On today's BradCast, my exclusive interview with Dr. Jill Stein, the 2016 Green Party Presidential candidate, on her announcement earlier today that her campaign plans to file for hand-counted paper ballot "recounts" and forensic audits of the Presidential election results in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. [Audio link to show and full interview posted below.]

"We have to move really fast in order to basically verify the vote and be confident our votes were actually counted," she tells me, citing the many concerns brought to her by computer scientists and voting systems and election integrity experts, all questioning whether paper ballots were counted accurately by error-prone and easily-hacked computer tabulators in WI and MI, and whether touch-screen systems were manipulated in some fashion in PA.

Across those three states alone, as we have been reporting, just 50,000 votes flipped from Trump to Clinton --- out of more than 13 million ballots cast in those states, where a number of anomalous results have been found --- could change who becomes the next President of the United States.

There is plenty of reason to question whether the results as reported are accurate. And not only because of the surprising results. As I note again on today's show, University of Michigan computer science and voting systems expert J. Alex Halderman, one of those urging the candidates to call for a hand-count, has cracked many electronic voting systems in recent years. He offered still more reasons to examine both the reported results and the systems used in WI, MI and PA earlier today.

Stein, explaining that some $2 million must be raised to meet the deadline to file in WI by Friday (and another $4 million or so for the other two states next week), tells me that it's an "outrage we have to go to extraordinary lengths to verify the vote," adding she is doing so, due to her "interests as a citizen, as a person in America, that the vote be valid." (The campaign has set up a fund raising page for the effort right here.)

"Why would anyone in their right mind not want to have a secured and verified vote?," she asks. "It’s long been demonstrated that our system of voting, relying on these machines, has virtually no security. They’re hack-friendly [and] tamper-friendly."

"People have felt such anguish during this election," Stein notes. "This is a joint effort, and there are many election advocates who are involved. A lot of the grassroots election integrity experts. If ever there was a time to stand up and demand an accountable and secure vote, this is the time to do it. If we don't do it now, when exactly, what would be the cause to do it?" She also details the attempt by the scientists and advocates to encourage the Clinton campaign to take up the effort as well. (I can confirm that effort happened and that the campaign was still considering doing so as of earlier today.) She says she welcomes other campaigns, such as the Libertarian Party and independent candidates with standing, to join the effort as well.

"It feels really good to be standing up right now," she tells me. "It’s time for us to take control of our democracy to start with. To give ourselves a gift on this Thanksgiving." We discuss all of that and the many concerns about the reported results, take a few calls afterward, and actually find a bit more to be thankful for on today's harrowing program --- including, believe it or not, today's Green News Report with Desi Doyen!...

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On today's BradCast, deadly natural disasters across the world and the potential for a man-made one here in the U.S., depending on the outcome of the November election.

First up today, the latest breaking news on the disastrous, deadly earthquake in Italy where, as of air-time, at least 159 have been killed; the horrific and even deadlier flooding in India, where more than 300 have died; and President Obama's visit to the site of historic flooding in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Then: Is voting for a so-called third party candidate in the November Presidential election tantamount to 'throwing your vote away'? That's a question confronting many U.S. voters who are dissatisfied with the two major party candidates. But does such a vote open the door to a deadly dangerous President Trump? And does it even matter if it does?

Historian and Salon columnist Matthew Rozsa, a Bernie Sanders supporter during the primary, joins me to discuss how American voters can take on the two-party duopoly, without taking the country and the world down with it, as discussed in his recent piece "Tired of Democrats vs. Republicans? Here's how to fix it".

Rozsa details what he sees as a moral case against Trump, that requires a vote for Clinton, even if his policy preferences are more closely aligned with someone like Green Party nominee Dr. Jill Stein. "When you juxtapose the possibility of a Clinton presidency with that of a Trump presidency," he argues, "you can see how policies they would implement on issues ranging from immigration, to taxes, to business regulations, would affect people directly. So when you say 'I don't see much of a difference between Clinton and Trump, and therefore I'm willing to risk the election of someone like Trump,' you are minimizing or ignoring how his policies would impact real people in this country."

But, he goes on to explain, there is a way to support third-parties in such a way that they can serve to crack the stranglehold of the two-party system and potentially even become viable at the Presidential level. "If you're going to try to empower third-party candidates, you shouldn't be indifferent for most of the four-year period, and then a few months before the general election say, 'oh, I don't like either of these alternatives, I'm going to vote third party to make that stance clear'. That doesn't accomplish anything. The way to really achieve this change is to be invested in the process constantly...even when it's not an election year," he says.

It's an interesting, detailed and history rich conversation, in which Rozsa and I disagree on a few key points, while agreeing on others. Please give it a listen and share your thoughts in comments.

Finally, don't count your chickens yet, Democrats. Trump regains the lead over Clinton in swing-state Florida, according to a new poll [PDF] out today from the Sunshine State...

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Guest Editorial by Dr. Rebecca Mercuri, Ph.D.

In the aftermath of the controversial 2000 Presidential Election, the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) was enacted, which, among other initiatives, provided funds for the procurement of new voting systems across the nation.

Many states rushed out to buy electronic voting equipment that afforded no way to perform an independent recount from ballots that the voters themselves had purportedly validated for correctness. Instead, Hawai'i did the right thing by evaluating the pros and cons of the available products, ultimately settling on a largely paper-based system. This enables votes to easily and simply be counted, using the traditional 1+1=2 method, if the computer tallies are questioned or a manual count is carried out.

Unfortunately, this will not continue to be the case if Hawai'i's Governor Neil Abercrombie fails to veto H.B. 638 which has recently been passed by both the state House and Senate.

This dangerous bill came to the floor without ample opportunity for opposition testimony. It allows for the introduction of a technique known as Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), which is confusing to voters and makes hand-counting virtually impossible, thus increasing the state's reliance on proprietary and unexaminable computer software for generating its election results...

-- Guest blogged by Joyce McCloy

Well there's a twist! Hopefully you weren't drinking coffee when you read the headline.

How often do you hear of a voting vendor saying they really really (really!!) do not want to break the law, but state officials are forcing them to? But that's exactly what's about to happen in North Carolina where the first statewide use of Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) could produce, according to some, a "train wreck" this November.

Four years ago, the state legislature created new rules for special elections needed to fill vacancies in the state's appellate courts. They apply when an opening occurs on the bench after the primary but at least 60 days before the general election. If more than two candidates file to run, voters are asked to indicate their first, second and third choices on the ballot. If no candidate receives a majority of first-choice votes, the winner is determined by adding the second- and third-choice votes.

But while election officials are mandated to run IRV elections, there is actually no state or federally certified software to tally Instant Runoff Voting on North Carolina's e-vote systems and the representative for the vendors, ES&S and PrintElect, says the companies "cannot be held responsible for issues as a result of IRV"...

Co-Editors: Dave Klein and John Washburn

In Pierce County, WA, indications are that Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) may be a failed experiment. 63% of the voters didn’t like it, and the auditor says scrapping it would save the county $600,000. The County Council voted to amend the county charter to repeal the mandate for RCV; the voters will make the final decision in November.

Smartmatic still hasn’t submitted its incorporation papers to the Philippines Comelec, and its local partner, TIM, has pulled out of the joint venture.

Internet voting is now being considered in Canada and Nova Scotia. Is there no end to the wack-a-mole of unobservable ballots? Prove in one place that Internet ballots are an exercise in unjustified trust, and the idea pops up its head in another.

Today's articles about the Voting Rights Act deal with how to minimize future challenges....

[Updated with a response from L.A. County Registrar Dean Logan. See end of item for his complete email in response to this article.]

Gautum Dutta, of the Democratic-leaning Asian American Action Fund blog notes a recent L.A. County Board of Supervisors meeting which "discussed a study on the cost of special elections and Instant Runoff Voting (IRV)" [emphasis added]...

Note to Messrs. Dutta and Logan: Taxpayers could save even more money if we simply allow you two to just decide for us who gets elected!

As Logan, chief election official of the nation's largest voting jurisdiction (larger than 43 states combined see Logan's correction to this at end of article) has had more than enough problems with the current voting system which can't even add one plus one plus one accurately, such that it is virtually impossible for anybody to verify the accuracy of results, the last thing this county needs is to complicate the math even further by confusing matters with IRV's complicate scheme of ranked choice voting where voters are asked to select a first and second place choices, etc.

For that matter, unless, and until, we can simplify our election procedures such that any and all citizens are able to oversee and verify the accuracy of their election results, no jurisdiction in this country should employ schemes like IRV, no matter how well-meaning supporters of it may be in hoping to allow a broader range of candidates and parties to have a shot at winning an election.

Along with the emerging nightmares of Internet Voting and Vote-by-Mail, IRV is yet another one of the horrible wack-a-mole schemes being endlessly advanced by advocates and profiteers who put winning elections and making money off them, over the idea of transparent, verifiable, secure democracy and self-governance expressed of the people, by the people and for the people.

Addendum... From last Friday's Aspen Daily News:

Clarification & UPDATE, 8:52pm PT:...

Guest blogged by Ellen Theisen, VotersUnite.org

The actions and attitudes of election officials all too often seem like Alice's experiences down the rabbit hole. So, it's nice occasionally to report on positive developments by public officials who actually listen to the concerns of citizens, rather than simply ignoring serious defects discovered in our voting systems. I'm happy to report such a story today. For a change.

On May 6, Patty Murphy, Voting Systems Support, Secretary of State’s Office, notified my VotersUnite.org colleague and fellow Washington state resident John Gideon and me that two new voting systems were to be tested for state certification here on May 13 through May 16, and that the Review Board would hold a hearing on May 23. The Board’s job is to thoroughly review certification applications and make recommendations to the Secretary of State. The two systems were:

• An ES&S AutoMark/optical scanner system, tested against federal standards and qualified by NASED.
• A new, untested touch-screen/optical scanner system made by Sequoia Voting Systems

John and I were concerned about the Sequoia system. Pierce County, WA, voters recently voted to use Ranked Choice Voting (RCV), a system where voters may specify their preferences in particular races on the ballot as "first choice," "second choice," or "third choice." However, no state-certified system had the software needed to tabulate RCV ballots. So Sequoia developed their software specifically for Pierce County. They had applied for “emergency” provisional certification from the state, which would allow them to bypass state requirements for independent testing to the federal standards.

Tabulating RCV ballots is much more complicated than tabulating traditional ballots. With RCV, after voters mark their first, second, and third choices for certain offices, the tabulation is done in a series of “rounds.” The candidate with the fewest “first choice” votes after each round is eliminated; then in the next round the second choice on those ballots is counted as if it were the first choice. Rounds continue until one candidate has the majority of the votes. For a fuller explanation, see the Pierce County website.

John and I had planned to go to the testing on May 14, but at the last minute the testing for that day was called off so officials could investigate a problem that had shown up the previous day.

As we found out later, officials had found the Sequoia system had tallied votes wrong.

Later in the day, the SoS office's Murphy emailed us to let us know what happened...