Tribune Media Services columnist, Robert Koehler, has declared 'No Confidence' in the recent Busby/Bilbray special U.S. House election about which we've been reporting extensively on here at The BRAD BLOG over the past week.

In his latest column, online today, in papers tomorrow, Koehler discusses "democracy extremists" such as yours truly (who he refers to as "democracy maven Brad Friedman" so how could we not like him?) and the mess of an election held last week in San Diego where the world's most hackable voting machines --- Diebold's --- were sent home for overnight with poll workers in the weeks preceding the election.

The sleepovers, Koehler confirms, are in direct violation of the CA Sec. of State, Bruce McPherson's own recent security mitigation procedures for use of Diebold systems, apparently violating their certification for use in last week's election, as we reported in detail earlier today.

Koehler's as appalled as we are and writes in his tremendous column (please read the whole thing!):

The electronic Diebold voting systems used in the special run-off election last week for California's 50th U.S. House district were effectively 'decertified' and invalidated for use in the election after massive security breaches in the storage of those systems were sanctioned by the San Diego County Registrar of Voters, The BRAD BLOG can now conclude.

Based on the review of several different very specific state and federal requirements, laws and provisions, the unsecured overnight storage of Diebold voting machines and their memory cards in poll workers houses, cars and garages in the days and weeks prior to the closely watched election between Republican Brian Bilbray and Democrat Francine Busby violated several federal and state provisions which, if not followed, would revoke the certification of use for the voting systems in any California election.

In the wake of discussions yesterday with SD County Registrar Mikel Haas, who admitted to The BRAD BLOG that storage in poll workers' cars could not be considered secure, it has now become clear that several violations of certified provisions of use for Diebold voting machines --- which have been found and confirmed in the past several months to be highly tamperable by dozens of methods and by the company's own admissions --- occurred in last week's race...

Warren Stewart, Director of Legislative Issues and Policy for VoteTrustUSA calls the Busby/Bilbray election into doubt in his article yesterday, headlined, "Vendor Failures and Lax Security Procedures Call Election Results Into Question In States Across The Country":

Yesterday, Lou Dobbs did his 6th straight report on the dangers of E-Voting. Today he did his 7th report in a row, we hope to have that for you tomorrow.

In yesterday's report, Dobbs introduced it by describing the "rising doubts" about Electronic Voting Machines and said those doubts "about their accuracy and integrity threaten to undermine confidence in our democracy." Right on, Lou.

The report even quotes from last year's landmark GAO report on Electronic Voting, broken here last October, and unreported by CNN (or virtually anyone else in the media) at all until yesterday! (See the graphic at upper right)

Attorney Lowell Finley of VoterAction.org, the non-partisan group filing lawsuits to stop these systems around the country, is quoted as saying, "The real danger with electronic voting is with insider fraud, who just need a few minutes of access to a voting machine or to a tabulating computer and they can wreak havoc."

Dobbs closed the segment yesterday, incredulously, with this:

We'll have a report on one of those "people defending results," Michael Haas, the Registrar of Voters in San Diego County, where the results of the 50th Congressional district U.S. House race have been corrupted by his cavalier lack of concern about the security of Diebold voting systems used in the race. He seems to have no concerns, as Finley mentioned, about "insider fraud," or of the concept that "a few minutes of access to a voting machine...can wreak havoc." More on that tomorrow.

The video of Dobbs' 6th report in a row (compliments of David Edwards, natch) is linked below:

-- Video in Streaming Flash format...
-- Video in Windows Media format...

The complete text-transcript of yesterday's report follows...

In light of our recent reports that California's special run-off election to fill the seat of disgraced former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham in the 50th congressional was carried out on voting machines tainted by massive security breaches --- having been sent home with poll workers in the weeks prior to the election in violation of several state and federal directives --- Republicans have rushed to swear in the "winner" Brian Bilbray in Washington D.C. this morning, despite the election results being unverified, ballots still being counted and the "winner" not even certified in the state.

The Associated Press, who ran a photo today of a "mock swearing-in ceremony" in House Speaker Dennis Haster's office, also ran a story, widely carried unquestioningly around the country, describing Bilbray's official first day in the U.S. House, as if the election results had been legitimized. They haven't been.

"Bilbray sworn in to replace Rep. Cunningham," says the headline accompanying a story written by AP's Erica Warner and picked up widely. The story gives no indication that the questionable results of the election have yet to be certified by the state of California.

AP's coverage has been published widely today by, amongst scores of others, USA Today and Washington Post.

And yet, four sources in the CA-50's San Diego County Registrar of Voters office, including the Registrar himself, Michael Haas, along with two officials in the CA Secretary of State's office have confirmed to The BRAD BLOG that there are thousands of votes still be counted in the closely watched race, which has yet to be officially certified by either the county or the state...

I've now heard from several high-level folks in the DNC's Voting Rights Institute who have expressed concern about the situation in the CA-50 race. I've been told they will be having more meetings to discuss the matter tomorrow, and will likely be contacting me soon for further information and/or details about the matter. They seemed to be very concerned about the information I've given them and as previously reported on the matter here at The BRAD BLOG.

I can only hope they do a better job paying attention to this, and the larger matter at stake here, than they did with their report supposedly looking into the problems with the 2004 Presidential Election in Ohio. In that report, they stated they found "no evidence of fraud." Though when I drilled the now-former VRI Executive Director, Vincenty Frye about whether or not they actually investigated the many reports of fraud in that election and its recount, he admitted --- on air [MP3] --- that they did not.

In the meantime, it seems Francine Busby's campaign (who has still failed to return any of my calls) is now replying via Email to those who have questioned her position on the matter, and whether or not she plans to demand a 100% manual hand count of all the paper ballots and "paper trails" in the race now that it's been indisputedly shown that the secure chain of custody for the voting machines was irreparably violated when San Diego County officials sent the world's most easily-hacked voting machines home with poll workers days and weeks prior to last Tuesday's important special election run-off for the U.S. House seat vacated by the disgraced Randy "Duke" Cunningham.

Her emailed statement, as forwarded by Dr. Mike Byron --- a friend of Busby's and the 2004 Democratic nominee for the U.S. House in CA's 49th congressional district --- was posted earlier today in this BRAD BLOG comment. The statement illustrates a number of troubling issues. In particular, that Busby doesn't yet seem to have a grasp on what the actual concerns are about the tainted results, as currently reported, in her own election...

I was tipped off that callers to The Ed Schultz Show were misreporting my coverage of the tainted results as reported by the San Diego County Registrar from the Busby/Bilbray U.S. House special election in California's 50th congressional district last week. (All BRAD BLOG stories on the topic here.)

I was able to get through to Schultz' producer (thanks, Homey!) who was able to get me on the air with Big Ed to straighten out the record after a few minutes explaining it to Ed off air. After understanding what the hell is going on here, Schultz --- who has previously declined to deal with E-Voting issues in large part --- seemed to be ticked off when he learned that security for the Diebold voting machines used in the election was irreparably breached by sending the machines home with poll workers, in violation of California guidelines, prior to the very close and very important election.

He's called for an explanation from Schwarzenegger and wonders if Sen. Barbara Boxer has yet rung in on this (she hasn't, as far as we know --- though we have heard that there's been quite a bit of buzz today "inside" the DNC on the whole matter...More on that later if we're able to get confirmable, and therefore publishable, specifics.)

You can listen to the Schultz segment in full (about 13 minutes) here:

-- Brad discussing Busby/Bilbray on The Ed Schultz Show [MP3]...

P.S. Lou Dobbs just covered the issue of Electronic Vote Fraud concerns for the 6th straight day. We'll try and get up the video, or at least a transcript of today's report later tonight.

Bruce Funk, the 23-year Emery County, Utah county clerk who allowed computer security experts Harris Hursti and Security Innovation to examine the Diebold AccuVote TSx voting systems forced on him by the state last March --- which led to the discovery of a massive security vulnerability in all Diebold touch-screen systems, as originally broken by The BRAD BLOG, and subsequently followed up by New York Times, NEWSWEEK, NPR and many other MSM outlets --- writes in with his concerns about the results of last week's special election in San Diego between Francine Busby and Brian Bilbray to replace Randy "Duke" Cunningham in CA's 50th U.S. House congressional district.

(All of our reports on that race, so far, in which San Diego county blatantly defied the CA Sec. of State's own security mitigation requirements, not to mention common sense, by sending the voting machines home with poll workers days and weeks prior to the election can be read here.)

As reported recently by the Salt Lake Tribune, since allowing the security examination in Utah, Funk has been pushed out of his job by state officials, in apparent collusion with Diebold officials. (My radio interview with Funk about all of this, from my recent Guest Host stint on the Peter B. Collins Show, is here.)

In the letter on the Busby/Bilbray matter, Funk writes...

In following up on Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recent piece in Rolling Stone offering reams of evidence suggesting that the 2004 Presidential Election was most likely stolen, NY Times columnist Bob Herbert op/eds today:

Since the op/ed at the Times is available to 'Times Select' members only (a 14 day trial is available,) you can get a few more excerpts from RAW STORY instead.

A glitch (yes, a software glitch) found in WordPress this morning, the new software now in place for use here at The BRAD BLOG, kicked in and took us down for much of the morning. We're back up (as you can see) and still working through a host of other issues concerning comment problems and other matters. For now, we recommend you copy your comment to the clipboard before hitting "submit" just in case it doesn't post as it is supposed to on first try!

Please use this item to report any problems you may come across. We'll also keep our eye on the previous item asking for input on these issues.

Otherwise, please scroll down below this item for the latest actual news (on the questionable results of the Busby/Bilbray election and other matters) that I'm also trying to deal with at the same time...

*** IMPORTANT NOTE! *** Since we're still having a bug in the comments posting, PLEASE remember to copy your note (CTRL-C) before submitting it in case it doesn't post. If it doesn't, use paste (CTRL-V) to try again. The problem seems to take care of itself on second post attempt! We're working on it...

While I'm catching up and sifting through much incoming info on the already-tainted results of Tuesday's Busby/Bilbray special election for the U.S. House (CA-50), (BRAD BLOG coverage here, here, here and here, so far), Loyola University Professor/Ph.D. Ron Baiman has some analysis of numbers from Tuesday which he describes as something that "smells fishy in San Diego".

(UPDATE: I'd also like to point you to this comment by Jody Holder, in re: the security issues and requirements for Diebold machines as issued by CA's Sec. of State McPherson recently, and the apparent disregard and failure to properly implement those already-less-than-sufficient requirements. Holder, btw, is one of the plaintiffs in the recently filed suit against the state to stop the use and purchase of Diebold touch-screen systems in California. He's also an incredibly good researcher and analyst of this stuff.)

Also, please note the reported margin seems to be widening between Busby and Bilbray as absentee and provisionals are reportedly being counted, according to the San Diego County Registrar of Voters website. The intially reported 4,700 votes on Election Night has grown to some 6,100 votes at this hour.

Given Busby's concerted campaign, prior to the election, to encourage folks to vote by Absentee Ballot --- as the good Thom Hartmann was kind enough to tip me off to --- the increasing spread in the margin as absentees are tallied is certainly worth watching closely. Particularly with the odd absentee numbers reported that we covered last night.

I suppose prudence demands that I point out, yet again, that I've yet to report any of evidence of fraud in this race (at this time.) Nor have I said that Busby won the race, or that Bilbray --- or anybody --- stole the election.

I have, however, reported the irrefutable fact that the world's most easily-tamperable voting machines (Diebold's) were irreparably tainted by being sent home with poll workers days and weeks prior to the election, in violation of several clear warnings issued by CA's own Sec. of State, Bruce McPherson and the computer scientists at UC Berkeley that he commissioned to independently analyze the scores of known and now-admitted-by-Diebold vulnerabilities in their optical-scan and touch-screen voting systems.

That fact --- in and of itself --- is reason for a complete loss of confidence in the so-far reported results which are based on optically-scanned ballots and touch-screen machine-reported numbers and thus calls for a complete hand count of the paper ballots and "paper trails" before any credence should be given to the reported totals in such a close election with so many national ramifications.

It bears repeating to those who don't get this: The San Diego County Registrar of Voters office is paid with your tax dollars (yes, your federal tax dollars) to run an accurate election. The burden of proof that they have done so, and that the election results are accurate and verifiable lies with them. So far, they have offered no such evidence.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer's associate publisher, Kenneth F. Bunting deserves high praise for his mea culpa in re: the lack of mainstream media coverage (including at his own paper) on RFK Jr.'s recent copiously detailed article in Rolling Stone on whether or not the 2004 Presidential Election was stolen.

His op/ed today is a breath of fresh air and a must read. A very few key excerpts are below.

More to the point, we'll ask then, if Bunting might like to give a story such as the Busby/Bilbray stuff we've been reporting on the attention that it deserves before it becomes too late and the subject of a later "we shoulda reported on it back then" editorial.

Bunting's posted email address is KenBunting@seattlepi.com. Mine is TheBradBlog@cville.com if you'd like to give it to him along with kudos for his piece. I'd be happy to speak with any and all media types about what's going on here and help point them to where the bodies may well be buried...This story could very much use a bigger boat right now...

Okay, not really Diebold programmers. Some of the best actually! My old friend Ronny Brodin has worked his magic and I think the new software here --- that will allow us some really exciting new things soon -- is working pretty well so far.

Nonetheless, there's a bunch of stuff that will need tweaking and I thank you for your patience as we work out the kinks.

As mentioned, this is likely the worst possible time for this, but we've had no choice other than to expedite this long-planned move since the hack/spam attacks have gotten so bad, bringing the whole site down several times a day.

You'll notice some new stuff already. Amongst them, a new "PRINT THIS" option which will also be handy for those who have trouble reading our yellow-on-green color scheme since it's straight black-on-white instead!

More soon on the new features we'll be able to put in place before long! But as it's 4:45am and I've only slept about 3 or 4 hours over each of the last 4 or 5 days, I'm gonna knock off and hope all is well when I wake up to begin tweaking some more of the still-existing "glitches"...Leave comments here if you spot any problems, please, and I'll try to handle them in the morning!

Thanks for all of your support, patience, and understanding... Brad

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For those stopping by for our coverage of the questionable Francine Busby/Brian Bilbray U.S. House special run-off election to replace the disgraced "Duke" Cunningham last Tuesday, here's the key articles so far:

Palast's ARMED MADHOUSE is coming to a city near you (though Friedman and Quickley are staying put in Los Angeles where our front doors, by way of complete and true coincidence, happen to be about 10 feet from each other's.)

See this earlier BRAD BLOG item for some exclusive Palast, Ed Asner and Friedman audio as taken from the recording sessions for the audio version of the book (which had been at #1 on the Amazon.com audio book charts earlier this week, btw!)

One might have thought that Ohio's blatantly partisan state election administrator, Republican Sec. of State and now-gubernatorial candidate J. Kenneth Blackwell would have hit his ethical rock-bottom long ago. But think again...

In related recent news concerning the morally and ethically bankrupt Blackwell:

We'd list more, but we'd hate to crash your system with the impossibly long download of crimes that Blackwell has committed against the very voters that he was elected to serve.