Articles in Category: Ohio

They're looking for a few facts about electronic voting, Diebold, and such

Do we have any we can share?

By Winter Patriot on 8/18/2006 7:53am PT

Regular BRAD BLOG readers will remember reading about Election Science Institute (ESI) and the report they prepared on the May 2 primary in Cuyahoga (Cleveland) County, because John Gideon blogged about it on Wednesday.

Also on Wednesday, at the Columbus Dispatch, Public Affairs reporter Mark Niquette and Senior editor Joe Hallett wrote about it too: Cleveland study questions accuracy of Diebold voting machines.

We have a few excerpts below the fold. We also have another piece, written by Mr. Niquette, which appeared on the front page of the Dispatch on Thursday, and in which the Dispatch asked for comments from readers.

I think Mr. Niquette and Mr. Hallett and their colleagues should hear from 6 or 7 green-and-yellow bloggers.

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Article Categories: Diebold/Premier, Ohio

CNN's Lou Dobbs: An Electronic Voting Machine Debacle In Ohio's 2006 Primary Election

Scientific Report Commissioned by County says Numbers Don't Match Up: 'The current election system, if left unchanged, contains significant threats'

OH Sec. of State's Response: 'The machines work. There is nothing wrong with the machines.'

By John Gideon on 8/16/2006 5:22pm PT

Guest Blogged by John Gideon

Tonight Lou revisits the world of electronic voting in Ohio, where the evidence points to voting machine problems, but the vendors, especially Diebold, and the state want everyone to believe that the poll and election workers are just too dumb to do the work and all of the problems are their fault. For more on this story see the recent BRAD BLOG article regarding the Cuyahoga County investigation.

Here's a quick sample from the text transcript:

PILGRIM: The report found the machine's four sources of vote totals, individual ballots, paper trail summary, election archives, and the memory cards, did not all match up. The totals were all different.

The report concludes, "These shortcomings merit urgent attention. Relying on the system in its present state should be viewed as a calculated risk."

But the secretary of state of Ohio, Kenneth Blackwell, is still in denial. His office saying today, "The machines work. There is nothing wrong with the machines."

That is not what the report concludes.

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

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Article Categories: Diebold/Premier, Lou Dobbs, Ohio, CNN

Diebold Gets Blasted In Another Report

Report Done For Cuyahoga Co. Ohio Finds The System May Be Unrepairable Before Nov. 2008

By John Gideon on 8/16/2006 11:03am PT

Election Science Institute (ESI), a San Francisco based non-profit, was contracted for $341,000 to do a complete study of the May 2 primary in Cuyahoga (Cleveland) County. The study was just released to the public and it is another scathing report against Diebold and their voting machines.

Ohio requires a voter verified paper audit trail printer on every Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machine. The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that ESI found:

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Article Categories: Diebold/Premier, Election Irregularities, Ohio

Art Levine: 'Salon's shameful six' --- states where vote suppression could cost voters their voice --- and Democrats the election --- in 2006

Salon's Election Integrity Coverage Takes A Turn For The Better

but it couldn't have got much worse!

By Winter Patriot on 8/15/2006 7:55pm PT

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Art Levine's new piece at Salon raises their election integrity bar quite a bit --- not a difficult task considering where that bar has been lately.

Prior to the 2004 "election", Salon's coverage was generally quite good; since then it's been dismal, thanks mostly to some outrageous smear pieces from Farhad Manjoo. In fact, Salon's coverage has been so dreadful that the site has been referred to in some quarters as "Saloon", which of course rhymes with "buffoon", which gives me a good way to remember "Manjoo", whose name just wouldn't stick in my frozen brain any other way.

But let's not dwell on those sad times.

Levine's article, "Salon's shameful six", looks at six states --- Arizona, Indiana, California, Missouri, Ohio and Florida --- where vote suppression could cause serious problems in 2006.

If you're not a Salon subscriber, you'll have to watch a short ad to read the whole article. I did; it was well worth the time and effort. But just in case you don't believe me, we have a few short excerpts, below the fold.

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Article Categories: Ohio, Florida, California, Indiana, Arizona, Election 2006, Missouri

OHIO: Bob Ney Quits Race!! Soon-To-Be-Indicted GOP Influence Peddler, HAVA Author, Maintains He Has Done Nothing Wrong

Had Vowed To Fight On, Even If Indicted; Now Says He's Quitting For The Good Of His Family

Flip-Flopper?? ... In the meantime, with DeLay and Ney gone, Tom Feeney is the only remaining congressman to have accompanied Jack Abramoff to Scotland!

By Winter Patriot on 8/7/2006 9:57am PT

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

According to ABC News and AP: Bob Ney Won't Seek Re-Election

COLUMBUS, Ohio Aug 7, 2006 (AP)— U.S. Rep. Bob Ney, dogged by an influence peddling probe in Washington, will not seek re-election, state Sen. Joy Padgett said early Monday.

AP writer Joe Danborn has some other details, including:

The six-term congressman from Heath in central Ohio had insisted he would not resign even if indicted over his dealings with now-convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. In his first primary test in a decade, Ney won 68 percent of the vote May 2 against a little-known opponent.

However, he faced a tough challenge in November from Democrat Zack Space, who had made the Justice Department's investigation into Ney a focus of his campaign.

The Pittsburgh Tribune Review has more, including some quotes from an exclusive interview with Ney: Ney drops out of fall race

Ney has not been charged with a crime, and he insists he did nothing wrong. But his former chief of staff, Neil Volz, who left to join Abramoff's team, pleaded guilty in May to conspiring to use gifts and trips to influence Ney's official activities. Volz said he and other Abramoff associates provided Ney and members of his staff with free or reduced-price trips to England, Scotland and the Fiesta Bowl in Tempe, Ariz.

Who went on that trip to Scotland? Let's see ...

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Article Categories: Ohio, Bob Ney, Jack Abramoff, Tom Feeney

CNN's Lou Dobb's: Monumental Failure of Diebold In Ohio

By John Gideon on 7/28/2006 9:07am PT

Dobbs has this to say (tongue in cheek) when talking about Diebold's denial of any problems while there is evidence of vote tallying problems, "A minor, minor consideration when one is holding an election is to be able to count the vote."

A written transcript follows...

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Article Categories: Diebold/Premier, Lou Dobbs, Ohio

Cuyahoga Co., Ohio Primary Was A Disaster

Just Published Report Condemns The Election Director and His Top Assistant

County Elections Board Decides, On a 2 To 2 Vote, To Keep The Director In His Job

By John Gideon on 7/21/2006 8:46pm PT

Guest Blogged by John Gideon

According to an article in today's Cleveland Plain Dealer the recent Cuyahoga County primary fiasco was the result of widespread dysfunction in the county's election offices, where officials ignored specific warnings of the looming calamity, according to a report also released today that blames election chief Michael Vu and deputy chief Gwen Dillingham.

According to the paper:

In the 394-page report, a three-member panel concludes its investigation of the flawed May 2 primary with descriptions of breakdown after breakdown at every level of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections. The problems included poorly trained poll workers, too few workers, the rehiring of poll workers with histories of poor performance, a lack of crucial supplies, error-filled and ambiguous manuals for poll workers, a careless or reckless disregard for security of the voting machines, and the refusal to accept help from outsiders with expertise.

The dysfunction was made worse by a rushed changeover from punch-card voting to electronic machines.

"Director Vu and [Deputy Director] Dillingham effectively ordered workers to do the impossible, or nearly impossible, with inadequate resources," the report says. "This is an across-the-board failure to plan and manage the first countywide endeavor in electronic voting."

The panel found that even when presented with 13 warnings of potential crises four months before the election, Vu forged ahead. In June, after most of the 13 predicted problems came to pass, Vu "had yet to grasp the enormity of the issues. . . . During a recent interview with panel members he said, "There's not much that I would change at all."

In a companion article the Plain Dealer reports on the 13 warnings and gives some examples:

Scanning machines might be unable to read thousands of absentee ballots.

Votng machine memory cards might not get to the election headquarters for counting.

Election workers might be unable to operate the machines.

Vu's system for counting votes might break down.

All of that came to pass.

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Article Categories: Diebold/Premier, Election Irregularities, Ohio, Election 2006

VIDEO - Brad Friedman and RFK on Court TV's Catherine Crier Live!

Tape of Live Appearance Discussing Election Integrity, Ohio 2004, E-Voting Crime 2006...

By David Edwards on 7/20/2006 7:42pm PT

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NOTE FROM BRAD: I'm still out on the road, will be for a while, and thus unable to check into the net with much frequency! Not getting all of my email either because of it, so my apologies. Thanks Dave for getting this up! More when I am able to check back in from a location with net access and enough time to get caught up-ish.

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Article Categories: Diebold/Premier, ES&S, Election Irregularities, RFK Jr., Election 2004, Ohio, BRAD BLOG, Sequoia Voting Systems, UniLect, BRAD BLOG Media Appearance, Catherine Crier

COURT TV's Catherine Crier on Electoral Crisis: 'A Full Frontal Attack on Democracy'!

Devasting Video Editorial on the 'Unprecedented Scandal Threating to Turn us into a Banana Republic'

'If we are willing to send troops around the world to secure freedom at the ballot box, shouldn't we fight for that right here at home?'

By Brad Friedman on 7/7/2006 4:52pm PT

I missed this a week or so ago when it originally aired, but caught it just now (hat tip Mary Macelveen).

Catherine Crier offered a devasting editorial recently on Court TV in regard to election integrity. Her piece was spurred by RFK's Jr.'s Rolling Stone exposé on the theft of the '04 Presidential Election, but covers a panoply of current threats to our electoral system --- described as "a full frontal attack on Democracy" --- including guys like Ohio's J. Kenneth Blackwell, convicted RNC/White House phone-jammer James Tobin and the Electronic Voting Machine Menace of Diebold and other private companies who have usurped our public election system.

Links to the highly-recommended video editorial titled "Defending Democracy: Can we promote democracy in Iraq while our own is under attack?" are at the bottom of this article, courtesy of David Edwards.

Here's a selection of extremely choice quotes from Crier's report...

Is this not an attack on Democracy? If 357,000 Americans were killed by al Qaeda, we would call that an attack on democracy and freedom. The press would headline such an event and it would shape our policies for decades to come. In a democracy, when 357,000 votes are effectively killed at the voting booth, what do you call it?
...
The national character of this scandal is unprecedented and threatens to turn us into little more than a banana republic, where candidates appear on the ballot in name only because the election has already been determined.

If we are willing to send our troops around the world to secure freedom at the ballot box for others, shouldn't we fight for that right here at home?

Partisanship has no place in this battle. For the sake of democracy...for the sake of America...it is time all citizens demand the sanctity of our election process.

With the November elections almost upon us, we haven't a moment to lose.

It looks like American democracy has yet another new champion in the mainstream media!

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...CONTACT...
Email: Crier Live

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Article Categories: Diebold/Premier, RFK Jr., Election 2004, J. Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio, Florida, Election Reform, Election 2000, Catherine Crier

Staffers of Ohio's Soon-to-be-Indicted Rep. Bob Ney All Quit on Same Day...

HAVA Author, Abramoff Buddy, Diebold's Best Friend in Congress, Apparently in Dieb Dieb Doo Doo...

By Brad Friedman on 7/1/2006 7:38pm PT

Just one of the many recent, yet notable, items I was unable to cover over the past week...

On Thursday, Roll Call reported that all three of the major staffers for Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH), the lead author/co-sponsor of the disastrous Help America Vote Act (HAVA), are running for the hills.

The departures are described as "the latest sign that Ney’s legal and ethical troubles stemming from the Jack Abramoff scandal are growing worse with each passing day."

Josh Marshall covered the exits of his "troika" --- his Chief of Staff, Legislative Director and Communications Director --- all scramming on the same day.

We first referred to Ney as "the soon-to-be-indicted" back in January when we published our exposé connecting the dots between Ney, Abramoff, Diebold, HAVA and Ney's even-more-former chief of staff, David DiStefano, who became Diebold's main congressional lobbyist. That exposé has been wholly ignored by the mainstream media ever since. (Except for Matt Taibbi who referenced the info, but without attribution, in an April Rolling Stone piece on Abramoff.)

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Article Categories: Diebold/Premier, Ohio, Bob Ney, Jack Abramoff

Election/Media Reform Toon of the Moment...

By Brad Friedman on 6/21/2006 2:10pm PT

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Article Categories: RFK Jr., Election 2004, Ohio, Election Reform, Toons

Congresswoman 'Apologizes' for Not Taking Allegations of Stolen 2004 Election Seriously!

Was it Stolen? 'Only Answer is Yes,' says Schakowsky who Claims DCCC to Announce Steps Soon to Avoid 'Repeat Performance'

EXCLUSIVE: Complete Text of Prepared Remarks from today's 'Take Back America' Conference...

By Brad Friedman on 6/14/2006 6:54pm PT

I just got off the phone with Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) who reportedly wowed 'em a few hours ago during her speech (posted in full below) on the closing afternoon of the "Take Back America" conference being held in Washington D.C.

In her remarks, Schakowsky apologized for "not taking seriously enough the allegations that the 2004 election was stolen." She now feels it was, and claims that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) will be launching an initiative. From today's speech:

I apologize for not taking seriously enough the allegations that the 2004 election was stolen. After reading Bobby Kennedy's article in Rolling Stone, "Was the 2004 Election Stolen?", I am convinced that the only answer is yes. He documents how 357,000 Ohio voters, the vast majority Democrats, "were prevented from casting ballots or did not have their votes counted...more than enough to shift the results." Watch for the DCCC to take some very public steps in the near future to ward off a repeat performance. In the meantime, there needs to be a citizens' effort starting now to assess the machines, the ballots, the registration process within each and every election jurisdiction in each and every swing district and state, in the case of Senate races. Where the situation looks perilous, go to the media, raise a stink, demand changes. This is a great project for the many of you who have been diligently working to guarantee fair and accurate elections.

Raise a stink? Can do. So can you! Sign Velvet Revolution's petition declaring "No Confidence" in the Busby/Bilbray race!

(Hat tip to my buddy Peter B. Collins, who is in DC to cover the conference, for his quick phone call alert after Schakowsky's speech earlier this afternoon!)

Schakowsky's prepared statement from today's Take Back America conference speech follows in full...

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Article Categories: RFK Jr., Election 2004, Ohio, Election Reform

VIDEO - Colbert Trusts His Gut More Than Kennedy's Election 'Facts'

By David Edwards on 6/13/2006 11:59am PT

Guest blogged by David Edwards of Veredictum.com

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Stephen Colbert had Robert Kennedy Jr. as a guest on last night's edition of the Colbert Report. With the show's more relaxed interview format, Kennedy was able to give a quick but meaningful overview of how Republican officials may have stolen the 2004 Presidential election in Ohio.

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Article Categories: Diebold/Premier, Election Irregularities, RFK Jr., Election 2004, Ohio

NY Times' Bob Herbert: 'Kerry Almost Certainly Won Ohio'

By Brad Friedman on 6/12/2006 12:55pm PT

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:

Kerry almost certainly would have won Ohio if all of his votes had been counted, and if all of the eligible voters who tried to vote for him had been allowed to cast their ballots.

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.

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Article Categories: RFK Jr., Election 2004, Ohio

AP: Diebold Lobbyist Donated $10,000 to Ohio's J. Kenneth Blackwell...

By Brad Friedman on 6/10/2006 1:36pm PT

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...

COLUMBUS (AP) --- Forty-nine of the 85 people who this year have given Ohio secretary of state Kenneth Blackwell the maximum $10,000 allowed an individual donor have done so since May 2. Members of Cincinnati financier Carl Lindner's family led the way by combining for $90,000. The maximum-donor list also includes Mitch Given, who is a registered lobbyist for Diebold Election Systems, one of the vendors of voting machines for election boards in Ohio.

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

Yesterday he refused to recuse himself from administering his own election against Democratic Rep. Ted Strickland in November's upcoming gubernatorial race.

A month or two ago it was revealed that he had purchased stock in Diebold around the time he was deciding which voting systems would be used in Ohio (suprise, Diebold was one of the winning bidders!)

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.

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Article Categories: Diebold/Premier, J. Kenneth Blackwell

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