There is new information on the Cuyahoga County, Ohio, November 2006 election that shows that voting results on more than 1 in 4 voting systems failed to match up with the results on the central tabulator. The election was held under the administration of Michael Vu, the county's now-resigned Election Director who has, incredibly enough, been immediately hired up by the People's Republic of San Diego County and their former Registrar Mikel Haas (along with Vu, one of America's worst, so he was promoted by the county, naturally!) as the new Assistant Registrar of Voters...

From AP:

Amazing enough, but it gets much, much worse....

A commenter over at DU asked which states used the ES&S iVotronic touch-screen voting system found vulnerable to an undetectable countywide vote-flipping virus which can be implanted by a single person, as we reported this morning.

Based on our quick review of a county-by-county database of voting systems, sorted by state, as made available by Common Cause (EXCEL spreadsheet downloadable here) just prior to the November 2006 elections, it looks like the answer is 16 states in total.

Since the EAC refuses, as our report detailed, to do their job in notifying Elections Officials about this incredibly serious vulnerability, it looks like it's up to you to notify your state's Secretary of State and/or county Election Officials! Details on the vulnerability and mitigating steps that may be taken are detailed in this brief report at VotersUnite.org as written by a computer scientist and voting system expert well familiar with the newly discovered flaw. Please refer your voting officials to both our original article, and that scientific report for more details at the following URLs:

• https://bradblog.com/?p=4396
• http://www.votersunite.o.../ES&SInsecurity.asp

The states which use the ES&S iVotronic affected (with firmware versions either 8 or 9, with or without a so-called "Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail") are as follows:

• Arkansas
• Florida
• Indiana
• Iowa
• Kansas
• Kentucky
• Missouri
• New jersey
• North Carolina
• Ohio
• Pennsylvania
• South Carolina
• Tennessee
• Texas
• West Virginia
• Wisconsin

If we've missed any, or any of the states above do not use the system in at least one county, please let us know and we'll amend the list.

The BRAD BLOG and You - Doing the EAC's job for them. But without the $15 million budget (or the incomprehensible incompetence).

{Ed Note: This article was original to have been published at ComputerWorld on 4/12/07. Due to a technical problem there, it never ran, I'm running it here, back-dated to tje originally planned publication date so at least it's available here on the Internets, at least for the "historical record". --- BF, 5/22/07}}

Blogged by Brad from the road...in San Diego, of all places...

The latest news out of the People's Republic of San Diego brings to mind Scooter Libby's now infamous note, sent to former NY Times' administration plant Judith Miller, encouraging her to maintain her silence while she was in jail.

"Out West, where you vacation," the disgraced Libby wrote to the disgraced Miller, "the aspens will already be turning. They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them."

The same seems to be true for the Elections Officials, and their various operative/enablers around the country. Where ever you turn over the rock of a disastrously administered election in any part of the country --- such as in San Diego or Riverside County, CA or Cuyahoga County, OH --- it seems you also find the same band of recognizable folks slithering amongst the slime time and again. Turning in clusters, if you will, because their roots connect them.

Such seems to be the case now that one of America's worst Registrars of Voters, San Diego's Mikel Haas --- he of the infamous Busby/Bilbray debacle and voting machine "sleepover" fame --- has been promoted by the county. Failing up, if you will, like so many other 21st Century Wingnuts before him in Bush's America.

He's been replaced on an interim basis by Mischelle Townsend, the retired former Registrar of Voters in Riverside County, CA. She was responsible for bringing unverifiable, inaccurate, hackable touch-screen voting systems to America for the first time, as Riverside was the first in the nation to offer this "luxury" to voters. Riverside has been on a collision course with election integrity ever since.

Aside from conflicts of interests she brought to the dubious transaction in 1998 --- her husband, was VP for a firm which directly benefited from the county's purchase of the Sequoia touch-screen voting systems --- Townsend is tellingly quoted during an interview on the DVD version of HBO's Hacking Democracy proudly declaring: "Electronic touch-screen ballots are 100% accurate. We've not seen a single example in which their accuracy can be disputed."

As if that's not a horrific enough punishment to subject the otherwise beleaguered and battered voters of San Diego to --- they deserve far far better, especially following in the carnage of the county's disastrous Reign of Haas --- she has now hired as her "assistant," the disgraced and recently resigned-by-force, Michael Vu, the Election Supervisor for Cuyahoga County, Ohio.

Vu was pushed out of his job in the Buckeye State just weeks ago after two of his poll workers were convicted and sentenced to the maximum allowable time in prison for having rigged --- yes, rigged --- the 2004 President Recount in the county.

Vu oversaw the entire affair and reportedly admitted that county workers opened sealed ballot boxes to do a pre-count prior to the recount which was requested and paid for by the Green and Libertarian parties. As the trial revealed, the outrageous violation of law was carried out to ensure the mandated the 3% "randomly" selected precincts (which were not randomly selected after all) would match the previously reported results. Both the judge and the prosecutor made it clear that they believed the conspiracy went much higher up the food chain.

As well, Vu ran one of the worst election debacles of the 2006 cycle --- and that's saying quite a bit --- when absentee ballots couldn't be read by his Diebold optical scan system and his brand-spanking new Diebold DRE touch-screen voting systems failed to record votes properly, as determined by an independent analysis commissioned after the primary election meltdown in the county.

But that's not all. Another new criminal investigation is now underway in Cuyahoga looking into a number of troubling recent discoveries. Among them, computer audit logs have been discovered to reveal that early and absentee voting results were printed by someone at Vu's county headquarters prior to Election Day. (The same thing also was recently discovered to have occurred in Pima County, AZ where a law suit is currently underway to get to the bottom of it...just so you'll keep your eye out for what may well prove to be a concerted national conspiracy if the Aspens keep on turning in such remarkable clusters.) Oh, and a network cable was left in one of the tabulation computers overnight, and in violation of regulations, for some odd reason. But certainly that was just an accident, right?

Little surprise then, that San Diego's North County Times reported that Haas told them "the county immediately moved to contact Vu when he became available and felt lucky to hire him."

Of course they did.

Haas also continued his impressive, and growing track record as an accomplished liar of some reknown, by telling the paper that "Vu resigned for personal reasons and had family living on the West Coast."

Of course he did.

The BRAD BLOG has spoken at length with Vu in the past, and we've found him, like Haas the Horrible, to be a very affable fellow. Even if his actions, not his words, reveal him, like Haas, to have an extraordinary disdain for democracy and the voters who they supposedly serve.

We've been told that Vu has said he regards Townsend as "a mentor". So it comes as little surprise that he'd show up when beckoned by her, and littler surprise, after all we've come to learn about the County of San Diego, that their Board of Supervisors so despise their own voters that they'd allow Vu, despite all that's known about him, to be hired as an "assistant".

Rest assured, however, with Townsend --- who had previously been enjoying a quiet retirement from the madness that she had wrought on Riverside --- only committing to "interim" status at the Registrar's office, it won't be long before the full Reign of Vu commences. We believe you can bank on it. On a Diebold ATM if you wish.

America's Elections Officials, those who are most assiduously dedicated to subverting democracy with electricity, and those who time and again are found at the rotten core of virtually every bad election in the country, are indeed connected at the roots. And they continue turning in clusters.

And the voters continue to pay the price.

Ohio's Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner cleaned out the last dead-ender from the Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) Board of Elections today. That would be the chairperson of the BoE and the head of Ohio's Republican Party, Bob Bennett (see previous coverage here.)

Bennett was the last of the four directors of the Board of Elections (supposedly two Democrats and two Republicans) to leave the board of the state's most Democratic-leaning county. The other three resigned after requested by Brunner in the wake of the convictions of two Cuyahoga Elections Officials for rigging the 2004 Presidential Election recount, a raft of disastrously run elections and a new criminal investigation into malfeasance at the county election board. The new investigation includes the early printing of absentee ballot results and an unexplained network cable left attached to the central tabulator overnight.

According to a statement posted to the SoS website, Brunner notified Bennett today about his suspension in writing, and has also announced yet another new charge against him:

Accountability to continue in Ohio...

One more of the Cuyahoga County (Cleveland), Ohio, Board of Elections directors, Republican Sally Florkiewicz, has stepped down this afternoon. Her resignation leaves just one member, the board's chairman, Bob Bennett, left to fight the demand by Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner that all board members resign in the wake of a years-long string of elections disasters, two criminal convictions related to the recount of the 2004 Presidential Election, and a new criminal investigation which was launched last week into newly-revealed administrative election improprieties and irregularities in the county.

The resignation of Florkiewicz from the board of Ohio's most Democratic county leaves only Bennett --- who is the chair of both the Election Board and the state's Republican party --- to fight the order by Brunner. A hearing will be held next Monday concerning the complaint filed along with the SoS's resignation demands, after which Brunner is free to fire Bennett directly, according to state law. As ever, the members of Ohio's supposedly "bi-partisan" boards of election have always served at the pleasure of the SoS, who, for years, was the highly partisan right-winger and co-chair of Ohio's Bush/Cheney 2004 committee, J. Kenneth Blackwell.

Brunner replaced Blackwell last November after the former SoS was thoroughly rejected by Ohio voters in his bid for Governor.

"Regrettably, the lone board member who has refused to resign will face removal," Brunner said in a statement posted to the SoS website late this afternoon. As to today's resignation, she added, "It's unfortunate that Ms. Florkiewicz was unable to resign until faced with a complaint to remove her from the board."

While the board's two Democratic members resigned last week not long after receiving Brunner's request, an official in Ohio closely following the matter has told The BRAD BLOG that Florkiewicz exited her post today with anything but grace.

"The Secretary of State has decided to use the Cuyahoga County Board of Election to advance a partisan agenda," Florkiewicz contended in her resignation letter, "and I am not willing to be used as a political statement."

But one of our sources wonders how the request to remove "2 D's and 2 R's demonstrates a partisan agenda"...

The Year of Accountability continues apace. In a statement released Thursday Ohio's new Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, lays out the case against the two remaining Cuyahoga County Board of Elections members.

On Wednesday, The BRAD BLOG reported that Brunner would be personally delivering termination notices to members of the board after she'd sent notice, asking for their resignations, on Monday. That came in the wake of the conviction and sentencing of two county elections works for rigging the 2004 Presidential Recount, and a subsequent, newly announced criminal investigation in the county this week.

One of the two Democrats on the board resigned Wednesday, as requested, and the other resigned Thursday. This leaves Bob Bennett, the state Republican Party chair and chairman of the board in Ohio's most Democratic-leaning county, as well as the board's other Republican member, Sally Florkiewicz. They're the only two remaining hangers-on. And as a witness to Bennett's public statement yesterday described it to us, he was "raving" and succeeded in even shocking many of the Republicans present by blaming everyone but himself for the county's string of failed elections.

Bennett's recalcitrance at leaving has led Brunner to begin spelling out precisely why they are being fired. The list of accusations against the two remaining members will be aired in full during an April 2 hearing and, according to the SoS's statement, includes "numerous instances of misfeasance, nonfeasance and violations of state election law." Among them:

After the April 2 hearing, a report will be issued to Brunner by the appointed hearing officer, William Owen, the first assistant prosecuting attorney of Delaware County. According to the statement, she will then rule on the removal of Bennett and Florkiewicz, as "under state law, the secretary of state may 'summarily remove' board members for cause, upon complaint and hearing."

We'll note again here --- despite the claims of former SoS J. Kenneth Blackwell and other Buckeye State officials in the aftermath of the 2004 Presidential Election disaster in the state who said nothing untoward could happen anywhere in Ohio due to their "bi-partisan elections boards" --- all such board members always served at the pleasure of the SoS. Many of them, therefore, were loath disobey or incur the wrath of Blackwell, who was also state co-chair for Bush/Cheney '04, in light of his horrendous, partisan oversight.

What goes around, comes around, Mr. Bennett. Consider the worm now turned.

Another criminal investigation has begun in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, where two elections officials were found to have rigged the 2004 Presidential Election recount.

A special prosecutor has now been appointed to look into the early printing of absentee ballot and early voting election results prior to Election Day in 2006. As well, the investigators will be looking into a network cable which was left plugged into a tabulator computer overnight, allowing for unauthorized access all night long.

Fox 8's I-Team has a good video report.

As well, The BRAD BLOG has learned that Ohio's new Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, will be personally delivering termination notices to the county's four Board of Elections members tomorrow. On Monday, Brunner demanded the resignation of the entire board in Ohio's most Democratic-leaning county. The head of that election board, Bob Bennett, is also the chair of the Ohio Republican Party. He has vowed to fight Brunner in court, which, we're told by sources, she welcomes.

It should be noted that the illegal printing of election results prior to Election Day was recently discovered as well by Election Integrity advocate John Brakey, down in Pima County (Tucson), Arizona. That discovery has led to a lawsuit currently in hot progress down there.

Was a nationalized effort in place to print out election results prior to elections, to allow for the last-minute pinpointed targeting of Get Out the Vote efforts? We'll stay tuned...

Finally. Someone is actually bothering to test the voting machines which voters have been complaining about as flipping their votes for years. In Montgomery County, OH, where an official complaint was recently filed by 20 voters who claimed vote-flipping on their Diebold DRE touch-screen systems, comes this refreshing, if disturbing, report from today's Dayton Daily News...

From Jacobs' lips to God's ears.

Oh, and there's this little tidbit from the story:

Ah, yes. The trucking company dunnit! That's the ticket!

(Hat-tip again to BRAD BLOG reader "A Concerned Citizen" for the heads up!)

Just out from AP...

The issue comes in the wake of two Cuyahoga County Election Officials recently found guilty of rigging the 2004 Presidential Election recount and subsequently sentenced to the maximum 18 months in prison after they refused to cooperate with the state's special prosecutor, Kevin Baxter.

Both Baxter and the district court judge, Peter J. Corrigan, indicated they believed the conspiracy to game the recount was part of a larger, higher-reaching conspiracy. "It seems unlikely that your superiors wouldn't know what you were doing," Corrigan declared during the sentencing.

Brunner told the Plain-Dealer this morning that the convictions were "so serious that I don't think I had any alternative" but to request the resignations of the entire board. "It has to do with public confidence and perception," she said.

In a news conference this morning, Bennett vowed to fight Brunner in court rather than leave on his own accord.

Cuyahoga County's then-Election Director, Michael Vu, who was not charged in the incident but has since resigned, had previously admitted that sealed ballot boxes were opened and secretly counted prior to the state-mandated recount in order to assure the recount would not reveal any inconsistencies with the officially reported results. He has since recanted his original story.

After the recent sentencing, Bennett, who was ultimately responsible for overseeing the convicted elections officials --- supposedly one Republican and one Democrat --- who rigged a presidential election recount in his county said, incredibly enough, "the convictions are a travesty of justice."

The issue also underscores an important point we've been trying to make for years: Despite the claims by disgraced former Buckeye State SoS J. Kenneth Blackwell and his operatives (including Bennett) for the travesty that occurred in 2004, which suggest that Ohio's supposedly "bi-partisan" structure of county elections boards --- theoretically all comprised of two Republicans and two Democrats each --- prevents any partisan malfeasance, those boards and the officials who work under them have always served ultimately at the pleasure of the state SoS. That power and pressure were wielded frequently by Blackwell during his tenure, resulting in a host of not-so-bipartisan decisions and oversight from Ohio elections officials in 2004 and beyond.

UPDATE: We heartily recommend "OhioRebel's" superb citizen journalist coverage at ePluribus Media, with many useful additional details. Would that the non-citizen journalists were as thorough!

From AP...

And I can't help but feel the two election officials should have been sentenced to 18 years instead of months (though we understand that to be the max sentence), given the number of folks who have died in Bush's War since the 2004 Election and the fact that there were enough votes in Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) alone to give the race to Kerry instead of Bush had the election been administered legitimately.

Just for the record, only 6 votes registered for Kerry instead of Bush in each of Ohio's precincts would have changed the result of that election.

Must run, so we'll refer you to our previous coverage when the two Ohio elections officials were found guilty in January for more details.

NOTE: Hat-Tip to "Ninepatch" over at DailyKos for tipping us off to the news of the sentencing. It's a rather sigh-inducing irony to get the news from dKos given it's proprietor Markos Moulitsas Zúniga had once shamefully banned all diarists, and purged their diaries, for daring to discuss and/or investigate the Ohio 2004 Presidential Election conspiracy. Thank you for continuing to make noise on these matters anyway those of you who have done so at dKos!

UPDATE: AP now has more on the sentencing and concerns by both the Judge and prosecutor that the conspiracy goes higher:

And still another complaint registered against DRE/touch-screen voting systems. It's Diebold's turn again this time. According to the Dayton Daily News...

The avalanche of these types of complaints and lawsuits is just beginning, people. Will Congress and Elections Officials figure it out any time soon?

In any case, it doesn't look like Montgomery County's Election Director, Steve Harsman, has joined the rest of us here in Reality Land yet.

Even after the story linked above detailed a member of the board of elections who "said the machine he used would not record his vote" properly, Harsman told the paper that "he believes most of the problems can be explained by voters unfamiliarity with the new machines, rather than equipment failure."

The BRAD BLOG begs to respectfully disagree with Harsman. We believe most of the problems can instead be explained by Mr. Harsman's overfamiliarity with the bullshit he's been peddled by Diebold, in addition to a complete Election Director failure.

E-Voting - Game Over. We win. They lose. Move on. Get over it. The only question now is how long it takes them to get it and how many more elections jerks like Harsman are willing to see trashed (and how many voters he's willing to trash along the way.)

(Hat-tip BRAD BLOG commenter "A Concerned Citizen")

Blogged by Brad from the road...

As is too often the case, the proverbial shit seems most likely to hit the erstwhile fan whenever we're on the road and unable to cover the splatter sufficiently. This week has been no exception.

There is much movement in Ohio today as Michael Vu, the Election Director for Cuyahoga County, where two Election Officials were convicted two weeks ago of having rigged the 2004 Presidential recount, has now finally resigned from the Board of Elections after what is hopefully his last failed election.

The official BoE statement generously says: "Michael Vu has chosen to pursue future career growth and will resign as director of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections March 1 of this year."

In related news --- and speaking of failed elections and "future career growth" --- the office of the new Ohio Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, has now officially requested an audit of the SoS's office over the last two years as it was led by the corrupt former SoS and democracy-hater J. Kenneth Blackwell.

In addition to the $80,000 in bonuses given to employees on the way out the door, and the $250,000 settlement Blackwell agreed to concerning the 2004 Election last December (as we reported two weeks ago), Brunner expressed a new concern in her hand-delivered letter to the Republican State Auditor Mary Taylor: Shredded documents.

As reported today by the Columbus Dispatch:

Blackwell shredding documents?! We're shocked! Shocked!

From AP...

Golly. We're shocked. We wish we would have paid closer attention to that whole 2004 Ohio Presidential Election scam thing instead of ignoring it all these years.

Oh, wait, that was just about everyone else other than The BRAD BLOG, across the near-entirety of both the MSM and the bulk of the Progressive blogosphere.

That aside...as pointed out in the article, the two who were convicted in Cuyahoga County were still pretty small fish...

By way of reminder, the recount --- the one that was rigged by Ohio Elections Officials --- came by way of the Green and Libertarian Party candidates, not by way of the Democrats or John Kerry. As well, the money to pay for the gamed recount was raised by folks on the Internet, not paid for out of the $15 million or so that Kerry reportedly had left in his campaign war chest after the "Election" in Ohio.

All of that, despite Kerry's continued and then broken promise to "Count Every Vote" in 2004.

These convictions occurred in Cuyahoga County, a Democratic stronghold of some 600,000 voters. Kerry "lost" the state of Ohio, according to the history books anyway, by just 118,000 out of some 5.5 million votes cast in the Buckeye State.

In related news, today Kerry decided to quit the 2008 Election, mercifully this time before it instead of afterwards.

UPDATE 3/13/2007: Maiden and Dreamer each sentenced to maximum of 18 months in prison. Judge and prosecutor at sentencing say they still believe the conspiracy goes higher. Details...

Former Republican Ohio Secretary of State and failed Gubernatorial candidate, J. Kenneth Blackwell may be mercifully out of office in the Buckeye State, but it looks as if his former constituents will continue to pay for his atrocious tenure in the SoS office for some time to come. That, in addition to the price they are already paying, along with the rest of the country, by suffering George W. Bush who remains in office due, in no small part, to Blackwell's abhorrent mis-administration of the 2004 Presidential Election.

Last week it was revealed by the office of the new SoS, Democrat Jennifer Brunner, that Blackwell got in his last licks by authorizing some $80,000 in year-end bonus payments to 19 different staffers in his office. The BRAD BLOG has obtained a copy of that memo (posted in full at end of this article) which includes type-written payment amounts to 18 now-former employees, along with the hand-written addition of a payment to be made to Blackwell's obnoxious press spokesman and noted democracy-hater, Charles "Carlo" LoParo.

The previously unannounced bonuses, along with the additional surprise revelation that payment for a $225,000 litigation settlement made by Blackwell last December was suddenly due just after Brunner took office in January, has left the new SoS with a $1 million shortfall to meet standing obligations for the office between now and the end of the fiscal year on June 30th.

Both matters were a shock to the incoming SoS who said the discoveries made her "kind of sick, really" as her office has suggested to The BRAD BLOG that there may be administrative and/or legal follow-ups to the issues. The Toledo Blade's coverage of the news as it was revealed last week is excellent.

The legal settlement, according to the Columbus Dispatch, was apparently "related to a lawsuit filed in November 2004 against Blackwell and the Lucas County Board of Elections on behalf of voters who did not receive an absentee ballot and were not allowed to cast provisional ballots."

All of that, of course, as the trial began last week against three Cuyahoga County Elections Officials who are accused of having rigged the 2004 Presidential Election recount while serving at the pleasure of Blackwell under County Election Director Michael Vu. Despite massive failures in 2004 and just about every election in the county since then, Vu has yet to be charged for that incident or any others.

The Bonus Memo

The memo detailing Blackwell's farewell bonuses was signed by his former chief financial officer, Dilip Mehta, who approved $7,765 --- a full extra month's pay --- for himself in the bargain. LoParo's payment of $1,702, one of the lowest amounts listed, was added in what appears to be a handwriting other than Mehta's. That payment is earmarked, according to the memo, for "Carlo."

Naturally, it was LoParo who mouthed off to the media in defense of his old boss and the free, tax-payer largess he received from the state. He claimed the payments were "severance packages offered to members of senior staff," and that "depending on the severance package received, 10 members of the staff agreed not to accept unemployment benefits, which is a net savings for the office in terms of total pay-outs."

But a Brunner staffer has told us last week that 3 former employees had already filed for unemployment benefits. While they had been initially unable to locate any such "severance packages" last week, as based on the 'executive transition document' received from Blackwell, a spokesperson today has informed The BRAD BLOG they have now discovered the elusive "mutual separation agreements" that were signed by Blackwell and the former employees.

The office is currently uncertain whether they will be honored or not.

We're told the letters of 'agreement of mutual separation' also counter LoParo's claims that there would be a net savings for the SoS office for unemployment compensation that wouldn't have to be paid. The letters signed by the three employees who have already applied for such benefits, stated "that it is not intended to affect an employee's eligibility for unemployment compensation," according to Brunner's office.

"It seems Carlo and Ken are telling two tales that don't jive," the staffer wrote in a recent email in reply to our query.

The comments to the media by LoParo --- who also signed one of the "mutual separation agreements" himself --- are quite directly contradicted in the final graf of the agreement which speaks to the matter explicitly as follows:

As far as we know, however, LaParo has yet to apply himself for unemployment benefits.

For 'Outstanding Service Through the Years'

LoParo went on to tell a number of media sources that the money was "given because the secretary felt taxpayers had been given outstanding service through the years, and it was within his prerogative to dispense. It's not unusual and not unprecedented in the private or public sector."

It was unclear whether the disastrous administration by Blackwell of Ohio's 2004 and 2005 and 2006 elections were a part of that "outstanding service through the years."

LoParo took his usual cheap shots at anybody with the temerity to catch the office, yet again, with their hand in the cookie jar or thumb on the scale. "I would just have to chalk (Brunner’s comments) up to overall inexperience," he was quoted as mouthing off to several media outlets.

The staffer we spoke with from Brunner's office noted that the public sector is different from the private sector where such bonuses might be more run of the mill. "While these bonuses are not illegal," the staffer wrote, "in contrast to Carlo's contention that they are appropriate and customary, that is pure unadulterated balderdash."

Ben Piscatelli, a spokesman from the Ohio Dept. of Administrative Services backed up the assertions of Brunner's office. "It is not common for a state agency or elected official to pay bonuses, but there is no state law or policy that forbids it," Piscatelli was reported as telling the Columbus Dispatch today.

Despite LoParo's claims, however, The Blade reported they were unable to confirm any such similar bonuses handed out to officials in 2006 throughout the rest of Ohio's government at year's end:

While there were no such bonuses to speak of in 2006, other than from Blackwell's office, a report by Ohio's 10TV last week, said that 65 state employees at the State House received a total of $89,000 in bonuses in 2005. That, in contrast with the more than $80,000 in bonuses handed out by Blackwell to just 19 of his own staffers on his way out the door.

Legal Action Against Blackwell May Be Coming

Brunner's office has told us they intend to request an audit from Ohio's new Republican State Auditor, Mary Taylor "to assess the state of our agency now that Blackwell is gone." Whether or not Taylor will be willing to potentially take on one of her party's own local titans remains to be seen. Today's Dispatch article also quotes a spokesperson from the office of Attorney General Marc Dann, saying their "would look into the matter if someone asks."

We imagine "someone" will.

The memo containing Blackwell's $80,000 bonus list for 19 now-former staffers follows in full below...

The New York Times' Ian Urbina (this time with Christopher Drew) continues to stay on point with his Electoral Failures coverage at the Grey Lady. Unlike Urbina's last report, this time he wasn't undermined by the Times headline writers. (Does anyone with a hard copy of the paper know what page this was reported on, btw?)

To his additional credit, he didn't use the word "glitch" even once. Thank you, Ian. Here are a few highlights from his piece in today's paper...

Of course, BRAD BLOG readers will remember our desperate call for "Emergency Paper Ballots" here in the weeks prior to the election. On that, Urbina reports...

Wow. Who could have predicted that?!

And there's more...Of course, the "experts" (word used very cautiously!) are beginning to notice that things on Nov. 7th were worse than they had originally understood. "Voting problems may actually have been wider than initially estimated, with many malfunctions simply overlooked," reports the Times.

So how bad were they? How about 60,000 missing votes in Florida, bad. 20,000 voters who couldn't vote in Colorado, bad. Or in Arkansas, where "election officials tallied votes three times in one county, and each time the number of ballots cast changed by more than 30,000," bad.

And then there's the erstwhile election "expert" Doug Chapin of Electionline.org whose "expert" opinion ensures his presence in just about any mainstream media coverage of these matters. Mr. Chapin continues, on schedule, working all sides of the street in Urbina's piece. It's a tricky juggling act for this "expert" --- mustn't offend the Voting Machine Companies or the Elections Officials who pay his bills, or even, to a lesser extent, the Election Integrity advocates who might just call him a phony if he's not careful --- but, as John Gideon pointed out in yesterday's DVN, even Chapin's having a difficult time avoiding the obvious:

And the award for "Understatment of the Year" goes to...

UPDATE 9:01pm PT: Reader Adele writes to tell us that Urbina's article was on "page 30 of 36 pages in the National section" of today's paper.