Add St. Louis County, Missouri to the growing list of Elections Boards around the country who have now rejected Diebold, Inc. voting machines in the last-minute scramble to select new election hardware, prior to the Jan. 1, 2006 Help America Vote Act deadline to have such "upgrades" paid for with Federal tax dollars.

The bad news for the once-great, now-disgraced Diebold, Inc. (stock symbol: DBD) of North Canton, Ohio, comes as the latest blow in a long string of disappointments for the company, which last week saw the resignation of its CEO, the filing of several Class Action Securities Fraud lawsuits, and the devasting revelation that their voting machines can be easily hacked, allowing the results of Diebold elections to be completely reversed.

The loss of the contract in St. Louis County, who chose to go instead with Election Systems and Software, Inc. (ES&S), is estimated by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch to be at least $9.6 million.

The last minute decision came amid intense lobbying by both citizens' election integrity advocacy groups and paid Diebold lobbyists --- at least one of whom was reported to have inquired about both The BRAD BLOG itself and the financial background of the father of yours truly!

There are also growing concerns about the security of voting equipment sold by ES&S, as well, in light of various states and counties around the country selecting them, instead of Diebold, as the contractor to privatize their public elections.

The County's decision to go with ES&S, instead of Diebold, comes just days after the City of St. Louis (distinct from the county) decided unanimously to go with Diebold. The City's decision occurred even after Diebold's machines were exposed as completely insecure in a so-called "hack test" in Leon County, Florida that resulted in the tally of a test election being completely reversed. A few days later Volusia County, Florida decided against Diebold, and shortly thereafter the State of California "punted" the issue, for now, back to the Feds, stating there were "unresolved significant security concerns" with Diebold's voting machines. The California decision, though not yet definitive, is undoubtedly one of the biggest blows for Diebold, since it is regarded by the company as America's largest "voting market."

The City of St. Louis may come to regret their decision as much as they eventually came to regret allowing the County to split off from it, back in the days when the County was sparsely populated and seen as draining tax dollars from the City. Today, St. Louis County's population is over 1 million, while the City continues to stagnate at a population of just over 300 thousand.

According to reports from both grassroots organization Missourians for Honest Elections and Jo Mannies of The Post, information and concerns about about the latest failures of Diebold voting machines, brought to the County's Board of Election by citizens, was crucial to the BoE's decision. As reported by Mannies in a story on The Post website last night:

In the version of the story which ran in today's paper, the following addition to the above was found:

There was no explanation for that added quote and we have been unable to reach Mannies for comment today.

According to Virginia Harris, a volunteer with Missourians for Honest Elections, St. Louis county resident Harvey Friedman (father of this blogger) was instrumental, along with several others, in bringing the latest disturbing news about the Diebold company to the attention of the Board of Elections.

On a personal note; While my father has never shown a proclivity towards political activism in the past, to the knowledge of this exceedingly proud blogger, I couldn't be more impressed with his tenacious efforts to inform the St. Louis County BoE members of the many growing concerns about Diebold, and to hold their collective feet to the fire in the bargain. The tree, apparently, does not grow far from the fallen apple. Thank you, Dad. And congratulations for the positive effect of your good work in my old home town!

The activism of Friedman the Elder, and the reporting of The BRAD BLOG, apparently has not escaped the notice of at least one person, said to be a Diebold lobbyist present at the series of recent BoE hearings in St. Louis. After Mannies of The Post ran a short blog item highlighting both our hometown connection and our father --- whom she met and interviewed at the hearings --- Lou Hamilton, reportedly representing Diebold, was said to have "thanked" Mannies for "the outing of BRAD BLOG" (whatever that might mean) and to have asked her "Who is Brad's father? What does he do for a living?", according to a report of the incident.

Hamilton is apparently the CEO of "strategic communications consulting service" Hamilton & Company, and described in an article by Mannies as "a prominent Democratic consultant." More information on Hamilton and his company is available here. We have been unable to reach either Hamilton or Mannies for additional comment on the information reported above, which was emailed to us yesterday.

While attention to the many anti-democratic maneuvers of Diebold, whose former CEO Walden O'Dell infamously pledged his personal committment "to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes" to George W. Bush in a fundraising letter to Republicans prior to the 2004 election, has been increasingly well-publicized, ES&S has escaped the scrutiny of many Election Reform advocates.

The fact, however, is that ES&S' voting machines are not known to be any more secure than Diebold's, as reported in an eye-opening article yesterday by Wired News. In the report, adjunct computer science professor at the Florida Institute of Technology, Hugh Thompson, who also took part in the Leon County "hack test" last week, is concerned about the voting equipment being purchased from companies other than Diebold:

Earlier this year, ES&S acquired distribution rights to the AutoMARK system, which has been described as far superior and far more secure than ES&S' own touch-screen and optical scan voting machines. As well, the AutoMARK system, which produces a paper ballot for every vote cast, is said to be accessible to disabled citizens in ways which ES&S and Diebold machines are not, according to a number of disabled citizen's advocacy groups. In Florida's Leon County, the Board of Elections has decided to contract with ES&S, with the intention of using the AutoMARK system once it becomes certified by the state.

St. Louis County's BoE has decided against the AutoMARK system, and instead will purchase 1,750 ES&S touch-screen machines for use in municipal races, along with 500 precinct-level optical-scan tabulators for use in Federal races, according to Harris, with whom we spoke by telephone earlier today. She suspects that ES&S is not dealing honestly with their newly acquired "partners" at AutoMARK, whom she contends ES&S is "defrauding" by over-pricing and under-representing their machines when dealing with potential clients on State and County elections boards.

"In my opinion, ES&S fraudulently priced the AutoMARK machines so high on their bid, that there was no way they could compete with ES&S's DRE [touch-screen] machines or anybody else's for that matter," she told us. Harris claims to have a copy of the bids submitted and hopes to share them with The BRAD BLOG soon.

The wrangling over which vendor to select in St. Louis County occurred shortly after several "closed door sessions" of the St. Louis County Board of Elections, who met privately with Voting Machine vendors and locked out the public and election integrity advocates. Those "closed door sessions" appear to be in violation of Missouri state law, and since then, The BRAD BLOG has learned, "Freedom of Information Act" (FOIA) requests have been filed with the County for the minutes of those closed door sessions. We will, as always, keep you up to date on details that may be revealed by those FOIA requests if and when the County complies with them.

Unfortunately, I'm likely off the grid for the bulk of the day/evening today. So, unless the mighty fine Guest Bloggers jump in, feel free to Be the Blog! BRAD BLOG regular, "Dredd" requested an Open Thread recently, so Happy HOLIDAYS, old boy!

In my stead, it'll be as if I'm here by my kicking the Open Thread off with a few things "BRAD" that all have roughly something to do with your occasionally humble host, but that I otherwise don't know what to do with...

Hometown Boy Does Good-ish
Jo Mannies of my one-time hometown paper, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch blogs about me. Please note that the commenters in St. Louis on both that item, and the one preceeding it about the city of St. Louis choosing Diebold (the county has yet to make their final determination), need some education and some help. Feel free to offer it to them politely.

Thanks for the Honor Danny!
The notable author/filmmaker Danny Schecter, currently of MediaChannel.org has taken note of The BRAD BLOG as one of the notable blogs listed amongst his notable list of "Media Heroes". Coming from someone such as Schecter, that is no small honor. Given the company we share on his list, we are about as humbled as we are cable of being. We'll not even note he called us "Brad's Blog" since humble beggars shouldn't be choosers. (For more on humble begging, read on to the end of this item...)

FINALLY! A Good Excuse to Go Out and Buy Hustler!
I've got a short piece in the January February issue, on stands now, so I'm told, about DIEB-THROAT! Go get it! Lemme know you think, since I've yet to see the final version. Finally, you can tell people you really did buy it for the articles!

FINALLY! A Good Excuse to Go Out and Buy Mother Jones!
I've got an article about Dan Borchers --- he the Conservative (real one) working on an Anti-Ann Coulter documentary as first discussed in this BRAD BLOG Exclusive --- in the January issue. Now also out on stands, or so I'm told. If you prefer to save your money, for a CHRISTMAKKAKWANZA DONATION to your friendly neighborhood BRAD BLOG, you can read the MoJo article online here. Be sure to note the cool Spewing Ann graphic with it!

And Speaking of Donations...and Beggars...
Remember, just a few days left to make your end of year tax-deductible donations! Of course, we're not tax-deductable as far as I know, but really...Who does more good for the world? Those losers over at Save the Children or The BRAD BLOG?

Okay. After you send the tax-deductible part to them, feel free to share whatever might left with us. We could use the end o' year help.

Alternately, a monthly subscription of any amount you choose (see the blue form on the right of this page) is also a very lovely way to end one helluva roller-coaster ride of a year!

(And don't forget the swell merchandise in The BRAD STORE! Though who knows if it'll get there in time for the Holidays...Well, hell, there's eight full days of Chanukah to come! So, sure! It'll make it!...Maybe.)

Discuss all or none of the above...in comments below...

Yesterday, from AP:

We should also note that the smart voters of Dover, removed all of the board members responsible for this idiocy from their jobs in last November's election.

Late this afternoon, Sec. of State Bruce McPherson's office sent a letter to Diebold Election Systems, Inc. Vice President David Bryd, informing him that the state is declining --- for the time being --- to re-certify Diebold AccuVote touch-screen machines in the state of California pending further testing and certification by Federal authorities.

In the letter, on McPherson's letterhead (complete letter at bottom of this article), Caren Daniels-Meade, chief of the Elections Division writes that "Unresolved significant security concerns exist with respect to the memory card used to program and configure" the Accu-Vote operating system and touch-screen equipment.

In a statement reported by AP, SoS spokeswoman Jennifer Kerns announced problems "discovered during routine testing...by state employees and independent consultants":

Some of those "potential security risks" may have been revealed in a test last week using similar Diebold equipment in Leon County, FL, where the results of a test election were reversed by a hacked program inserted onto one of the AccuVote memory cards. The hacked election was completed without a trace of the manipulation left behind.

In 2004 Diebold machines were de-certified by California's then Democratic Sec. of State Kevin Shelley after it was revealed that the company had used uncertified software in voting machines in the state. That matter was resolved in a $2.6 million settlement by Diebold with the state. A recent Securities Fraud Class Action complaint has alleged the settlement was meant to shield the public from a litany of flaws in Diebold voting systems. Additional complaints are now pending against the Ohio-based company whose former CEO had promised to "deliver the state of Ohio" to George W. Bush in an infamous fundraising letter sent to Republicans prior to the 2004 Presidential Election. The CEO, Walden O'Dell, was forced to resign early last week just prior to the filed litigation.

Republican McPherson, who later replaced Shelley, carried out a massive mock election test over the summer revealing that 20% of Diebold's AccuVote touch screen machines failed to operate as promised, with many of the touch-screens freezing and printers jamming.

Several weeks ago, McPherson's staff, however, suddenly announced that they were recommending the re-certification of Diebold machines again (under specific conditions) after a secret test, using machines specially prepared by Diebold, found this time that only 3% of the machines failed.

Then came the protests, the Securities Fraud Litigations, and last week's devasting Leon County hack test which resulted in the county announcing they would never use Diebold in another election. Another county in Florida, Volusia, quickly followed suit in deciding to dump their Diebold machines.

McPherson's office, rather than simply decertifying Diebold once and for all in California, has today decided instead to pass the buck back to the the so-called Federal "Indepenent Testing Authority" (ITA). The ITA is a group of several companies chosen and paid for by the voting machine companies such as Diebold themselves, to test their equipment and software on behalf of the Federal Government. Those ITA labs then either certify the software and/or hardware or send it back to the company with the results of the failed tests kept confidential.

State Senator Debra Bowen (D-Redondo Beach) has been an outspoken critic of McPherson's process for considering recertification of Diebold and has otherwise been a watchdog on issues related to the quickly changing Electoral landscape in the Golden State. She released a statement to The BRAD BLOG late this evening (complete statement posted at end of this article). Bowen is critical of McPherson's plan to "punt" the issue back to the Feds and says in her statement:

Bowen, the author of the so-called "Bowen Amendment" (SB 370) recently signed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. That legislation mandates, among other things, paper records created for all votes cast in California, as well as mandatory audits of ballots. She has also recently announced her intention to run for Secretary of State in 2006. Her website is here.

Bowen is highly critical of the secretive processes of the ITA, and various electronic voting machinery being deployed around the state using secret software to count Californians votes:

Computer security expert, Avi Rubin, who originally discovered some of the astounding security flaws in Diebold's GEMS central tabulator, recently wrote at Huffington Post about the "Dirty Little Secrets of Voting System Testing Labs". We highly recommend his insightful and revealing article on both that and his recent experience at a summit held on Electronic Voting Security issues in California.

In a report just filed by Contra Costa Times Rubin says that review of the source code will determine little, since the source code has little do to with whether or not a hacker is able to introduce a malicious program. It's "definitely not something that's going to give a definitive answer," said Rubin.

McPherson's decision is surely a setback for Diebold who, like several other Voting Machine Companies, are currently scrambling for contracts in the wake of the impending Jan. 1, 2006 Help America Vote Act (HAVA) deadline. If States and Counties wish to receive Federal money to pay for voting systems upgrades, they must make their final decision on which companies to use by that date. Many of those States and Counties had been watching and waiting to see what California would do, given their previous history with Diebold. And of course, as Diebold --- one of several private companies vying to control the country's public voting system --- has described the state: it is America's "largest voting market."

The complete letter from Sec. of State McPherson's office to Diebold, along with Bowen's complete statement follow...

Emailer Expathos sends us an interesting compilation of video clips taken from both C-SPAN and Whitehouse.gov. Here's an outake from part of it, taken from speeches in Pittsburgh and Buffalo in 2004:

-- View the complete video here

The emailer also adds:

Indeed.

UPDATE: Additional info on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court in response to those Bush apologists suggesting he had no time to go to the court (Rush Limbaugh told his listeners today that it could take "10 to 12 days" to get approval back from the court which frequently gives appropral to such requests in hours, if not minutes). This from an Op/Ed by Anthony Wade yesterday:

But then Wade adds this:

Interesting. So from the time the act was established until 2002, nobody seeking a warrant was denied. Then, the Bush Admin was turned down four times. Why? And could that be why they simply decided to go around the FISA court?

The wingnuts are in a full-blown panic to try and justify the latest admission by George W. Bush that he authorized the warrant-less spying on American Citizens. That would be strictly against the law, of course, and likely an impeachable offense (remember, Presidents, we used to be told, are not above "the rule of law").

In their usual well-oiled lockstep fashion, the dead-ender wingnut bloggers and hate-radio folks are now attempting to forward the notion that "Clinton did the same." As usual, the apologists get their talking point assists from the extremist rightwing "news" site, NewsMax who reported:

Trouble is, this report, from ThinkProgress, would seem to prove otherwise. Testimony given to Congress in 2000 (back when Republicans pretended to care about this sort of thing) by then FBI Director George Tenet would seem to indicate (surprise!) that NewsMax and the other apologists are wrong:

Whether Tenet was lying or not in his testimony --- which NewsMax didn't bother to quote --- we couldn't tell you. If Bill Clinton actually broke the law in this regard, as the wingnuts suggest, perhaps Republicans should impeach him. Oh, wait, it may be a bit late for that. But perhaps they should have impeached him for it (if it actually occured), instead of impeaching him for receiving an unauthorized blow job. We're just saying.

Lots of fur flying this morning, and us West Coast bloggers, of course, are as ever behind the time-zone eight-ball. So consider this a first volley as we try to bring you the nuts and bolts and offer a lot of summarized raw data and links for you to read through it all yourselves, even as we do same.

The skinny is that the U.S. House Judiciary Committee Democrats, led by ranking minority member John Conyers (D-MI) have now released their full 250-page report, said to be more than six months in the making, on the Administration's use/abuse of pre-war intel, torture policies and much more. The BRAD BLOG first reported exclusively on all of this as 'coming soon' last week. Yesterday, we added quite a few details about what to expect in this report. Our friends at RAW STORY have several articles, including links to the Full Report and its Executive Summary.

-- Report Executive Summary here
-- Report in full here [PDF]
-- Report by chapters here (Includes links to all exhibits, key documents, etc.)

Along with the report, Conyers has introduced three resolutions in the House which call for the Censure of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney for failure to provide oversight materials to Congress and for "misstatements" in their lead-up to war. One of the resolutions also calls for the creation of a new "Select Committee" --- with subpeona power --- to discover whether there are grounds for Impeachment of both Bush and Cheney. This committee has been described to us by a Judiciary Committee staffer as "similar to the Ervin Committee on Presidential Campaign Acitivites that kicked off Watergate, to conduct further investigation of the matters described in the report." The committee would then refer evidence constituting impeachable offenses to the House Judiciary Committee.

The report --- entitled THE CONSTITUTION IN CRISIS: The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Toture, Retribution, and Coverups in the Iraq War --- is described by Conyers this way in a Press Release this morning (complete text of Press Release posted at end of this article):

The three House Resolutions created along with the report, were filed in the House on Sunday. Links to the complete draft text of each Resolution, and the introductory paragraph for each follow:

-- H.R. 635 [PDF], Resolution calling for creation of a "Select Committee":

-- H.R. 636 [PDF], Resolution calling for Censure of George W. Bush:

-- H.R. 637 [PDF], Resolution calling for Censure of Richard B. Cheney:

As we reported yesterday, the AfterDowningStreet.org advocacy website has introduced a new look along with a new URL. In addition to their previous name, they are now also known as CensureBush.org.

Conyers has set up some actions items at his own website JohnConyers.com where he is asking Americans to sign his letter informing George W. Bush about his intentions to censure and call for a Select Committee. A similar letter, asking for answers in regards to the so-called "Downing Street Documents" was signed by more than half a million Americans and delivered to the White House by Conyers' earlier this year.

As well, Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) has created a letter writing campaign to allow you to ask your own Representatives to support the resolution calling for the creation of a "Select Committee". You can send that letter to your reps here.

We'll update this item as appropriate throughout the day with additional material and/or links as we move through things.

The complete text of John Conyers' Press Release as issued this morning follows...

As broken this morning by RAW STORY, the House Judiciary Committee Democratic staff is set to release an extensive and damning new report tomorrow entitled "THE CONSTITUTION IN CRISIS: The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Toture, Retribution, and Coverups in the Iraq War."

The BRAD BLOG has been able to gather a few additional details, some we are able to report today, others cannot be announced until the final report is released to the public. The report is currently scheduled for release tomorrow.

In anticipation for tomorrow's report, The BRAD BLOG revealed in an exclusive report last week that Rep. John Conyers' (D-MI) House Judiciary Committee staff had registered a number of websites including dsmreport.com, theiraqreport.net and other similar domains. All of those domains have been automatically re-directed to Conyers' personal website JohnConyers.com. Conyers is the ranking minority member of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee.

We can also now report that, beginning tomorrow, along with the release of the upcoming report, AfterDowningStreet.org will change its look and nature and will be accessible via an additional URL. Though, David Swanson, one of the founders of the site which is devoted to spreading news surrounding the so-called "Downing Street Documents" was somewhat cryptic in what he'd allowed us to report about the changes that will be taking place tomorrow.

"I could tell you more," said Swanson, "but for now I need to keep it to myself and the NSA spies assigned to my house."

Additionally, though not necessarily directly related, both AP and RAW STORY are now reporting that several members of Congress have begun discussing the possibilities of Impeachment for George W. Bush. And at least one member of the House Judiciary Committee has asked the Attorney General for a Special Counselor to be assigned to the matter of George W. Bush's recent admission to domestic spying on U.S. citizens.

The BRAD BLOG has learned and confirmed from congressional sources, that the report from the Judiciary Committee Democratic staffers is expected to be the most comprehensive, indepth look at the Bush Administration's use and misuse of pre-war intelligence in the run-up to war in Iraq.

The landmark report, said to be more than six months in the making, will include extensive, detailed allegations concerning the Bush Administration's use of manipulated facts and intelligence, retribution against domestic opposition, coverup of facts and intelligence known to be in contradiction with their contentions about Iraq's weapons programs, and illegal torture.

The report will be more than 200 pages long, including an additional 100 pages or more of evidence and documentation for the very serious Constitutional charges that are being made.

The report is said to be far more extensive than a detailed report issued previously by the House Judiciary Committee Democrats concerning so-called "irregularities" in Ohio during the 2004 Presidential Election and its aftermath. Like that report, this one will also be published in book format.

As with an earlier effort by Judiciary Committee Democrats to raise public awareness of the Downing Street Documents --- top-secret leaked memos from British officials charging that the Bush Administration had determined to topple Saddam through military means and that the "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" even while they were telling both Congress and the American people that war could be avoided by diplomatic means --- this report will also coincide with a public effort to raise awareness and support for the allegations being made. The earlier DSM effort resulted in more than half a million signatures from the American people being delivered by hand to the White House. This report will also be released concurrently with an initiative to gather support from the American people to help raise awareness to the very serious allegations being made.

AP reported earlier today on Civil Rights-era icon, Congressman John Lewis (D-GA) as calling for the potential impeachment of George W. Bush in a radio interview earlier today. His suggestion comes in light of recent admissions that Bush had authorized spying on U.S. citizens in apparent violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Lewis reportedly added, "The president should abide by the law. He deliberately, systematically violated the law. He is not King, he is president."

Since Lewis' comments were reported, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) has issued a news release referring to the "'I' word" as well. Boxer's comments point to analysis offered by Watergate figure and one-time White House Counsel John Dean who has suggested that Bush has now admitted to an "impeachable offense" in regards to the authorization of domestic spying.

Additionally, Congressman Jerold Nadler (D-NY) has today written a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales demanding that a Special Prosecutor be assigned to investigate the "secret directive that authorizes domestic eavesdropping on United States citizens, without a warrant." The congressman, who also sits on the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, added in his letter, that "This unprecedented intelligence gathering policy is clearly prohibited by law."

It remains to be seen whether tomorrow's report from the House Judiciary staff will add to the now-increasing drumbeat of voices suggesting Investigations and/or Impeachment Proceedings for yet another sitting United States President. The BRAD BLOG will, as always, be keeping our eye on the latest developments...

UPDATE: Late word and a brief post to ConyersBlog, says:

Last year we were nominated for more categories than any other blog, but in the end, didn't win in any of them.

This year, let's see if we can win in all of the categories, without being nominated for any of them! Oh...wait...that may not work...

So...nominations are now being accepted for the 2005 Koufax Weblog Awards. If you are so inclined, we'd be honored if you put in a few good words (and nominations) for your friendly neighborhood BRAD BLOG! http://www.BradBlog.com

-- Read About Categories Here
-- Leave your nominations in the Comments section here!
(NOTE: New thread now opened, previous one had gotten full and they closed it)

(NOTE: Apparently there are several stages in this process...semi-finals, finals and so on. So pardon us if we bug you periodically to consider putting in a good word for us over there. You'll be pleased to know the election will be run with all of the strict air-tight security standards as mandated by the Help America Vote Act of 2002! So get hacking!)

"The counting of votes is a public trust. Diebold, whose machines count many votes, has never acted as if it understood this."

So writes the NY Times correctly in a very good Op/Ed in today's Sunday paper. The piece smartly summarizes the bad week for Diebold and their years-long failure to understand the importance of the role they have been entrusted with in participating in our public elections process. We appreciate the coverage, if only because the paper's news division didn't devote any ink, as far as we know, to Diebold's growing troubles all week long.

Though elsewhere in the paper, on Saturday, Dan Mitchell embarrassed both himself and the once-great Grey Lady by announcing a "New Day for Diebold" along with further pimping the company's now-discredited PR attempts to marginalize those of us who give a damn about an accountable democracy in America. Mitchell reports very briefly in the technology section on the dumping of CEO Walden O'Dell last Monday in order to suggest this could be "the beginning of an interesting turnaround story" for Diebold. No mentions of the Securities Fraud Class Action against them, nor the devasting hack of their Voting Equipment later in the week. But Mitchell does use the opportunity to knee-jerk about both "conspiracy theories" and "black-helicopter theorizing."

In the best case, we'll suggest Mitchell suffers from either incomptence or sheer laziness. In a not so generous speculation, we'd wonder if he's taking the opportunity to attempt to boost the sagging stock price of DBD. Hey Dan, you'd tell us if you happened to own any Diebold shares, right?

Perhaps instead of appearing as a democracy-hating stooge, Mitchell should bother to read his own newspaper, which wrote far more responsibly in their Op/Ed today:

Don't the NY Times Op/Ed folks realize that that all those items outlined as "a troubled history" are nothing more than "black helicopters" and "conspiracy theories"? We know it for a fact! We read it, after all, in the NY Times!

Or perhaps we can just conclude by paraphrasing them:

"The counting of votes is a public trust. So is the reporting on how it is done. Dan Mitchell, like Diebold, has never acted as if he understood this."

Over the weekend, at least two reports out of mainstream Florida papers --- one in the Miami Herald and one in the Tallahassee Democrat --- report that Gov. Jeb Bush himself is now questioning the reliability of Florida's electronic voting system in light of the recent hack test in Leon County, home of the state's capitol Tallahassee. That security test, carried out last week, successfully flipped the results of a simple mock election test held on Diebold, Inc. voting equipment. The hack, which changed the results of an election from 2-6 to 7-1, left no trace of evidence behind.

After reports of the test were released, Florida's Sec. of State's office had initially criticized the messenger, Leon County's Director of Elections, Ion Sancho, suggesting that the matter was not the state's concern, but rather was an issue between Diebold and the county. That, despite the fact that it was the state of Florida who had certified the particular Diebold made machinery for use in the Sunshine State.

Acting FL Sec. of State David Mann also echoed Diebold's statement on the matter, criticizing Sancho himself because they believe that in allowing the hackers to gain access to the memory cards --- where a very short executable program capable of changing the election results had been secretly placed --- the test did not replicate 'real world' conditions.

Bush, who may be realizing the untenable position the state and their friends at Diebold now find themselves in, is at least taking the public stance that Sancho's findings and concerns should be taken seriously.

Quoting from the Herald coverage:

Over in the Tallahassee Democrat Sancho responds to the criticisms of the state and Diebold about granting access internally to the hackers, and the absurd charge that such things could never occur in a "real world" election:

Of course, we know that nobody in either Florida or Ohio or any other state in the union would ever try to rig an election from the inside.

Since the test, Sancho has announced that Diebold voting equipment will no longer be used in the county's elections and has requested funding to replace them with an alternate system that allows for recountable paper ballots and additional access for the disabled.

Earlier in the week, a Securities Fraud Class Action suit was launched against Diebold, in part, for failing to disclose flaws in their voting equipment.

Later in the week, after the test in Leon County, another Florida county, Volusia, decided against using the same unsecure Diebold machinery for their elections as well.

The BRAD BLOG has previously reported that even a branch of the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security has warned about security flaws in Diebold voting machinery, and a recent non-partisan GAO report which has further confirmed such concerns about all of the currently available electronic voting systems now being deployed around the country.

UPDATE 12/22/05: Miami Herald calls on Bush to retest all touch-screen and optical scan machines in the state!

This just in...After various protracted legal battles (funded by the National Federation for the Blind, which had received a $1 million "donation" from Diebold previously) and along with the news out of Leon County, Florida, Volusia County has now come to their senses and also decided to dump Diebold voting machines!

Just out from the Orlando Sentinel...

A report received by The BRAD BLOG late last night from an activist down in Volusia in regard to the meeting anticipated today, summed it up thusly:

Well, three on the Volusia County Council still held out for Diebold. Fortunately, four didn't...and the vote wasn't held on paperless, hackable touch-screen machines, so it was transparent and reliable.

This report is yet another blow for Diebold coming on top of the resignation of their CEO, Walden O'Dell on Monday, along with a securities fraud lawsuit and the failed security test in Leon County on Tuesday. Quite a week for Diebold!

Our congratulations to the hard working citizen patriots in Volusia County and across Florida who have worked tirelessly on this issue for many months. Keep up the good work, folks! Democracy may not be dead yet!

Additional reporting on this story by John Gideon

The "hack test" of a mock election using Diebold voting equipment earlier this week in Leon County, Florida --- in which results of the election were completely flipped from 2-6 to 7-1 without even a trail of evidence left behind --- has continued to send shockwaves from Florida to Ohio to California and everywhere else in between.

The Director of Elections in Leon County, Ion Sancho reportedly proclaimed, after the stunning results of last Tuesday's test, that he would never use Diebold voting machines in any election in the county again.

Television news coverage began hitting last night in Tallahassee, the Florida state capital, which also happens to be in Leon County. And in a remarkable admission, Sancho now says he believes that such a hack occurred in the 2000 Presidential Election in Volusia County, Florida.

-- Here's a link to that video coverage...

Elections officials in Volusia County, by the way, are currently in the final throes of their decision of whether to go with Diebold's hackable voting machines, or whether they will go in a different direction. We may have more on that later today.

States and Counties across the country are continuing their last minute scramble to make decisions about new voting equipment many of them hope to acquire and have paid for by the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002. The deadline for that decision is Jan 1, 2006 and yet there are virtually no reliable Federal standards for any of the available Voting Machines currently on the market.

Litigation was filed against Diebold, Inc. earlier this week in Federal District Court in a Class Action Securities Fraud complaint based, in part, on their attempts at disguising the vulnerabilities and flaws of their Voting Machine equipment from investors.

Just curious, but at what point do those who've been called "conspiracy theorists" in pointing out the crimes of the dirty Republican party get recognized as geniuses since one Repub after another is being charged with and/or pleading guilty to charges of "conspiracy"?!

Adam Kidan, he the partner of Jack Abramoff in the SunCruz gambling boat scandal (and subsequent murder) has now pleaded guilty to fraud and conspiracy charges in a trumped-up deal which resulted in the acquisition of the 11 boat fleet in Florida for he and Abramoff. Not long thereafter, the previous owner, Guy Boulis, was murdered gangland-style in Miami allegedly by three mafia thugs who had been put on the SunCruz payroll by Kidan. Kidan had previous direct ties to the mafia himself. Oddly enough, Kidan, who appears to have ordered the murder, according to one of the guys now charged in the crime, hasn't yet been charged himself in connection to it. Even though his three mafia pals have been. We'll see if that changes.

What it means for now? Kidan's guilty plea goes along with an agreement to testify at Jack Abramoff's upcoming trial on this matter and Kidan is also likely to cooperate with prosecutors on several other Abramoff-related investigations as well. Several of them involving boatloads (pun intended?) of GOP pols.

As well, our old friend, not-yet-resigned Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH), chair of the powerful House Administration Committee --- who held phony "hearings" last March on the 2004 Ohio Presidential Election "Irregularities" --- is also on the hook for his cooperation with Abramoff and Kidan in the SunCruz matter. Ney made statements on the House floor in support of Kidan and against Boulis as the deal was being played out. Apparently, Ney also received a few dollars in exchange.

Along with former Abramoff partner and one-time Tom DeLay staffer, the indicted Michael Scanlon, who has similarly agreed to testify against his old pals, we'd say Abramoff, Ney, and DeLay are all in hotter and hotter water to come. Where it stops...nobody knows.

And that's what happens when you participate in non-theoretical conspiracies.