, however, would seem to indicate otherwise: seven Sequoia company whistleblowers reveal on camera that, despite their objections, they were forced to use poor quality paper for the punchcards to be used in Florida in 2000. They also revealed that they had been instructed to deliberately misalign the chads for ballots going to Palm Beach County, FL, only.

Back in 2004, just after The BRAD BLOG broke the original story of Curtis' allegations, some in the media were skeptical. On 12/13/04, Kim Zetter picked up on the story for WIRED and wrote...

Unknown to the dubious Zetter at the time, was that someone at Sequoia, as the Rather report now reveals, seems to have known what they were doing when they gamed those paper ballots in Florida in 2000, since the company had already had touch-screen voting machines in the pipe-line, and indeed, already in use since as early as 1999 in California. If someone at Sequoia was pushing towards a change to touch-screen voting for Florida in 2000, the charges that Feeney might well have been aware, and supporting such a move is not quite as absurd as Zetter seemed to suggest in her article.

As well, another recent revelation puts the lie to Feeney's claim, made years ago, that he no longer had anything to do with the owners of the Oviedo, Florida, firm where he was the general counsel and registered lobbyist in 2000 (even as he served as Speaker of the FL House at the same time). Curtis was employed as a computer programmer for the company, which had multi-million dollar contracts with both the state and NASA, where Feeney's wife has worked for several years.

New information reveals that the owners of the company remain personal friends with Feeney, and continue to funnel money to him even while they hope for further contracts from the U.S. House Subcommittee on Space & Aeronautics, in which Feeney has recently been promoted to ranking member.

TOUCH-SCREEN VOTING SYSTEMS AND PRE-2000 FLORIDA

Connecting a few dots here... Sequoia had already deployed its new touch-screen voting systems in several precincts in Riverside County, CA, back in 1999. In 2000 the systems were to be used county-wide for the first time. Sequoia knew damned well that they stood to make millions from the use of touch-screen voting systems long before the 2000 election, even as their paper ballot shop was preparing the flawed paper ballots for use in Florida's election that same year.

As reported by Rather, the company made just pennies per ballot on the punchcards and only a few hundred dollars on punchcard counting machines. But millions stood to be made on their newer technology, which sold for thousands of dollars per touch-screen machine. The stunning on-camera testimony from the seven company whistleblowers suggests that the company --- and/or someone else --- may have had a plan in place to speed the transition to touch-screens prior to the 2000 election in Florida. That, of course, is precisely the same moment in time that Curtis alleges Feeney asked him to create touch-screen vote-rigging software, when they both worked for Yang Enterprises, Inc....

Former federal prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega, author of United States v. George W. Bush et al, sends us the following comments on the resignation of Alberto Gonzales...

Ditto. A fish rots from the head down.

UPDATE: One additional thought. Gonzales finally resigned once his potential impeachment by the Democrats seemed where all of this might be heading. We might suggest the same outcome --- resignation --- would be likely for George W. Bush and/or Dick Cheney, once they began to see impeachment as likely, giving them both the chance to claim they were being good guys by 'stepping aside for the good of the country.' What say we give them that out? Dems ought to reconsider their Constitutional duty of bringing accountability to the Executive Branch for the many demonstrated acts of High Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Here's an in-depth, in-person interview I did with Tom Klammer for his Tell Somebody show last week in Kansas City, MO, on KKFI. This is the first part of the interview, and he promises to run the rest next week. The conversation was on Election and Media issues in Missouri and across the country, including more on GOP anti-democracy, vote-suppressor Thor Hearne from the hometown of the headquarters for his law firm, Lathrop & Gage. A bit of drama is added, as if it's needed, as thunder is heard throughout the interview.

Brad Friedman interviewed on Tell Somebody with Tom Klammer, aired 8/24/07 (appx. 35 mins):

UPDATE: Part Two of my interview with Klammer was run on the following Friday. Here is that show, featuring the rest of our in-depth interview, focusing on the failures of touch-screen voting and duplicity by the voting machine companies.

Brad Friedman interviewed on Tell Somebody with Tom Klammer, Part Two aired 8/31/07 (appx. 39 mins):

Blogged by Brad from Kansas (which has nothing the matter with it, btw)...

Last Thursday, Sentido.tv did an excellent job of collecting and collating "our story up until now" of Thor Hearne's vote-suppression GOP front group, "American Center for Voting Rights" (ACVR). Sentido's thorough coverage includes well-sourced references, links, collections of information and historical reporting on the rise and fall of the ACVR scam that has slowly occurred since The BRAD BLOG originally broke the story of Rove's buddy Hearne --- the national general counsel for Bush/Cheney '04 Inc. --- and his mysteriously funded "non-partisan" anti-democracy campaign.

The latest story details the GOP front-group's appearance, the background of their known key players, up through their recent attempts to scrub all references to themselves across the Internets in the wake of their revealed connections to the U.S. Attorney Purge. Here's a few sample grafs which tie the ACVR's disingenuous propaganda efforts to their interest in distracting from real investigations of Ohio 2004 and of the democracy-imperiling dangers of electronic voting...

Blogged by Brad from Burlington, CO...

P.S. We're not in Kansas anymore.