Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

On Thursday, The BRAD BLOG interviewed Ron Shepston, who is running for Congress in California's 42nd District. The current holder of the seat is the ethically challenged Republican, Gary Miller (R-CA), who is regularly named as one of the Most Corrupt Members of Congress.

We first asked Shepston, an airplane engineer, about election integrity issues. Interestingly, despite running in the extremely "red" Orange County against the Republican Miller and expressing concern for election integrity issues in general, Shepston was not worried about the fairness of elections in his own district:

"I vote in my district and I do think we have fair elections there... I do worry about election integrity in general. I wonder what Republicans are afraid of when they don't want to have fair elections. I don't want to have to guess, I don't want to have to trust that my vote or that voters' votes count. I want verified ballots."

Unfortunately, as Orange County is one of two counties left in California where unverifiable DRE (usually touch-screen) voting machines have been allowed for use by all, Shepston seems somewhat out of step with the ability, or lack thereof, to verify even a single vote cast on such machines in his own district. Almost inexplicably, CA SoS Debra Bowen decertified use of almost all DRE systems in the state, other than one per polling place to meet federal accessibility voting standards, and DRE machines made by Hart InterCivic. Shepston's Orange County still uses those wholly unverifiable Hart voting machines.

Shepston, who says he considers himself part of the netroots movement, is a political newcomer who was encouraged to run for office by fellow bloggers at the Daily Kos website. Yet despite the fact that many of these bloggers are helping with Shepston's campaign, he directed some harsh words towards the Daily Kos:

"It's not the community that it used to be... And what's happened is that now that I've been there for so long I know the good writers and I go to just them. I don't branch out because it seems like every other diary that I get to it's just not worth it to me anymore. I don't learn anything... It's turned into a shouting match sometimes. It's not the same community that it was when I was there before."

Our complete interview (6:46), shot this week at a fund raising event here in Los Angeles with Ambassador Joe Wilson (more videos to come), follows below. You can find out more about Shepston at his Ron Shepston for United States Congress website...

Just sent to The BRAD BLOG by John Conyers' office...

For Immediate Release: May 22, 2008

Conyers Subpoenas Karl Rove

(Washington, DC)-Today, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI), issued a subpoena to former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove for testimony about the politicization of the Department of Justice (DOJ), including former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman's case. Yesterday, Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, sent a letter to the Committee expressing that Rove would not agree to testify voluntarily, per the Committee's previous requests.

"It is unfortunate that Mr. Rove has failed to cooperate with our requests," Conyers said.

"Although he does not seem the least bit hesitant to discuss these very issues weekly on cable television and in the print news media, Mr. Rove and his attorney have apparently concluded that a public hearing room would not be appropriate. Unfortunately, I have no choice today but to compel his testimony on these very important matters."

Separately, Chairman Conyers recently received a letter from DOJ's Office of Professional Responibility (OPR) indicating that the office has opened an investigation into allegations of selective prosecution of Siegelman and others.

Included below and attached are the relevant documents:

• Full text of the cover letter sent to Robert Luskin, Karl Rove's attorney (attached and below); [Download here]
• Full text of the subpoena (attached); [Download here]
• Full text of the letter received yesterday from Luskin, declining to provide voluntary testimony (attached); [Download here]
• Letter from OPR regarding new investigation into selective prosecution allegations (attached). [Download here]

Last week our friends, voting rights attorney John Bonifaz of VoterAction.org and Greg Moore of the NAACP National Voter Fund, testified at a U.S. House Administrative Committee hearing on the 2008 Presidential Primaries and Caucuses and "What we've learned so far."

What we've learned, as Bonifaz explained in his opening statement (written version here [PDF], full video at the end of this article) is that "jurisdictions across the country are increasingly outsourcing, to private vendors, key election functions, and in the process, compromising the transparency and public control of our elections."

While all of that is likely old hat, by now, to readers of The BRAD BLOG, where our hair has been on fire about same for many years now, there was an interesting moment during the Q&A with a Republican congressman and panelists Moore and Bonifaz, as seen in the very short exchange (just under two minutes) in the video clip posted above left.

The Congressman --- at least momentarily --- stepped off the GOP reservation, to admit that the private corporations that fail in their outsourced election duties "should be fired"...

Special to The BRAD BLOG by Jim Cirile

Clint Curtis doesn’t know when to quit.

The Florida computer programmer turned infamous whistleblower was allegedly asked by Jeb Bush crony (and future FL-24-R Congressman) Tom Feeney to write vote-flipping software for him in 2000 (here's the quick summary version of BRAD BLOG's coverage of the scandal). At the time, Curtis, then a loyal Republican, delivered the vote-rigging prototype to Feeney under the assumption that his software would be used to prevent e-voting manipulation by Democrats. When Curtis learned that the true purpose was to game the election results in South Florida, he blew the whistle.

A stacked-deck investigation by the Florida Ethics Commission --- where 6 of the 8 members of the panel are either Bush or Feeney appointees, or closely tied to one or both --- dismissed Curtis’ allegations without allowing him to testify, and without examining email and other evidence in the case, in violation of FL law. But Curtis would not go quietly.

He became a crusader, speaking at election integrity events around the country and eventually delivering jaw-dropping testimony (video here) to a stunned Congressional committee (who did nothing in response). Curtis even passed a lie detector test administered by the retired chief polygrapher for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Meanwhile, Feeney has been branded among the “Top 25 Most Corrupt in Congress,” for three years straight, by CREW, the non-partisan DC ethics watchdog group, most notably for his involvement --- and golf junket to Scotland --- with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

In 2006, Curtis launched his first congressional bid --- now as a Democrat --- taking on Feeney himself for his FL-24 seat. A pre-election Zogby poll showed Curtis in a statistical dead heat with Feeney --- despite Feeney’s big-money smear campaign against Curtis (‘CrazyClintCurtis.com’ featured doctored photos of Curtis wearing a tin foil hat). But on election night, Feeney was announced the winner 57%/43%. Problem is, those election results didn’t make much sense based on the Zogby poll or Curtis’ own internal polling. So Curtis did something remarkable. He filed a Congressional election challenge.

His team went door to door collecting signed affidavits from FL-24 voters testifying as to how they voted. They found the results to be wildly off, by double digits in some places. Despite this evidence, the Democratically controlled House committee summarily dismissed his election challenge, along with several others, without bothering to even review Curtis' evidence.

And yet, Curtis is once again going after the FL-24 Congressional seat. Only this time, he’s not just running against Feeney. First he must defeat an attempt to challenge him by the Democratic party's hand-picked candidate.

We caught up with Curtis on the campaign trail where he made it clear, in our exclusive interview, that he had no intention of lying down or rolling over for naysayers, Democratic insiders, the woman chosen by the DCCC to challenge him, and certainly not the corrupt Tom Feeney...

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Guest Blogged by Dennis Domrzalski of f-brilliant...

The Albuquerque Journal today proved once again why it can't be trusted to inform the public.

Today the paper finally published a story about the allegations of vote buying at the mid-February Bernalillo County Republican Party's pre-nominating conventions. And what a lame, disgraceful story it was. Read this stupid lede:

Naaah! Really? A registration fee might be the root of a behind-the-scenes political flap?

How about allegations of criminal vote buying are ripping the party apart? That would be more accurate. How about this story has been raging in the national blogosphere for weeks and has contributed to a massive swell of anti-Rep. Heather Wilson venom? How about former KKOB Radio afternoon drive time news anchor Laura MacCallum broke the stories in late February and resigned in early March when her idiot news editor killed them because bloggers hadn't picked them up? How about the f-brilliant blog which broke the MacCallum resignation story and put the vote-buying allegations on the Internet on March 3, more than two weeks ago?

Or The BRAD BLOG, which joined f-brilliant and advanced the story on March 5 with its own exclusive interviews with a number of the players, including KKOB's news director Pat Allen, who backpedaled on his explanations for spiking MacCallum's stories once the reasons he'd emailed to MacCallum became public?

You'll never read about those things in the Journal because they're the truth and that paper is incapable of telling it...

Ed Note: The BRAD BLOG's complete index of notable NM GOP/Heather Wilson "vote-buying" stories is available at https://BradBlog.com/NMVoteBuying.

Special to The BRAD BLOG by Dennis Domrzalski...

New Mexico Secretary of State Mary Herrera said her office is working closely and quickly with the state Attorney General’s Office to finish the investigation into the state Republican Party’s vote-buying scandal.

The agencies want the investigation completed before the state GOP’s statewide convention on Saturday, Herrera said late Tuesday in an exclusive interview with this blog.

Herrera also said she was troubled by the allegations that the campaigns --- including Congresswoman Heather Wilson’s U.S. Senate campaign --- had paid people to attend the Bernalillo County, NM GOP’s ward conventions on Feb. 17 and vote for certain delegates.

“It’s something new --- people being paid to get to conventions. I’ve never heard of it. I’ve been attending (Democratic Party) ward and state conventions since I’ve been 18 and I’ve never heard of anything like this. Now we have paying people to do it. It seems very odd,” Herrera said during the face-to-face interview in Albuquerque.

New evidence emerged in the case that offers a reason why Wilson’s campaign was suddenly forced to admit that they paid for at least five people to attend the conventions, after initially refusing to comment on the allegations of vote-buying at the Feb. 17 Bernalillo County GOP’s ward conventions: A paper trail...

Guest Blogged by Dennis Domrzalski of f-brilliant...

After waiting nearly a week, the Albuquerque Journal on Sunday finally published a story about Laura MacCallum quitting her job as KKOB Radio’s afternoon drive time anchor.

What a pathetic story it was, though. It shows why the blogosphere is daily becoming more powerful and why more and more people are turning away from traditional media sources for their news. The fact is, those traditional sources can’t be trusted to tell us what’s really going on, especially when it comes to their own industry.

MaCallum quit because KKOB News Director Pat Allen pulled her stories about allegations of vote buying at the recent sate Republican Party’s pre-primary conventions. Allen caved after getting complaints from Heather Wilson’s U.S. Senate campaign and from state Republican Party officials. (See BRAD BLOG's Special Coverage Page on the scandal here.)

The Journal's --- this newspaper is the largest media outlet in the state --- seven-paragraph story, buried on page B4, fails to mention that it was Wilson’s campaign that did the complaining. It didn’t go into detail about the vote-buying scandal, and it said nothing about Allen’s memo to MacCallum that he didn’t think the stories were valid because other media outlets and bloggers hadn’t picked them up...

Blogged by Brad Friedman from the road...

We've been on the road for the last several days, so haven't been able to keep you up to date with some of the latest beats in the NM GOP/Rep. Heather Wilson "Vote-Buying" story, since our on-air audio interviews with some of the key players on Friday. (see our Special Coverage Page here for the full background.)

New Mexico journalist and TV host Dennis Domrzalski --- who broke the story in the blogosphere first, including the not-insignificant detail that coverage of the original allegations had been spiked by NM's largest news/talk radio outlet KKOB-AM 770, leading to the resignation of their award-winning news anchor, Laura MacCallum, who had originally both witnessed and aired the charges --- has been advancing it smartly over the last several days. As The BRAD BLOG reported exclusively in detail last week, KKOB's news director Pat Allen has been having a difficult time keeping his stories straight about why exactly he spiked the stories after the Wilson campaign contacted him to complain about them several times.

Domrzalski will have a guest blog for us here shortly on the latest latest, but to quickly catch you up with notable developments over the last several days...

Another Election Day, another Diebold election "failure" or two.

And a few other quick Election Integrity items of note as I try to get outta here today to head to Arizona where I'll be appearing next week at Q&A's for a couple of Uncounted screenings. (See the "Media Appearances" box on top-right for details, if you're in Phoenix or Tuscon, or thereabouts!)...

• In Illinois today, they are holding an election to replace Denny Hastert. On the Diebold touch-screen machines used by the hopelessly partisan Republican DuPage County Election Commission, the word "REPUBLICAN" is popping on to the screen, such that some precincts have reportedly taken to placing tape over the screen where that occurs. The DuPage board is extraordinarily slimy, hopelessly corrupt, overtly willing to break the law, have hired Republican operatives to do "PR" for them (both overtly and covertly), and have recently launched an all out effort, with the help of their corrupt friends in the local media, to to swiftboat the non-partisan citizen Election Integrity advocate citizen volunteers of the Illinois Ballot Integrity Project (IBIP).

• Nothing illegal about Republicanists dutifully following Rush's orders to cross over to the Dem side in order to vote for Hillary in the recent Ohio Primary. Or is there?

• Diebold op-scan machines cause more trouble than they're worth. Again. This time in Vermont. And perhaps to the advantage of a Democrat over a Republican for a change. Someone needs to be fired for that.

• 0 Republican votes recorded in 21 Texas counties during last week's Primaries? Yes. But here's why.

Backatcha from the road (see below if you feel like helping us with some gas money! We could much use it!)...

UPDATE FROM THE ROAD, FROM SOME MOTEL 6 SOMEWHERE... The Democratic candidate, Bill Foster has been announced as the winner of Hastert's once formidable seat (yes, pun intended.) Good. Now it's time to impound those machines and memory cards from DuPage County immediately. Both the machines that flashed "REPUBLICAN" and those that didn't need to be impounded by the AG, so they can be tested to find out what happened and why it happened.

And because the Dem candidate won, Election Integrity advocates can't be labeled as "sore losers" for taking this action immediately. Hopefully the good folks at IBIP will take swift action. Lord knows the DuPage County Election Commission won't.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Related. It looks like Foster's Democratic Primary Election opponent, John Laesch is asking for a recount of the February primary. Haven't gotten to speak to him or his camp, so not familiar with what the issues of concern are yet, but thought I'd drop a quick link here to put it on your radar. The BRAD BLOG, of course, supports any and all recount requests deemed necessary by any candidates or their supporters who feel they need to find confidence in any given election results, particularly as we currently --- and absurdly --- use so many non-transparent, wholly faith-based voting systems which have robbed the country of the ability to have the oversight needed to ensure confidence in our democratic system.

[Updated Post-Show. Audio now available below...]

During my regular weekly Friday guest appearance on the syndicated Peter B. Collins Show at 5pm PT tonight (that's 6pm in Albuquerque), we were joined by guests...

• Laura MacCallum (now-resigned KKOB reporter who broke the Heather Wilson Vote-Buying stories before they were spiked by her own station after complaints from Wilson)
• Gov. David Cargo (former Republican NM Governor, one of several officials who made the initial allegations)
• David Iglesias (the former US Attorney from NM who was fired in the U.S. Attorney Purge after receiving inappropriate phone-calls from Heather Wilson, and Pete Domenici was not able to make it after all)

As you may have guessed, there continues to be much developing on this story. The trick will be continuing to cover it all as I must head out to the road again beginning tomorrow, for a couple of weeks. As always, I'll do our best, even from there, to continue coverage. Your help is much appreciated! (See bottom of this post for one way you can help us immediately!)

POST-SHOW UPDATE: Was a great hour, I think. Both MacCallum and Cargo did a great job of covering the meat and potatoes of it all, along with the always top-notch PBC. I was on live from the California State Ronald Reagan building downtown where I just finished attending and testifying at a hearing on the L.A. County "Double Bubble" ballot debacle. More on that when I can catch my breath (which you'll see I'm quite out of, at the beginning of the hour).

Here's the full hour, which is actually 42 minutes with commercials removed (courtesy of Green960's podcast archive.) Download MP3, or listen online right here...

"This is why blogging doesn’t get any respect," New Mexico blogger Heath Haussamen wrote in his blistering response to the emerging Republican vote-buying allegations in New Mexico. He wrote that the entire matter was a "non-story," based on "rumors," before going on to mercilessly blast reporter Dennis Domrzalski, who broke several key elements in the story, and us, by reference, as "shameful" and "disgraceful" for covering it at all.

About the website of Domrzalski, who says he was not contacted by the indignant Haussamen for comment before the scathing story ran, he wrote "This is not a reputable journalistic site."

Yet, incredibly, Haussamen failed to disclose, in his article on this yesterday, that Rep. Heather Wilson's campaign spokesperson, Whitney Cheshire, wrote a weekly column at his blog site until October of last year, when she stopped to go to work for the Congresswoman.

In fact, it was Cheshire who forwarded Haussamen's article, defending her boss, via email to the News Director at Albuquerque radio station KKOB, after reports had surfaced that they had spiked the vote-buying stories, broken by one of their own news anchors initially, reportedly after pressure from Cheshire herself. That News Director, in turn, forwarded Haussamen's article, sent by Cheshire, to us late last night.

We took pains to include Haussamen's criticism, even of us, quoting it at some length, in the detailed report on the allegations that we posted last night...

KKOB's now-resigned, award-winning news anchor Laura MacCallum offers a full statement, in her own words, in the wake of the station having pulled her stories on allegations of vote-buying by New Mexico's U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson's campaign at a recent GOP Delegate Nominating Convention in the state.

Though she wrote it prior to our speaking with her at length yesterday, the full statement was not posted until today. (Many of her comments from that exclusive interview, in which she replies to new explanations by the station's News Director for having pulled her stories, were included in our detailed report last night)

The statement is posted in full on the blog of reporter Dennis Domrzalski, who originally broke the remarkable news of the spiked stories and MacCallum's resignation, last Monday.

A few notable snippets from her full statement --- in which she blasts KKOB, charging "This is not journalism. It is extortion," and "Honesty and guts in journalism, print or broadcast, is becoming a thing of the past." --- are posted below...

[Story Summary: Via extensive BRAD BLOG interviews, New Mexico's former Republican Governor repeats and adds fresh details to his allegations of Republican vote-buying by Congresswoman Heather Willson, tells us that the AG and SoS offices are now investigating the charges, and says he recently confronted Wilson, in person, about the allegations and was "stunned" by her response. KKOB's News Director Pat Allen offers a new reason as to why he spiked reporter Laura MacCallum's stories on the scandal and she dismisses the argument as being without merit. We also post the scripts of radio station KKOB's yanked stories, which led to MacCallum's resignation from the station last week.]

32-year award-winning news veteran and New Mexico's ABC field producer, Laura MacCallum, quit her job as afternoon anchor at Albuquerque's 50,000-watt blowtorch KKOB-AM 770, after she read an email from her News Director, Pat Allen, which said, among other things, "if there was anything to it the bloggers would have picked this up, let alone other news agencies."

Allen was referring to MacCallum's on-air investigative reports covering allegations of a vote-buying scheme by New Mexico's U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson at a recent Republican Delegate Convention. The 1st Congressional District Congresswoman is vying for her party's nomination to run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated this year by outgoing Pete Domenici. MacCallum ran the stories about the charges on KKOB several times, in several different variations --- including several different interviews and sound bites from both the former Republican Governor of New Mexico, David Cargo, an eye-witness to the story, and a current spokesman for the state GOP, Scott Darnell.

The stories ran, five different versions in all, over a two day period before they were spiked by station management allegedly after pressure from Wilson's office. The BRAD BLOG has obtained the scripts of those original spiked reports (posted at the end of this article), though the complete audio is said to have been "dump[ed]...to make room for new stuff," according to Allen tonight.

In the email to MacCallum, sent last week by the News Director after he'd received several phone calls from Wilson campaign spokesperson, Whitney Cheshire, he informed his afternoon drive news anchor that he'd "pulled" the stories from the station's on-air news rotation. After reading the email from Allen, MacCallum told us she became livid. "I probably had flames coming out of my ears," she explained this afternoon during a long phone call. She immediately resigned in protest.

The BRAD BLOG has now spoken at length to Allen, MacCallum, and NM's former Gov. Cargo, as well as several others involved with the story and/or looking into it for further details. Suffice it to say, contrary to Allen's memo, "the bloggers" have now picked this up, and, according to MacCallum and other sources, so have several of those "other news agencies" that Allen referenced in his email.

Moreover, Cargo tells us today that the charges of felony vote-buying are now under investigation by both the Secretary of State's office as well as the state Attorney General. Further, he told us of his confrontation with Wilson about the allegations some weeks ago. Her response to the charges left the former Governor "stunned"...

Reporter Dennis Domrzalski's terrific scoop deserves to be read in full, so I won't quote much of it here.

The short version, however: New Mexico's ABC field producer and KKOB afternoon drive news reporter, Laura MacCallum, a 32-year news veteran, has quit her job after her stories on an alleged vote-buying scheme by Republican Rep. Heather Wilson at the recent delegate nominating convention in Bernalillo County, New Mexico, were scrubbed from her station's website hourly news cycle by the News Director, after alleged pressure from Rep. Wilson.

The sitting Congresswoman is angling for an upgrade, as she hopes to be the state's Republican nominee to fill the Senate seat being vacated by outgoing Republican Pete Domenici. MacCallum's report, sourced by at least three different people, including herself, said that voters showed up to the delegate convention and claimed they were being "paid $35-an-hour (for two hours)" by Wilson's senate campaign and the congressional campaign of Bernalillo County Sheriff Darren White, "and that the campaigns had also paid their $30 registration fees."

I just spoke with Domrzalski, and he underscored again, as he did in his story, that "Wilson’s spokeswoman flat out refused to answer the question" when asked if he asked her if the reports were true.

Such a scheme, if true, would be a fourth-degree felony, according to New Mexico law. But as remarkable as those charges are, even if having the ring of truth, given what we already know about Wilson, the response, including the memo sent from KKOB News Director Pat Allen to MacCallum, is almost as remarkable...