Sacramento Bee columnist Peter Schrag runs a decent article on Busby/Bilbray election mess in today's paper.

I recommend you read it in full, as it's mostly balanced (in the honest way, not the Fox "News" way) and gets most of the elements of the story close enough for government work. In other words, it's a legitimate article, even with a few quibbles I have. But the legit effort is certainly appreciated in contrast with the lazy piece of disinformation disguised as a news article which ran last week in San Diego Union-Tribune on this matter.

Schrag's focus throughout is largely on the uber-matter in question; The looming threat we face to the legitimacy of American elections across the board. The article starts this way...

Schrag then goes on to slightly misrepresent my comments to him last week when he called, when he writes:

The misrepresentation, accidental as I'll presume it to be, is that yes, I've said we currently have no specific evidence that "the machines were fiddled with," as he put it. But we simply cannot know whether they were "fiddled with" or not, given Regisrar Mikel Haas' complete disregard for the new state and federal security mitigation requirements which were invalidated when the voting machines in question were sent home with poll workers for days and weeks prior to the election. In doing so, they were all rendered decertified, and thus illegal for use in the election.

Where I will take exception to Schrag's article is when he avers that "Bilbray almost certainly won the election."

Of course, Schrag has absolutely zero evidence with which to back up that assertion, so I really don't know where he gets it, other than by general knee-jerk habit that the media have of simply trusting elections officials and whatever they report to be the "results" of any election. (See Ohio 2004, et al.)

His closing sentence then, repeats again his earlier unsupported assertion, but closes on the right note:

Please read the article in full yourself so you can make up your own mind. He makes several good points worth reading in any case.

Oh...and one last point. Schrag writes:

The last part is true enough --- doubts about election results this November will plague this country no matter who wins or loses (see this earlier article today on that) --- but I'm not sure where he gets the idea that the "doubters" won't get that hand "recount" (of course he means hand count, not recount, since the ballots have not actually been counted) if they want it.

Those "doubters," however, will likely have to pay for it themselves, unless a judge orders otherwise. And, we're learning that, apparently, the registrar himself gets to determine just about any number he wants to charge for that manual hand count.

You can contribute to help defray legal costs to fight this battle over at VelvetRevolution.us for the time being. More on all of that tomorrow....

RAW STORY's Miriam Raftery mercifully (for me) covers some of the proceedings of last Wednesday's Emergency Townhall in San Diego (Oceanside) concerning the questionable results from the Busby/Bilbray election run on effectively illegal/uncertified voting machines --- so I don't have to!

I've got a few good photos and such, however, which I hope to get posted here soon. Unless they scoop me on those as well...

It's getting very difficult to keep up.

VoterAction.org, a non-partisan group of voters who recently filed suit against CA Sec. of State Bruce McPherson and 18 county registrars, has submitted new papers in a court filing today in support of their call for an injunction against the use and purchase of touch-screen Diebold voting machines in the state.

The complaint, filed in March, was originally reported here.

The latest filing, described in a press release issued earlier today, includes new information based on the recent reports of the San Diego County Diebold voting machine "sleepovers" with poll workers, in the days and weeks prior to the recent U.S. House Special Election in California's 50th congressional district.

Among the new declarations in the filing today are statements from several poll workers, of whom The BRAD BLOG originally reported as having taken home programmed, election-ready, highly-hackable Diebold voting machines to be stored in their cars and garages in the days preceeding the "bellwether" U.S. House special election.

One of those poll workers, Patti Newton, is quoted in the press release. She also appeared on CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight last week when Dobbs also reported on the "sleepovers."

I (Brad Friedman) was also asked to submit a declaration for the filing based on my interview with San Diego County Registrar of Voters, Mikel Haas. Haas had admitted to me during that interview that storage of programmed voting machines in poll workers' cars could "not be considered secure." His admission would suggest that the new federal requirements, as issued March 22, 2006 by the National Association of State Elections Directors (NASED), mandating "secure storage" of programmed voting machines were violated.

"Failure to comply with this addendum negates the voting system's status as a NASED-qualified voting system," the official memorandum clearly states.

With regard to the demonstrated failure of state Registrars like Haas to comply with the new requirements, and in support of the injunction sought to ban the use of these machines in the state, today's statement says, "Recent experience has shown that stop-gap security conditions imposed by the Secretary of State do not solve the problems."

Several paragraphs from the VoterAction.org press release, speaking to the concerns highlighted by the voting machines "sleepovers," follow...

Responding to what they describe as "insufficient action", and the general failure of state elections officials to take recommended security mitigation procedures seriously in light of newly-discovered vulnerabilities in Diebold touch-screen voting systems, election watchdog organization BlackBoxVoting.org (BBV) has issued a scathing report today.

The group has now released previously redacted information from their landmark Hursti II report [PDF, now unredacted] which documented the newly-discovered security issues found during a March 2006 examination of Diebold touch-screen systems in Emery County, UT. Carried out by Finnish computer scientist Harri Hursti and a security expert from Security Innovation, the information revealed by that security analysis has been described previously by BBV founder Bev Harris as "a major national security risk."

Since we first broke that story here at The BRAD BLOG, dozens of computer scientists and security experts have concurred with the assessment. The issue was subsequently reported by mainstream media outlets such as New York Times, NEWSWEEK, NPR and others.

The updated report, issued today, releases information that had previously been kept under wraps due to the severity of the security issues potentially exposed. Describing insufficient reponse and lack of appropriate measures taken by states who had received the full unredacted information, BBV has decided to place the entirety of the information into "the public record."

A host of previously unreported technical details, methods for possible attack of the Diebold touch-screen system, and a complete failure by federal authorities to oversee crucial aspects of the election system are explained in detail.

As well, today's report slams elections officials for allowing Diebold voting machine "sleepovers" in San Diego and elsewhere, of the type which The BRAD BLOG has been reporting for the last three weeks in relation to the June 6th special election in San Diego's 50th congressional district, held to replace the now-jailed Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham.

The violations to new state and federal laws and provisions written since some of the vulnerabilities have been revealed --- and about which we have been reporting in detail --- occurred when poll workers were allowed unfettered access to election-ready Diebold voting systems for days and weeks prior to the election. The unsecured storage of voting machines in poll workers' cars and garages, so-called overnight "sleepovers", has led The BRAD BLOG and several other election watchdog organizations, candidates and thousands of individuals to declare "NO CONFIDENCE" in the reported results of that "bellwether" federal election.

The CA-50 election between Francine Busby and Brian Bilbray was the first federal election to be held after the new discoveries, and after state and federal officials instituted new, apparently-ignored security provisions in hopes of mitigating them. A manual hand count of all paper ballots and "paper trails" has been demanded by many of the organizations decrying the administration of that election.

"In a sane world, these machines would be recalled," wrote BBV...

In an email discussion yesterday among a group of Election Integrity advocates, in reply to the horrendous San Diego Union-Tribune coverage of the Busby/Bilbray issue, Yolo County, CA Registrar of Voters Freddie Oakley posted a crystal clear statement on the concerns of sending voting machines home with poll workers prior to elections.

"As an election official, I understand the practical issues involved here perfectly. I am strongly of the opinion that it is exactly this kind of practical issue that should give election officials serious reservations about deploying electronic voting machines," Oakley wrote.

"If, as a practical matter, [the electronic voting machines deployed prior to an election] can't be secured, then perhaps they ought not be used at all. Period. Until the impediment can be removed," her email statement read.

Her comment was in direct reply to a discussion about how voting machines, in the post-Hursti Hack age, might be deployed now that sending them home unsecured for "overnights" with poll workers is no longer a secure option. That hack, in Leon County, Florida in December 2005 of a Diebold optical scan voting system, has set off a chain reaction revealing massive vulnerabilities in these systems, forcing both federal and state authorities to issue extraordinary security requirements for the machines in just the last few months. Those requirements were subsequently all but ignored in the June 6th Busby/Bilbray U.S. House special election --- the first federal election in the nation to be administered since the additional mitigation requirements were put in place.

Oakley's responsible comments are in direct contradiction to the irresponsible statements by San Diego County Registrar Mikel Haas, given to the Union-Tribune, in which Haas dismisses concerns of election integrity advocates. Haas claims that proper procedures were followed (they were not) and that the practice of sending home voting machines with poll workers "has been followed without incident for about 40 years." Haas ignores, along with his other prevarications, that these eminently hackable electronic voting machines were not in use during all but the last few of those 40 years. The U-T didn't bother to quote, or apparently even attempt to contact, anyone who could reply directly to Haas' deceptive comments.

Registrar Oakley's entire statement --- a grand slam as far as I'm concerned --- should be read in full. It follows below...

It's still remarkable how many in the MSM regard bloggers as "unreliable"...even as they get story after story wrong and report unsubstantiated, unverifiable nonsense as fact.

I wrote early on in the Busby/Bilbray election results saga about AP (and all the rest) reporting that Brian Bilbray had won the election. They did so without a shred of evidence to prove that assertion.

Yesterday, the San Diego Union-Tribune's John Marelius jumped in to report on the Busby/Bilbray fiasco (where the world's most hackable voting machines were sent home overnight with poll workers days and weeks before the election, to be stored in their cars and garages or who-knows-where in violation of both state and federal laws, effectively decertifying all of the voting machines used in that U.S. House special election.).

Here's how the U-T article began:

Okay...For a start...Who is calling for a recount, as Marelius writes? You can't recount something that you haven't counted in the first place and I know of no organization declaring "No Confidence" who has called for a "recount." Yet, the story uses the word "recount" again and again.

While it may be a subtle distinction, it's a very key one that I assure you both Karl Rove and Frank Luntz would understand quite clearly.

If the concept is too difficult to understand, however, the California Election Protection Network's press release announcing their eloquent "No Confidence" declaration --- referred to in the article --- not only never uses the word "recount", it also spells out clearly that they are not asking for a "recount". "Calling it a 'Free-Count' rather than a recount," the press release states, "the CEPN citizen watchdogs insist that this manual counting of the ballots be conducted without charge to the voting public."

If that was the only problem with the U-T article, we might have let it slide. But it's not. Not by a longshot. Marelius then goes on to "report" that a townhall meeting was held on Wednesday in San Diego. It was, of course. But apparently Marelius neither bothered to attend it, nor talk to anybody who actually did attend it.

He did, however, bother to report the point of view of SD County Registrar Mikel Haas (who also didn't attend). In fact, Marelius devoted a full five grafs to Haas' point of view. By my count, there are at least 5 different complete inaccuracies, misrepresentations and out-and-out misleading pieces of information passed on in those grafs...

Blogged from San Diego...

...But about to rush back to Los Angeles to get to the CNN building for an interview with the Lou Dobbs folks. If I can get there in time!

I should be on tonight's Lou Dobbs Tonight tonight at 6pm ET (3pm PT) and perhaps tomorrow night's show as well. Or so I'm told.

Had hoped to catch up a bit here about the Busby/Bilbray events last night and Tuesday, but it looks like that's going to have to wait again in order for me to race back up north to get to the interview on time...yeesh...

Will also be on Mike Malloy's national Air America program tonight as Guest Hosted by Laura Flanders. We were last on air with Laura when she came down to Crawford, TX to simulcast with us on The BRAD SHOW from Camp Casey last summer.

Apologies to those of you waiting for email responses and other interesting blog items here. Looks like I'll have to be off the grid again for a bunch of hours in a row...So Open Thread here as ya like!

UPDATE: Tonight's Dobbs clip, with a brief, yet starkly vital, cameo from yours truly, now posted here courtesy of the mighty David Edwards.

Must hit the road shortly to take the Democracy Train down to San Diego for tonight's Emergency Townhall on the Busby/Bilbray election results fiasco. If you're anywhere near San Diego or Oceanside please come out tonight! We had a great time last night in Los Angeles!

More on all of these as soon as I can catch my breath. The fine lower-cased blogger, skippy the bush kangaroo, was amongst those in attendance last night (as was Joseph Cannon of Cannonfire) and so I'll defer for the moment to skippy's coverage (since I don't have time for any of my own right). Skippy got a coupla small points slighly wrong, but I suspect he'll update since I let him know. As BRAD BLOG readers realize, unlike with AP and NY Times accuracy counts for bloggers.

Lou Dobbs report last night on the Brennan Center's year-in-the-making report on 120 threats to E-Voting Security was fan-damn-tastic. When I can catch my breath, I hope to get it, along with the video, posted in full. And more thoughts on that Brennan Center report. But for now, by way of teaser, Dobbs started it this way: "More evidence tonight that an increasing number of elections in this country can be outright stolen. And no one would ever know. It's incredible."

And, as of this hour, here are the results from his "Quick Poll" on this topic last night (you can still vote yourselves if you want)

Any questions? We're told he'll still be on the same beat tonight (6pm ET, 3pm PT --- you can send thank you notes/comments here to Dobbs for all of his very responsible coverage over the past three weeks and counting!)

Last, but most certainly not least, Washington Post covered the Brennan Center report themselves this morning. They highlighted the very message we've been trying to convey to Francine Busby, the voters in San Diego and across the nation over the last three weeks. The WaPo article begins this way...

See you tonight in San Diego!

Earlier this evening, I heard Mark Crispin Miller as the guest on Air America's Majority Report discussing the Busby/Bilbray election fiasco with whoever was guest hosting tonight (sorry I missed the name.) As well, I'm told that Lara Flanders covered the issue on Air America as well tonight while guest hosting for Mike Malloy (I believe both Mimi Kennedy and Jeeni Criscenzo were her guests.)

But the largest media outlet to cover the story that we originally broke back on June 7th --- and who still failed to invite me as a guest...am I hard to reach? --- was Lou Dobbs on CNN.

Tonight, Dobbs covered the threat to democracy posed by the Voting Machine Sleepovers that we've been reporting on here since the Busby/Bilbray election was run on highly-hackable Diebold voting machines which were sent home overnight with poll workers for days and weeks prior to the election in contravention of both state and federal rules and laws.

One of our sources, San Diego Poll Worker Patti Newton, who we had helped CNN's producers get in touch with, is interviewed in tonight's report. Newton shows, on camera, the location of the "secure storage" she provided (her garage, near the paints) for the voting machines given to her for use in the "bellweather" Busby/Bilbray U.S. House Special Election a full week prior to the Election Day on June 6th. We originally posted some of Patti's story in our report back on June 8th.

Tonight Dobbs and reporter Kitty Pilgrim discussed "the threat to American democracy from within," the lack of security for e-voting machines and described them as "incredibly vulnerable to fraud, tampering, hacking and theft."

Here's a QuickTime video of Dobbs' report, courtesy of BRAD BLOG reader, Tab B. UPDATE: Here are faster streaming versions of the video courtesy of David Edwards...

Video in Streaming Flash format...
Video in Windows Media format...

The full text transcript from Dobbs' report tonight follows below. It's short! Please read it!...

My reporting here, and the concerns expressed about the Busby/Bilbray election results as announced, have little or nothing to do with Francine Busby or Brian Bilbray or even, in particular, the June 6th U.S. House special run-off election in California's 50th congressional district.

It has only a tiny bit more to do with San Diego. And only slightly more than that to do with California.

It has everything, however, to do with democracy. Across the entire country. As opposed to any one race in any one area.

If I've not been clear on that until now, please allow me to set the record straight.

The concerns I've reported --- and will continue to report --- over the blatant disregard for the rule of law and clear illegalities endorsed and encouraged by the SD County Registrar of Voters, Mikel Haas, and apparently approved at this point by California's Secretary of State Bruce McPherson, have everything to do with the future viability of democracy in this country in general, and a perhaps naive hope that there's a chance in hell that taking action now will help to salvage a shred of legitimacy for this November's election.

That can only happen if action is taken now, however, directly in regard to the Busby/Bilbray election results as announced.

As far as I can see it, what happens in regard to Busby/Bilbray will be America's last, best, and only hope of affecting any real election reform prior to the November 7th general election. That's why, for me, this has become "Line in the Sand" time.

Never, in the two-and-a-half year history of The BRAD BLOG have I set aside almost everything else in order to cover and raise attention to a single story --- to the exclusion of almost every other story --- for such a long period of time as I have done since the original coverage of this matter the day after the June 6th election.

Since then, I've stated many times in both written and spoken words that I don't actually give a damn who won the Busby/Bilbray race and that I didn't even much bother to follow any of it prior to Election Day. I've got no dog in the hunt and only care that the person who actually received the most votes is the one that was declared the winner. At this point, there is absolutely no way of knowing who actually won.

The fact of the matter is that just two or three months after both the federal certification oversight body (NASED) and California's own Secretary of State issued emergency "security mitigation requirements" in light of newly discovered and massive vulnerabilities in Diebold's voting systems, those security requirements were entirely tossed out the window when all of the machines were sent home with poll workers for overnights in the days and weeks prior to the election. In doing so, the machines themselves were effectively rendered illegal and uncertified for use in any California election, and at the federal level as well.

Unless something is done, the same thing is about to happen in elections across this entire country.

(NOTE: Lou Dobbs will be covering this issue on CNN tonight I am told. Including interviews with some of the poll worker sources we gave them after originally reported on them here at BRAD BLOG.)

I'd have hoped that more media, candidates, individuals and even Election Reform organizations would have come to understand the national significance of what all the sturm and drang here has actually been about. If they haven't, that's likely my failing. So I'll try again to make both myself and the stakes here crystal clear...

What happens here and now --- in regard to this race and its results as announced --- will send a signal to elections administrators across the country. The signal will be one of two...

By John Gideon, Executive Director VotersUnite.Org

There is, for good reason, much concern and a lack of confidence in the process for federal qualification/certification of voting systems. Independent Test Authorities (ITA), who test the systems against federal standards, are not really 'independent' because they are paid to do testing by the vendors who also provide the test parameters. They look where they are told to look and go no further than that.

The next step in the process is review of the ITA test and the voting system by a panel of 'experts' called the Voting Systems Board Technical Committee. This committee is under the auspices of the National Association of State Elections Directors (NASED). One might think that this part of the process would be free and clear of any reason for concern. One would be wrong...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon while Brad takes care of other important business related to the Busby/Bilbray fiasco

Many Riverside County California voters went to the polls on primary election day, June 6, with the plan that they would use their right to request paper ballots instead of voting on the Sequoia Edge Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, touch-screen) voting machines.

Those voters will probably be surprised to learn that the county Registrar of Voters thumbed her nose at them. The paper/absentee ballots they were given --- Xerox copies of the ballot on 8 1/2×11 paper --- were then punched into the DRE's by election workers later. On the same touch-screen systems the voters had wanted to avoid by requesting a paper ballot in the first place. This was all done without their knowledge, without their permission, and without their ability to verify that their ballots were recorded as they had voted them.

Moreover, the voters were forced to attach their names and addresses to the ballots! So much for private voting in Riverside!...

UPDATE: Riverside County Registrar of Voters Barbara Dunmore responded to the story by Art Cassel with a 'Letter To The Editor'. See the text of the letter at the end of this article.

Congratulations to California Sec. of State Bruce McPherson!

Not only did you succeed in running the first federal election --- with illegal/decertified voting machines --- since massive vulnerabilities have been discovered in the Diebold systems you okayed for use (against state laws), but you've also now received an 18% pay raise in the bargain!

According to yesterday's Sacramento Bee, your pay will increase by $23,265 to a full $154,875 just after you run your next illegal election in November!

Nice work if you can get it! Not that he's not worth it, of course. Here's a video to give you an idea what $154,875 buys for California these days. (The following video and details explaining it were originally posted at BRAD BLOG here back in February, when McPherson was acting as if he didn't know for sure if he'd re-certify Diebold in the state. Nice acting, Bruce! It was dang-near believable!)

-- Video in Streaming Flash format...
-- Video in Windows Media format...

(Hat tip Bruce Sims, who pays closer attention to California's elections --- by far --- than Bruce McPherson has ever done. And Sims does it on his own damn dime. For free! And also, unlike McPherson, doesn't have Diebold employees actually doing his work for him!)

Downloadable/printable versions of the flier, and more details, are available here...

UPDATE: Printable/emailable flier for the "Emergency Townhall" events now available here...

This will be quick-ish. By necessity.

Several additional organizations and individuals have announced "NO CONFIDENCE" declarations in the announced Busby/Bilbray election results due to state and federal laws and provisions violated when the San Diego County registrar allowed the highly-hackable Diebold voting machines to be sent home with poll workers in the days prior to the June 6th. U.S. House special election.

"Emergency Townhall" events...to rally around the issue, raise awareness, and discuss actions to deal with the problem moving forward and call for accountability are now scheduled for Tuesday the 27th in Los Angeles and Wednesday the 28th in San Diego...

LOS ANGELES: Tue, June 27, 2006 @ 7:30pm
Venice United Methodist Church
1020 Victoria (Lincoln & Victoria, 1 block N. of Venice Blvd.)

SAN DIEGO: Wed, June 28, 2006 @ 7:00pm (rally@ 6pm)
Oceanside Civic Center
330 N. Coast Hwy. Oceanside, CA

Speakers at both events to include myself, Rob Cohen (co-director of the upcoming VoterGate documentary), Mimi Kennedy and Marcy Winograd (CA Election Protection Network and PDA), Jeeni Criscenzo (U.S. House nominee in San Diego's 49th district) and...possibly others to be announced soon.

Both events are OPEN TO ALL and I hope you'll turn out if you're anywhere near! More details, a swell poster, fliers and other info soon (hopefully by this evening). Please spread the word!

New Folks Declaring "NO CONFIDENCE" in the Busby/Bilbray Election Results as Announced...

- - The Commonweal Institute. A "multi-issue research and educational institute/think tank" who, amongst other things, has been "working to raise awareness of the public and our political representatives of the problems posed by electronic touch-screen voting systems and how these might be corrected."

- - Progressive Democrats of Sonoma County. They also join both the national PDA and California Election Protectoin network in endorsing the declaration of "No Confidence" in the reported Busby/Bilbray Election results.

- - Clint Curtis. Vote-rigging whistleblower, election integrity advocate and now candidate in Florida's 24th congressional district. Curtis, whose extraordinary story was first broken here is running against Rep. Tom Feeney, the man who he claims had asked him to create vote-rigging software when they both worked for the same computer firm. Curtis has released an eloquent declaration of "No Confidence". Few know better than Curtis how easy it is to game these systems via electronic voting systems. As with the other candidates who've come out to declare "No Confidence" (see the list below), we recommend that you support him...as opposed to candidates and organizations who do not do so.

(ADDITIONAL NEWS FLASH: The Miami-Dade chapter of Democracy for America has just endorsed Clint!)

- - Among those already having declared "No Confidence":

- - It's also well worth noting again that San Diego's Republican radio host (and former mayor), Roger Hedgecock has also come firmly on board --- as I discovered while a guest on his program yesterday --- in calling for accountability in Busby/Bilbray as well. And he is an ardent Bibray supporter! Hedgecock will be guest hosting the Rush Limbaugh show tomorrow.