Well, hallelujah! And thank you, Francine. On behalf of every voter in CA-50, San Diego, California and America (if we may be so bold.)

The Voice of San Diego continues...

The Registrar of Voters in San Diego is Mikel Haas, one of the country's worst, as BRAD BLOG readers likely know well by now.

More interesting details in the article by Daniel Strumpf and Kelly Bennet, both of whom are to be congratulated for their use of the word "appeared" to qualify their reporting of a possible Bilbray win, and letting CNN and New York Times face the ignominy of reporting the results of a race --- marred with so many security, integrity and verification issues --- that neither outlet, nor any human being on the face of the earth, could actually prove to be accurate in any way at this time.

A lawsuit naming San Diego County Registrar of Voters Mikel Haas as defendant has been filed in the California Court of Appeals seeking to compel Haas --- whom we've previously described as one of the nation's worst Elections Administrators --- to follow the orders of the California Sec. of State and supply Paper Ballots to all voters who request one. Further, the suit demands that Haas actually count those ballots on Election Night, in accordance with the State order, rather than create an "unequal class of voters" by reporting only touch-screen voting results that night.

As The BRAD BLOG reported yesterday, Haas has announced that he plans to defy the SoS order to count such paper ballots as "normal ballots" by refusing to count them at all until the Thursday after the election. He has also instructed poll workers not to inform voters of their right to vote on paper if they so choose and, according to the lawsuit, has failed to ensure that an adequate supply of paper ballots will be available for voters who wish or need them.

As well, the lawsuit --- funded by the VelvetRevolution.us Election Protection Strike Force --- seeks in its third action a peremptory writ regarding the current "sleepovers" of Diebold electronic voting machines, now underway in San Diego where poll workers will have kept the pre-programmed, election-ready touch-screen systems in their homes and cars for a full three weeks prior to the November 7th election.

-- Download the full complaint here [PDF]...
(Link fixed! The complaint is very very good, btw, and charges, correctly in our opinion, that Haas has failed in and abused his role as Registrar of Voters.)

Carlsbad attorney Ken Simpkins's suit, filed on behalf of San Diego County voter Kathy Peterson, seeks appropriate security logs and precautions to be instituted, since Haas has failed to do so via his "sleepovers," which lack apppropriate security measures. A recent blog item at Velvet Revolution (VR) has described Haas as "apparently preferring plausible deniability of scattering the voting machines to innumerable volunteers" over actual accountability.

The "sleepovers" are also in violation of both state and federal laws and security requirements, effectively decertifying them for use before the election even begins. San Diegans should have no basis, at this time, for confidence in any results reported from San Diego's election on November 7th, due to Haas's failures.

Haas, in an article on the lawsuit in the North County Times, says that complying with the SoS order to count paper ballot votes as "normal ballots" would be impractical.

"We can't count these ballots on election night," he told the NC Times. "They will be counted during the canvas period, which allows us 28 days. We can't count two things at the same time. We'll have our hands full just uploading the results from the precincts where people will be voting on touch screens."

By refusing to count paper ballots on Election Night, "Mr. Haas risks skewing the early visibility of San Diego election results, which could impact public perceptions and lead to premature concessions by candidates," according to a statement by Ken Simpkins.

The NC Times quotes Haas as saying there is no reason for candidates to concede prematurely. "It isn't over until I certify the election, and that's usually around 28 days after an Election Day," he said. "What any candidate does within those days is their business."

Haas' claim that "it isn't over until I certify the election" is in direct contradiction to the facts on the ground, revealed by last June's U.S. House Special Election to replace disgraced Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham in San Diego. In that matter, a contest was filed after certification of the election, as per state law, but was thrown out by a San Diego judge who ruled the U.S. House, not the courts or voters of California, had jurisdiction over any election challenges or recounts once the "winner" in the race, Brian Bilbray, had been sworn in by the House just seven days after the election. At the time of the swearing-in --- a full two weeks prior to Haas's certification --- thousands of ballots remained wholly uncounted.

By law, no contest or recount could be filed until after Haas's certification. And yet, Superior Court Judge Judge Yuri Hoffman found the plaintiffs no longer had the right to challenge or recount the election results in any way.

Simpkins was one of the attorneys who filed the Busby/Bilbray lawsuit last summer along with attorney Paul Lehto. In that case --- as The BRAD BLOG originally broke on June 7th, followed with extensive special coverage thereafter --- Haas had also sent home both optical-scan and touch-screen voting systems made by Diebold on poll worker "sleepovers," despite new emergency security mitigation requirements made by both State and Federal oversight bodies after it had been discovered that Diebold voting systems contained a type of programming code making them particularly susceptible to tampering. That type of programming code, known as "interpeted code," is also in violation of both state and federal law.

During the June contest it was discovered that Haas's chain of custody security logs were virtually non-existent. The dismissal of that case is currently being appealed.

As we reported on Tuesday, the Democratic Sec. of State candidate, Debra Bowen, released a short video ad on her campaign website revealing the extraordinary dangers and, indeed, the serious national security threat presented by such "sleepovers."

A request has been made for an expedited decision from the court in the latest case due to the pending election. Hopefully decisions on these matters will be forthcoming.

Your help in fighting for accountability in such cases around the country is paramount. Please donate to the VR Strike Force effort so we can help hold the bad guys accountable and fight for clean elections! Our work is funded entirely by "we the people" so your support is crucial!

The VR Election Protection Strike Force website can be found at: http://VelvetRevolution.us/ElectionStrikeForce. Please pass that address around!

As well, the VR Strike Force is offering a $250,000 reward for tips concerning Election Fraud (details here, tip-line here: 888-VOTE-TIP)

The BRAD BLOG is a co-founder of VelvetRevolution.us. We hope to announce news concerning a special VR Strike Force Radio broadcast on Election Night, in conjunction with a number of other individuals and organizations. More details on that, hopefully, very soon...

More than 10,000 pre-programmed election-ready Diebold touch-screen voting machines, to be used for the first time across the entirety of San Diego County this November 7th, are now in the cars, garages, homes, and hands of poll workers and lord knows who else across one of Southern California's largest voting regions.

As reported in several first-hand accounts from San Diego poll workers just after recent training sessions (see end of article for one of those first-hand accounts), the voting machines were sent home on so-called overnight "sleepovers" with temporary poll workers beginning on October 16th, allowing for a full three weeks prior to the election for poll workers to find the 60 seconds they might need to hack a single machine. One tampered machine could affect the results on every single voting machine, in every race in the county.

San Diego Registrar Mikel Haas --- easily one of the country's worst and most irresponsible election administrators --- is unconcerned. He's also instructing poll workers not to give out paper ballots despite a recent order from the California Secretary of State.

The ability to easily insert malicious viral code onto Diebold's touch-screen systems has been proven, and video-taped by Princeton University and others. A single person could hack an entire election, flipping votes undetectably, and no trace would be left behind after the election.

But it's not just tampering that should be of concern to the voters of San Diego. It's the fact that these particular systems are amongst the most unreliable in the country. They simply do not work.

Diebold touch-screen voting systems are innacurate. Their screens freeze. Their printers jam and fail to create reliable "paper trails" and frequently they simply fail to start up at all. All of which occurred during Primary Elections in states across the country earlier this year, resulting in thousands of legally registered voters being disenfranchised, or turned away without being able to cast a ballot.

Incredibly, Haas has ordered these systems to be used for the first time in this November's general election, without even a test run during the June 6th Primary & Special Election, when a blended system of both Diebold optical-scan (paper-based) and touch-screens was used.

The few touch-screen systems in place during the June election (one per polling location) went almost completely unused. And yet Haas has ordered them for use across the entire county this November, despite notorious failures by these same unreliable systems in states like Georgia and Maryland and --- perhaps most notably --- Cuyahoga County, OH, where the systems in first-time use failed monumentally during the Buckeye State's Primary Election.

USA TODAY wrote Friday about the aftermath of Cuyahoga's Primary Elections and the extraordinary measures now being taken to turn the county's temporary poll workers into rocket scientists able to trouble-shoot the many expected problems with the systems. After some 300+ recommendations were made by an independent audit of that particular train wreck, elections officials are scrambling and bracing for the worst.

Haas, however, has taken no such measures and, indeed, his poll worker training has reportedly consisted of instructing folks to sing the praises of electronic machines and avoid handing out paper ballots to voters despite the recently unearthed memo from the California Secretary of State's office instructing all Registrar's that all California voters may vote on paper if they wish.

An account of one such training class by Ken Simpkins, the Carlsbad attorney who filed an election contest to challenge the results of the Francine Busby/Brian Bilbray Special Election sleepover fiasco last June, reports that workers are being told not to give paper ballots to voters even if machines are unavailable when voters show up to vote.

"If the machines were not ready at the opening of the polls and voters were there," Simpkins writes about instructions given at a training class he attended, "voters should be asked to wait until the machines are ready." His full description of that and other stunning moments from Haas's training is at the end of this item.

In an accidental fit of reporting, the far-right San Diego Union Tribune yesterday asked Haas about the ongoing "sleepovers" in an article on concerns about the county's upcoming beta test election. As usual, his obnoxious answer was just another "fuck you" to the voters of San Diego:

Never mind that we've previously reported first-hand accounts from poll workers who took voting machines home with them during the June 6th election, where they admitted that family members, and any number of neighbors, may well have had easy access to the machines in the "secure storage space" known as their garage or their car. But Haas knows "where they live." So rest easy, San Diegans!

Also, never mind that such sleepovers are in violation of state and federal law. But, hey, it's San Diego! Mikel Haas territory! He makes the rules and can do whatever he wants!

Francine Busby and Brian Bilbray will meet again in November's election for the 50th Congressional District in San Diego County, California. Because Bilbray was declared the winner of the Special Election on June 6, he will be running as an incumbent this time. However, there has not yet been a trustworthy count of the votes that reportedly brought him into Congress after the initial disputed election. The court case challenging his victory has yet to be resolved.

San Diego voters Barbara Gail Jacobsen and Lillian Ritt filed an election contest challenging Bilbray's reported victory based on a number of factors including the now-infamous Diebold electronic voting machine sleepovers. Judge Yuri Hofmann dismissed that suit after intervention by Republican Congressional leaders claiming that once Bilbray was sworn in, California courts had no jurisdiction to rule on California's election, even though swearing in took place before the election was certified in California. That dismissal is now being appealed by California attorney Ken Simpkins and election attorney Paul Lehto on behalf of Jacobsen and Ritt.

According to Simpkins, this "was a unique situation because they actually swore Bilbray in before we got certification of this election, before all the votes were counted. Congress is basically saying we're going to swear in whoever we want to swear in, it doesn't matter if the election has been completed or not. That's another treading on the state's constitutional right to determine the time, place and manner of elections," he said.

Guest Blogged by John Gideon

The UK's SC News reported today that Princeton's Professor Felten discovered that the key to gain entry to the memory card slot on the Diebold AccuVote TS is the same key that you may have to open your desk drawer, filing cabinet or even a hotel mini-bar [emphasis added]:

Avi Rubin, Johns-Hopkins University Professor and computer scientist, points out in his blog this morning:

So we now have a key that can be obtained from nearly anywhere and a "secret" password [1111] that everyone knows, and Diebold's David Bear says if proper access controls are maintained at the polling place there should be no problems. Perhaps Bear is talking about someone looking over the voter's shoulder to ensure they don't spend two minutes hacking into the machine?

All of this comes on the heels of the report from Princeton University, thanks to The BRAD BLOG, that was first reported here.

As well, it comes on the heels of the challenge to the Busby/Bilbray special U.S. House election in June in San Diego when these Diebold voting machines were sent home overnight --- in violation of both state and federal law --- for "sleepovers" with poll workers for days and weeks prior to the election. Here's a video that we missed at the time: Poll workers, on May 30th, taking home their pre-programmed, election-ready Diebold voting machines to store in their houses and cars 7 days prior to the June 6th election!

Any of them could easily have opened the "secure" systems with a mini-bar key, or, as the Princeton folks demonstrated on FOX "News" last week, they could have picked the lock themselves in 10 seconds. Of course, as we now know, it would have taken them less than a minute thereafter to insert a vote-flipping virus on the machines which could then affect every other machine used in the race.

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

The Orlando Sentinel has noticed the "Clint Curtis Is Crazy" campaign being run by Tom Feeney. It's hard not to notice, I'd say, when a three-ring binder full of stories about Clint Curtis lands in your lap.

Scott Maxwell, whose reporting we were fortunate to encounter just the other day, chips in with a line-item from his blog:

There's quite a bit more more detail from Robert Perez in a piece called Congressional race gets 'crazy' fast which begins like this:

Guest blogged by Emily Levy

The BRAD BLOG has learned that the plaintiffs in the Busby/Bilbray CA-50 election contest will be appealing the recent dismissal of the case by a San Diego judge. The appeal will be filed in California's 4th District court. Briefs are now being prepared and funds being collected for what may be a rather expensive appeal. Notice of appeal may be filed as soon as today.

Donations to the appeal can be made via Velvet Revolution.

The appeal is a rejection of Judge Yuri Hofmann’s August 29 ruling which echoed GOP claims that the U.S. House of Representatives, not the state courts or voters, have the power to determine the outcome of elections of members of Congress. In California’s 50th Congressional district in San Diego County, Republican candidate Brian Bilbray was announced to be the winner of the June 6 special election, flown to Washington and sworn in before all the votes were counted or the election certified. That, after reports were initially broken, and well circulated by The BRAD BLOG revealing that the Diebold voting machines used in the elelection were sent home with poll workers for overnight "sleepovers" in the days and weeks preceding the "bellwether" U.S. House special election.

Those sleepovers, in which election works had unsupervised access to the highly hackable, programmed, election-ready voting systems, were in contravention of both state and federal laws and led to a filing of an election contest in early July.

Says attorney Paul Lehto, who argued the plaintiffs' case in Hofmann’s court...

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Miriam Raftery:
Court rules against voter-supervised elections, attorney tells RawCourt rules against voter-supervised elections, attorney tells Raw

Run right over there and read it!

Let me preface this with a statement. I am not an attorney. I'm just a retired "knuckle dragger" (marine machinist). While I'm not an academic I do have the ability to read something and know what it says especially when it is written in clear English. I've also got a bit more common sense than most academics because I've had to exercise it throughout my life.

Any reader of The BRAD BLOG is familiar with the court decision from San Diego County. Essentially the judge ruled that he did not have jurisdiction in an election contest of the Busby/Bilbray CA50 U.S. House Special Election because Bilbray was already sworn in as a member of Congress and the US Constitution gives the Legislative Branch jurisdiction over elections of their members.

Today's Nevada Appeal has an article regarding a court challenge that stemmed from problems in the GOP primary election for Congress. That race between Dean Heller, present Secretary of State, and Sharron Angle, was closely contested and Ms. Angle filed the challenge based on what she thought to be possibly illegal practices in Washoe County.

But then they played the Busby/Bilbray 'Constitutional Jurisdiction' card. Just as in Busby/Bilbray...

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Word just in! Francine Busby will be on the radio with Peter B. Collins beginning at 8:15pm Eastern time. That's 7:15 Central, 6:15 Mountain and 5:15 Pacific, of course.

If you're in (or near) Monterey, Sacramento, Eureka or Phoenix, you can listen via broadcast radio.Otherwise your only option is a streaming webcast.

Either way, click here for more details.

UPDATE: A recording of Francine Busby's interview with Peter B. Collins is now available. Click here to download it (MP3).

We now have a transcript, courtesy of Emily Levy. That's below the fold.

We're also trying to get the audio for Busby's appearance on The Stacy Taylor Show on KLSD this morning, too. Will post it when/if we get it.

Blogged by Brad from the road...

"It's outrageous," says Francine Busby, "that this judge just said the state of California doesn't have jurisdiction over our own elections, over this election."

Busby's remarks, in a report today by William Finn Bennett in the North County Times, were a suprising departure from her previously guarded stance concerning the challenge of the June 6th U.S. House Special Election between herself and Brian Bilbray.

"What happened today should be of concern to all voters," Busby reportedly said.

Bennett's coverage of yesterday's debacle in the San Diego County courtroom where Judge Yuri Hoffman dismissed the election contest in support of the defendants' arguments that the U.S. House, not the voters or courts of California, have jurisdication to adjudicate election challenges after the House has already seated a member, is quite good. Indeed, it was a refreshing departure from previous sloppy, sometimes wholly inaccurate and occassionally entirely partisan North County Times reports and commentary on the case (see this embarrasing commentary from Jim Trageser for the most egregious.)

Bennett's report today, on the other hand, quite fairly describes the court's atrocious decision which we reported on in detail yesterday. Here's a sample from his coverage...

A judge in the San Diego challenge to the Francine Busby/Brian Bilbray U.S. House Special Election in California's 50th Congressional District has found in favor of the defendants' motion to dismiss the case based on jurisdictional grounds, The BRAD BLOG has learned.

We have covered the defendants' argument, that the swearing in of Bilbray --- just seven days after the election and a full 16 days prior to certification by San Diego County --- effectively transferred power to decide any election challenges from the California courts to the U.S. House of Representatives. Those arguments are discussed in detail in several previous BRAD BLOG articles (here, here, here and here.)

The defendants' attempts to force plaintiffs to cover the cost of attorneys fees (a so-called "SLAPP back" motion) was denied by Judge Yuri Hofmann based on the same jurisdictional arguments used to dismiss the case, according to the plaintiffs' attorney, Paul Lehto. Since the California court has no jurisdiction to adjudicate an election contest for a California U.S. House election, according to the court's opinion, it also has no jurisdiction to find against plaintiffs in the "SLAPP back" motion, explained Lehto.

VelvetRevolution.us is now collecting donations to help defray the cost of an appeal of this ruling.

Extended EXCLUSIVE comments on the judge's ruling today, from attorney Paul Lehto are below, followed by Hofmann's ruling in its entirety...

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Judge Yuri Hofmann of the California Superior Court is expected to rule this afternoon on the arguments presented Friday.

The plaintiffs in the CA50 Election Contest are asking for a manual count of ballots from the June 6th House special election, which was held to replace former Republican Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham, who resigned after being unable to contain the fallout from a major bribery scandal.

The defendants are arguing that California no longer has any jurisdiction over the election since the Republican U.S. House went ahead and swore in Brian Bilbray just 7 days after the election, with thousands of votes still uncounted, and certification still several weeks away...

Guest blogged by Emily Levy

You know by now that Brian Bilbray was sworn in as Congressional Representative before the June 6 election in San Diego County, CA was certified. You might even remember reading on The BRAD BLOG that the official swearing in was preceded by a public "mock" swearing in. You learned last week that this premature act is now being used by the defendants in the Busby/Bilbray election contest as an attempt to nullify the election in California's 50th district. But today (drum roll please) Michael Collins of Scoop Independent News reveals that it was Assistant California SoS Susan Lapsley (seen in photo) who provided the election results to the House.

Collins points us to the Congressional Digest...

Blogged by Brad from the road...

In addition to Emily Levy's coverage here on Friday night, and Winter Patriot's coverage last Thursday (which includes actual briefs and letters filed in the case), Miriam Raftery filed a superb summation at RAW STORY today of where the Busby/Bilbray CA50 Election Contest stands as of last Friday's hearing. She includes several details which the Guest Bloggers here hadn't previously touched on --- including details on the defendants' attempts at a frivolous "SLAPP suit" against the plaintiffs --- so we recommend giving her piece a quick read.

The Judge on the case in San Diego, Yuri Hofmann, is to decide tomorrow on the defense's argument that the case should be tossed out on jurisdictional grounds because, they argue, the Constitution gives the U.S. Congress --- not California voters or California courts --- the right to ultimately adjudicate such election challenges...even before, as in this case, the election was actually certified by the county or the state. No, seriously, that's what Brian Bilbray's attorneys are actually arguing. Out loud.