Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Mother Jones has the skinny on eleven of the worst places to try and vote in America, courtesy of Sasha Abramsky:

Just Try Voting Here: 11 of America's worst places to cast a ballot (or try)

I won't spoil the top ten for you. But here's what Sasha says about number eleven:

Please read the whole article.

CONFESSION: This piece was originally blogged with an incorrect heading which claimed "Ohio didn't even make the top ten" ... in fact Ohio claimed two of the top four spots. So that was a big FUMBLE! by your nearly frozen host, spotted by Lorraine Bieber. My apologies.

Guest Blogged by John Gideon

Tonight we had two segments on voting issues. The first on the lawsuit in Ohio against Ken Blackwell, will help to ensure the 2004 voting records are saved for longer than may be the whim of Blackwell. The suit also asks that Blackwell be removed from the ability to oversee his own election for governor. Also HR-550 is discussed by Congressman Rush Holt and a representative of Election Science Institute.
Note: While they reported that the bill has 159 co-sponsors the number is actually 211 or 209 when you discount one co-sponsor who is now a Senator and the District of Columbia delegate who has no real vote.

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

It was a Queen of Hearts sort of a day in California on August 9, 2006. The Secretary of State's advisory panel was hearing public comments regarding the pending certification of the Vote-PAD, a non-electronic assistive device designed to help voters with disabilities mark and verify a paper ballot independently.

Voting integrity advocates held signs supporting the certification of Vote-PAD. They told of countless failures of computerized voting systems. They spoke about recent discoveries of easily hackable "back doors" into the vote totals on those systems, which have been certified. By contrast, "Vote-PAD is no more hackable than a #2 pencil," said one.

Notwithstanding this and the letters praising the Vote-PAD from dozens of people with visual and motor disabilities, the Secretary of State's staff was recommending against certifying the Vote-PAD for use in California.

Guest Blogged by Winter Patriot

Unconfirmed reports suggest that one Brad Friedman, the partially well-known investigative blogger, staunch Election Integrity advocate and all-around good-guy, (also allegedly "proprietor" of this very blog), may have met with "representatives of several prominent organizations" at a series of events "sponsored" by the DNC in Chicago last weekend.

We have additional "photographic evidence" of these alleged meetings: four photos which, according to usually reliable sources, were made by Friedman's putative girlfriend, Desi Doyen.

The "authenticity" of these photos has not yet been verified, and it may never be. The "chain of custody" appears to have been broken, several "security mitigation procedures" appear to have been ignored, and the "security seals" on three of the four photos appear to show signs of possible tampering. But we will post them below, since they may be of interest to the usual gaggle of conspiracy theorists who have nothing else to work on at this time.

You can click on the small photos below to see larger images.

Guest Blogged By John Gideon

Election Science Institute (ESI) of San Francisco, California was paid $341,000 by Cuyahoga Co., OH to investigate why the county had so many problems with their voting system in the May 2006 election. Were the problems really all human or were the machines at fault? ESI finally issued a report last week that had plenty of blame to go around between poll worker training problems to voting machines that could not add votes, counting devices that didn't match up on the same machine and, in several cases, machines that registered no votes at all.

Of course Diebold Elections Systems Inc. immediately denied that there were any voting machine problems at all as they blamed all problems on voters, poll workers, and election administrators. As reported earlier on The BRAD BLOG, Diebold also received nearly instantaneous assistance from "outside" sources who obfuscated in their reporting of the problems, singling out the issues concerning the voter verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) and ignoring everything else that was in the report.

Now county elections officials seem to have decided that they don't like the results from the investigation they paid for, as done by ESI, so they are throwing ESI under the bus while they run to defend Diebold. Suprised? Apparently they don't want to have to explain why they spent millions of dollars for a voting system that is flawed. Or perhaps Diebold applied pressure to their partners in crime at the Cuyahoga Board of Elections.

In either case, Columbus Dispatch reported yesterday morning that Diebold and the County have worked everything out, and it's all just fine after all...

Blogged by Brad from the still-long and still-winding (and still very hot) road...

"They're dumb as shit."
-- Donna Brazile to Rolling Stone for an article this week, discussing her frustration with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and making the party understand the need to be vigilant during Election 2006.

"Fuck you."
-- Donna Brazile to an Election Integrity Advocate at the annual DNC gathering last weekend in Chicago after being asked where the party was in Ohio after Election 2004.

Such were the contradictions and dysfunctions on parade last weekend in Chicago where I was invited to address a panel on Electoral Integrity at the DNC's annual gathering of state party chairs. What a mess.

The Rolling Stone piece referenced above, by the good Tim Dickinson, is not currently online. But it's from the Aug. 24 issue of RS on newsstands now. It asks "Will Democrats Fight Back?" The answer, as Dickinson reports, is a decisive maybe, probably not, things don't look so good, we hope so but kinda doubt it.

While it'd be nice to give you an encouraging report from the DNC meeting of how the Dems have finally figured out what the hell is going on here --- how they are going to get out in front of this electile dysfunction thing, take the offensive, become proactive and lead the way in becoming the party which stands for vigilance, Electoral Integrity and the assurance that every vote will be counted and counted accurately --- I can't give such a report.

Yes, there are some good things going on there. One of the most notable being Greg Moore who is now the Director of the DNC's Voting Rights Institute. He gets it. Moore was responsible for all of the Election Protection-related events over the weekend. It seems he's been fighting heroically from inside the power structure to wake the Dems up as to what is going on. He's the one responsible for the historic DNC statement a few weeks ago calling for a full handcount in the illegally administered Busby/Bilbray U.S. House Special Election in California's 50th congressional district. But it's clearly been a difficult fight. And last weekend's events made that crystal clear...

Blogged by Brad from the road...

As The BRAD BLOG reported two days ago, a new Zogby poll has revealed that a stunning 92% of Americans want their vote counted transparently and not by secret vote counting machines. That overwhelming majority crosses all political, social, religious and economic demographics.

Today, Zogby has released their official statement and numbers from the poll. Their statement quotes attorney Paul Lehto, who is busy fighting the election contest down in San Diego's Busby/Bilbray CA50 challenge in which voting machines, using secret software to count the results of that election, were compromised when they were sent home with poll workers on overnight "sleepovers" for days and weeks prior to the election, as we have been reporting since that special U.S. House election on June 6th.

Here's a quick snippet from Zogby's official release...

The survey also says that some 60% of respondents "have heard news reports of flaws in new electronic voting equipment." So I guess someone is doing the job of getting this information out to the American people.

Apparently the news hasn't yet reached the DNC, however. More on that, and my personal experiences addressing folks at the DNC's annual gathering last weekend, in a report to come shortly today...

UPDATE from WP: Zogby has released more data in a PDF format. Just click here. There's a press release for Zogby too, and it's here.

Guest Blogged by Winter Patriot

Thus writes Michael Collins in his most recent article, a masterful presentation of the study and its results.

The graphic you see at the top right corner of this post shows how overwhelmingly Americans insist on seeing how their votes are counted; click on it to see a full-sized version. Respondents were asked to choose one of the following:

A: Citizens have the right to view and obtain information about how election officials count votes.

B: Citizens do not have the right to view and obtain information about how elections officials count votes.

The blue area represents respondents who chose option "A", the red represents those who chose "B", and the grey area represents those who were not sure. As you can easily see, the blue position was extremely popular for the survey overall. Below we have extensive charts and numerous graphs which show beyond any reasonable doubt that the blue position was extremely popular for every segment of the survey group!

But first things first; here's Michael Collins:

Guest Blogged by John Gideon

Tonight, Dobbs reporter and stand-in Kitty Pilgrim interviews Professor Avi Rubin about his new book and about the dangers of Direct Recording Electronic voting machines.

Video in Streaming Flash format...

The video is also available on Rubin's new blog.

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

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

The next Ned Lamont is just across the Connecticut border in Massachusetts, where voting rights leader John Bonifaz is similarly taking on the Democratic Party establishment in his grassroots campaign for Secretary of State. Bonifaz, a Democrat who sued George Bush on the eve of the Iraq war on behalf of soldiers, families of soldiers and members of Congress trying to prevent the illegal invasion, squares off against the incumbent, Bill Galvin, on September 19.

But the Lamont connection runs even deeper. Bill Hillsman, the media guru who produced the winning ads for Lamont and Paul Wellstone, is eager to jump into the race on the Bonifaz campaign, which could be the final ingredient that puts John over the top. What John needs now is the financial support to make the Hillsman addition a reality --- and if he can raise $25,000 by August 23, it will happen.

Meeting this goal would lead to Hillsman joining the campaign through the primary and the production of ads that would be used on the air, on the web and as tools for further fundraising success. Please go to John’s web site today to help make this winning combination possible. Your contribution is vital. We must support Democrats who stand up against entrenched interests and stand up for our rights as voters.

Guest Blogged by John Gideon

Tonight Lou and Kitty Pilgrim report on the litigation that is taking place around the country in order to stop the use of paperless voting machines.

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

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

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

A very revealing article was published this week in the Arcata Eye, a weekly newspaper, in Arcata, Humboldt County, California.

The article, headlined "County’s new voting machines may be flawed", was published on August 8, one day prior to the hearing in Sacramento about the Vote-PAD that was reported yesterday by The BRAD BLOG.

Reports from the hearing indicate that even hearing officials were questioning Bruce McDannold, the Secretary of State's Interim Director of the Office of Voting Systems Technology Assessment, about how he came to some negative conclusions about Vote-PAD; questions he could not answer; questions that, according to eye-witnesses, made him look rather foolish.

Yet, according to the Arcata Eye article, McDannold seems to have been carrying on a vendetta against Vote-PAD for a while. It seems that late last month McDannold spoke about Vote-PAD at the annual conference of state’s clerks and elections officials in San Diego:

It needs to be mentioned that Carolyn Crnich spoke in favor of Vote-PAD and pointed out problems with the testing procedures to the hearing panel in Sacramento. This testimony, on top of the testimony of Vote-PAD President Ellen Theisen, should be enough to prove that McDannold has lost grip on reality.

It is also important to note that an understanding of confidentiality was entered into by all who participated in the testing and evaluation of the Vote-PAD, including Bruce McDannold. When McDannold spoke to the counties in San Diego, he violated the same agreement that he demanded that Vote-PAD maintain.

Why is it that McDannold is overseeing a process that welcomes unreliable, error-prone, insecure electronic voting machines with open arms while it unfairly tests a voting device that is truly accessible to the community it was designed for? What does McDannold gain by his misinforming county election officials based on data gained from unscientific and shoddy testing? I, for one, hope that Vote-PAD seeks redress for the grievances heaped upon the company by McDannold. It's beyond time that the disinformation from the Secretary of State stop.

UPDATE: It has been pointed out in a comment to "'Daily Voting News' For August 10, 2006" that McDannold did not adress the counties as a whole. Any mention of Vote-PAD was done in casual conversation. Of course this does not absolve him of keeping a confidentiality agreement and certainly not of bad-mouthing any voting system that has not yet had any hearing within the state.

Disclosure Statement:
In the interest of full disclosure: Ellen Theisen was the founder of VotersUnite and its Executive Director before I took over the helm from her. She resigned from her position upon founding Vote-PAD, Inc. I have no stake in Vote-PAD in any way except as Ellen's friend.

Blogged by John Gideon

As reported previously the state of California unfairly treated voters with disabilities in the testing of the Vote-PAD, a voting assistive device designed specifically for use by voters with disabilities and successfully tested and used by those voters across the country. The fact that the staff of the Secretary of State of California used shoddy test procedures and then recommended denial of certification, based on those test procedures, of the Vote-PAD is certainly questionable. Why haven't other voting systems, that purport to be accessible, been tested by the disabilities community at all?

As reported earlier, today is the public hearing for the Vote-PAD. Ellen Theisen, President and Founder of Vote-PAD has testified about the problems with the test procedure. In her testimony she referred to accompanying testimony from Valerie Rice, PhD., CPE, OTR/L, whose PhD is in "Human Factors Engineering (Industrial Engineering and Operations Research) with a specialization in Human Factors Engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, and masters degrees in both Occupational Therapy (University of Puget Sound) and Health Care Administration (Baylor University). She is a Board Certified Professional Ergonomist and a liscensed and registered Occupational Therapist". In other words, Dr. Rice is the person who should have written the states test procedure which would have given everyone a fair and even field for making a judgment on Vote-PAD.

In a just issued Press Release, VoterAction has announced that California voters are challenging the use of the Diebold TSx touch screen voting system and that they have filed a motion for preliminary injunction in state court.

This announcement follows the July 18 announcement that an attempt by the state to move the original suit from the state courts to federal court had failed.

The press release follows:

Guest Blogged By John Gideon

Vote-PAD is a low-tech, voting assistive device that was developed with input from the disabilities community. Because it is inexpensive to purchase and maintain, Vote-PAD is a threat to electronic voting systems. Vote-PAD also makes voting a possibility for a wider range of voters with disabilities than do almost all of the Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) or touch-screen voting systems.

Even though some northern California counties had already purchased Vote-PAD for use in their elections as their HAVA compliant voting system for voters with disabilities; the Secretary of State decided that they would have to certify Vote-PAD for use with the optical-scan systems that are in use in each of the user counties.

The state then wrote a test plan that was totally unfair to the voters with disabilities who were expected to test the Vote-PAD. The state did not use a Human Factors Usability Testing Expert, an expert in writing test procedures for disabilities access. Instead they wrote a procedure that would have been better suited to testing a computerized voting system and they appear to have done this without really understanding how voters with disabilities actually use the device.

It is important to note that the state of California has certified for use many voting systems produced by Sequoia, Elections Systems and Software, Diebold, and Hart Intercivic. These devices have been certified by the state as being HAVA compliant and usable by voters with disabilities. Yet, not one of the electronic voting systems has been tested specifically by the disabilities community or even advocates for that community. Instead, a cursory inspection was made by unqualified staff and/or unqualified consultants and they were all accepted for use.