MSNBC's Dan Abrams continued, for the third day in a row, on the Don Siegelman beat today. The former Democratic Alabama Governor, who still sits in jail pending an appeal for his non-violent crime, is alleged to have been railroaded by Karl Rove and political operatives in the state while running for re-election in 2006.

In 2002 he had won his election, according to the announced results on Election Night, only to wake up the next morning to find that a Republican election director claimed to have discovered a "glitch" (sound familiar, regular BRAD BLOG readers?) in the electronic vote counts overnight, resulting in Siegelman's loss. He was never allowed a recount after the vote tallies somehow changed on the electronic voting machines due to the "glitch," as it was described officially, by court probate officers.

In this rarely seen, 2004 video interview with Siegelman (see approx. half-way through that linked article), he alleges: "Somebody electronically manipulated the election results…This election was stolen…There is no other kind, or sugar-coated way to say it."

Neither the 60 Minutes report on Siegelman from Sunday, nor any of Abrams' reports so far this week (here's Tuesday's and Wednesday's) including today's, as posted at the end of this article, have yet delved, with any depth, into that aspect of what seems clearly to have been a well-run political frame-up --- or, yes, a conspiracy --- to do away with the one Democrat who had been able to win statewide elections in an otherwise very Republican-leaning state.

We hope to have more on that aspect of the case soon.

On today's MSNBC "Bush League Justice" report, Abrams spoke with both Siegelman's attorney, Vince Kilborn, as well as Grant Woods, the former Republican Attorney General from Arizona who has been among the most outspoken of the 52 former Republican and Democratic Attorneys General who have called on Congress for an investigation and a special prosecutor to be named in the case.

Abrams repeated his call, from yesterday, for the immediate release of Siegelman from prison, pending appeal of his case, as would be customary in other similar, non-violent cases. Abrams enumerated his chief concerns about the prosecution and the trial as run by federal judge Mark Fuller, as follows...

[UPDATED 2/27/08 2:00pm PT, after speaking with Bowen's office about this. The update, which includes her current response to Logan's proposed counting scheme, is posted at the bottom of this report.]

I hate to counter the adulation of so many of the good groups out there claiming "victory" and "a happy ending" today in the "Double Bubble" ballot dispute in Los Angeles County, but I must. The "victory" they are now referring to, with the best of intentions, as "Great news!" is much less than it appears. Though if you don't look closely, it might otherwise look like a "victory." Unfortunately, it isn't.

Unless something changes, and quickly, Los Angeles County's acting Registrar of Voters Dean Logan is preparing to disenfranchise thousands of voters who cast legal ballots in the Super Tuesday Democratic primary election.

In the 3-page letter [PDF] sent by Logan to CA Sec. of State Debra Bowen yesterday, the recently-arrived, but still-befuddled, county clerk details how he now plans to potentially toss out thousands of votes, while inappropriately awarding disproportionate votes in favor of only some candidates, in response to the "Double Bubble" ballot debacle reported by The BRAD BLOG (most recently here), in great detail previously...

Kudos (for a change) to AP for their report today into what happened during the Super Tuesday Democratic Caucus in New Mexico, where thousands of long-time registered Democratic voters were knocked off the rolls, leading to some 17,000 provisional ballots being cast (11% of all votes, up from 4% four years ago.)

What has changed since 2004, just four years ago? For a start, the private, constantly failing voting machine company ES&S has taken over management of the registration rolls. At the same time, Secretary of State Mary Herrera's office seems to be in complete denial of the problem, which could drastically affect the ability of legally registered voters to cast proper ballots in the state come this November, when the race could be as razor-thin in New Mexico as it was in 2004.

The AP report picks up on one of our own, covering the privatization of NM's (and several other states') voting rolls, as filed here just after Election Day, when the mess first began to emerge.

Get a load of just a few of the disturbing details, on the thousands of voters knocked off the rolls and the SoS-in-denial, from the surprisingly good AP coverage by Heather Clark...

Hilarious...If a little too on-the-money, in too many regards. A MUST VIEW.

Congrats in advance, Mr. McCain. Enjoy...

(P.S - The company name is correctly pronounced DEE-bold, as opposed to DIE-bold. Just so's ya know. Since it drives us crazy. Beyond that, hat-tip John Gideon of VotersUnite.org.)

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

[Now including a number of UPDATES at the bottom of the article...]

Part 1 (9:51), Part 2 (3:56)

UPDATES: (by Brad) Incredibly, Larisa Alexandrovna is reporting that the broadcast of the Siegelman segment --- and only the Siegelman segment --- got blacked out in Alabama. "Transmission Difficulties"...

NOTE: The 60 Minutes report does not delve into the Election Fraud issues that have emerged in the case, including allegations, on video tape, from Siegelman himself, claiming that his "election was stolen electronically," after having gone to bed on Election Night the winner in 2004, only to wake up the next morning to find that he had "lost" after a Republican Board of Elections member, in the middle of the night, allegedly all by himself, re-tallied the votes. Links to that angle on the story, along with the White House and Karl Rove's relation to all of it, can be found in "Related stories" linked at the bottom of this article.

Many more Monday updates on the "Alabama Blackout" situation, including statements from both CBS and the changing story of their affiliate station, WHNT, now follow below as well. More still being added as notable...

-- by Brad Friedman

The U.S. Attorney Purge scandal still ranks, in my estimation, as the key to unlocking almost every other unprecedented domestic (and perhaps even foreign) criminal abuse of power by the White House. The matter strikes at the very heart of the dirty dealings by all of the President's men and, if it were to ever be fully cracked open, would likely display the totality of the blood and guts of the Administration's highly illegal, fully politicized takeover and wholesale abuse of the U.S. criminal justice system.

Little wonder then that the White House has determined to go to the mattresses when it comes to fighting off both the House and Senate Judiciary Committees' investigations into the matter. They've determined they are better off playing chicken with Congress and risking criminal contempt charges (which they believe they can either refuse to enforce via the DoJ, or otherwise pardon the players whenever necessary) by refusing to turn over requested documents to Congress and ordering the refusal to testify by top officials such as Karl Rove, Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten.

In order to guard the castle gates, after consigliere Alberto Gonzales could no longer effectively hold off the investigation, they found a man who would play ball for them in AG Michael Mukasey, betting --- correctly --- that Democrats in congress would fold rather than refuse to confirm a man who was, even during Senate hearings, so obviously in the pocket of the White House crime syndicate.

Two stories breaking today each serve as fresh reminders of how much is at stake, and how much is being hidden by the WH stonewalling of the scandal's full investigation. Each of them --- the indictment today of AZ's Republican Rep. Rick Renzi on charges of extortion, wire fraud, and money laundering, and this Sunday's long-awaited 60 Minutes exposé on the Rove/DoJ/WH gang-bang frame-up of Alabama's now-imprisoned Democratic former Governor Don Seigelman --- merely offer salacious clues as to how bad, how corrupt, and how historically unprecedented (in this country, anyway) the illegal machinations at the heart of this scandal really are.

Please keep in mind that at the center of the entire scandal lies the über scandal involving the very gaming of our electoral system by folks who, evidence shows, were willing to do nearly anything to ensure they retained a death grip on American political power and the control of its entire legal apparatus in the bargain.

And both the Democrats in Congress, and the American Corporate Mainstream Media, to their eternal disgrace, have all stood by and allowed the shameful bloodbath --- featuring real blood --- to take place...

We're pleased to offer you another excuse to go out and buy Hustler again this month. You're welcome. The April 2008 issue (on stands only through the beginning of March, or so) features an exposé on criminal voter fraud felon, Ann Coulter, as penned by yours truly.

The detailed article is based on our long series of investigative articles (see: https://BradBlog.com/CoulterFraud), going back to early 2006, on Coulter's two third-degree felonies, and one first-degree misdemeanor, voting crimes in Palm Beach County, FL.

The Hustler version ties 'em all together, and includes a few sexy additional tidbits we never got around to reporting here. Plus, there are naked people, who are not Ann Coulter, on many of the other pages.

Hustler won't allow us to post the story online until after the issue is off the stands, so we'll try to remember to run the full piece once we get the all clear next month. Until then, please go support one of the only "mainstream" periodicals which has dared to allow folks like us, Bob Fitrakis, Robert Scheer, Danny Schechter, Larisa Alexandrovna, and so many others to unflinchingly report on so many of the stories the rest of the media have failed to touch over the last seven years or so.

(Two quick examples of that right now, by the way, would be our Hustler stories, both PDFs, on the death of Clint Curtis investigator Raymond Lemme, and on Diebold document whistleblower Stephen Heller.)

As to the question asked in Hustler's title for the Coulter story, the answer is an unequivocal "Yes!" When we submitted the article, almost a year ago (and thus, had to update it many times along the way to keep up with new developments in the story), we originally titled it: "ANN COULTER IS A FELON: Will Someone Please Arrest Her Now?!"

For the record, The BRAD BLOG stands by the original title. Looks like even Hustler can be known to pull a punch every now and again.

UPDATE 6/6/08: The complete Hustler article is now posted online, in full right here...

Our friends Bobby Kennedy Jr. and GoLeft.tv interview another of our friends, Election Integrity hero Ion Sancho, the legendary Leon County, FL, Supervisor of Elections, on the election messes in New Hampshire, Florida, Los Angeles, and everywhere else. (And thanks for the kind hat-tip, guys...even though The BRAD BLOG never claimed there was fraud in NH. But we're happy to let that slide, since the interview was live, and you might have been talking about someone else. And we know you mean well.)

WARNING: Markos Moulitsas and the other front-pagers and gatekeeping denialists at Daily Kos should not watch the above interview! If Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has a user record over there, you should go ahead and ban him right now! Make sure he's never allowed to write at dKos! In this interview, he has the temerity to talk about concerns with the way the New Hampshire Primary Election was conducted! Can you believe it?! And he's even a Hillary Clinton supporter! Clearly, he, like The BRAD BLOG, is "doing far more harm than good," as you like to say, for the Election Integrity movement! What will the Democratic Party and the Mainstream Corporate Media say about your site if that "nutter" Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is allowed to post over there?! Quickly --- before he damages the credibility of your site --- you better go ahead and ban RFK Jr. in advance! As you know, better safe than sorry, boys!

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has used the "F" word to describe what may have taken place when zero votes were registered for Barack Obama during unofficial results at nearly 80 precincts in New York City on Super Tuesday, including several in heavily African-American areas such as Harlem.

"If you want to call it significant undercounting, I guess that's a euphemism for fraud," the tin-foil hat-wearing conspiracy theorist Mayor --- who would not be welcome to post at the Daily Kos --- is quoted telling the New York Post today.

Politico's Ben Smith follows up today to report that a Bloomberg spokesman "reiterated the charge in an e-mail," but curiously notes that Bloomberg, who "controls the police department" in New York City would not be launching an investigation.

"Loeser said he didn't think there was actually a legal issue at stake in the preliminary, unofficial vote counts," reports Smith.

So if we have all of that straight, the NYC Mayor's office confirmed they believe there was "fraud" at work in the city's Primary Election, but don't believe there are any "legal issues at stake." Interesting position.

For our part, The BRAD BLOG covered the curious issue of NYC's zero vote totals as it emerged last week from a report by the New York Times (which included some misleading information, by the way, as we noted). We don't know if the matter rises to the level of fraud or not. But if we were to use that word, we'd also be calling for a full investigation by every appropriate legal authority.

How the anti-Election Integrity folks who control the front page at the Daily Kos will have to twist and contort themselves to cover this news is beyond us. So we'll simply continue seeking out information from knowledgeable and uncompromised news sources instead.

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.Org

The Newark Star-Ledger is reporting that New Jersey election officials have found a discrepancy in the state's Primary Election results as reported on the Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines used on Super Tuesday. Voter totals reported by the internal paper tapes on their Sequoia AVC Advantage DRE in a number of counties are failing to match up with totals found on the memory cartridges, used for both ballot definition and results storage, on the same machines, according to the report today...

Problems with Sequoia's AVC Advantage systems also emerged early on the morning of Super Tuesday, forcing a 45 minute delay for the state's Governor, who was unable to cast his vote when the machines failed to boot up on Election Day. In February of last year, the same machines were hacked by a Princeton University Professor after he'd been able to purchase a number of the $8000 systems for just $86 apiece on the Internet.

The Star-Ledger today goes on to report some of the details on the latest failures now emerging in New Jersey during the state's post-election canvassing...

California Sec. of State Debra Bowen wants Los Angeles County's acting Registrar of Voters, Dean Logan, to check the poll rosters of thousands of precincts in order to help accurately count tens of thousands of currently uncounted ballots cast in the Super Tuesday Democratic Primary.

As The BRAD BLOG pointed out last week, tens of thousands of currently uncounted ballots cast by Non-Partisan voters who chose to cross over and vote in the Democratic Primary, but who failed to ink in a second bubble meant to instruct voting machines to count the ballots as Democratic votes, can be counted accurately, as per the voters' intent, if Logan bothers to check those poll rosters.

Bowen, who sent a 3-page letter [PDF] to Logan after our article pointed out that he was simply wrong, in his own report [PDF] to the County Supervisors, when he claimed that it was "impossible" to determine the intent of the voters on those ballots.

It's not, and Bowen clearly seems to understand that, as evidenced by both her letter to Logan and comments she made last Friday on Northern California National Public Radio affiliate KQED, where she said she was "shocked" to hear that the debacle had happened in several elections previously...

L.A. County's former Registrar Recorder, Conny McCormack, who quit just prior to February's Super Tuesday Primary Election, turned into Condi Rice today. She's quoted in an Los Angeles Times' front page story confirming, as we pointed out over the weekend, that Election Officials did nothing about the "Double Bubble" ballot problem --- which may well disenfranchise a conservatively estimated 50,000 county voters --- despite massive disenfranchisement with the same design over last six years, since McCormack first implemented it.

In her best Condoleese, McCormack is quoted by the paper today saying, "This is an unfortunate, unanticipated result...No one could have predicted this."

Sound familiar?

She is shortly contradicted, in the same article, by a spokesperson from her own former office, before she continues on to blame voters and poll workers for the problem that she created --- as now confirmed by both the LA Times and California's Secretary of State Debra Bowen --- before then proceeding to do absolutely nothing about it...

Given the potential disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of voters, and maybe even hundreds of thousands of voters, from Super Tuesday's Los Angeles County Democratic Primary election, which the county's current acting Registrar incorrectly claims to be "impossible" to count accurately, we believe it's time to place some blame squarely where it belongs for the entire mess.

A Los Angeles Times editorial this week, where, it seems, the paper may have finally found religion on the issue of Election Integrity, serves up a great starting point...

So it happened before. 44% of Non-Partisan cross-over ballots went uncounted in March '04 and 42% in June '06. And yet, the county went into '08's primary with no plans to change a thing.

The woman who dreamt up the ridiculous scheme, former Los Angeles County Registrar and Diebold cover girl Conny McCormack, quit just over a month before the election, and knew about the problem from years past, but did nothing about it. Or, she didn't know about, and was thus criminally negligent in her job as chief voting official for the nation's most populous county...

The conspiracy theorists at the New York Times today tell us something is amiss, but proceed to ultimately tell us nothing about why it happened, suggesting that all is just fine...and that it'd be even better if the city "upgraded" to new electronic voting machines...

So how did the numbers change from 141-0 to 261-136 and from 118-0 to 118-116? No confirmed explanation is given, but some lazy guesswork about how votes are counted on NYC's old lever voting machines is proffered by local Election Officials, and dutifully passed on by the Times who --- before proceeding with a misleading "ad" for new electronic systems --- soothes our concerns by informing us that an unspecified number ("a handful") of districts also reported zero votes for Clinton in the original, unofficial tallies...

The Republican women of Snohomish County, WA, seem to be lacking a bit in the self-respect department. While we're sure that's not the case for every Republican woman in the county, that's the message that's just been sent with the following photograph that appeared in this morning's local paper...

Though he claimed during last night's appearance with the proud shameless, self-loathing Republican women of Snohomish that "we're neutral as a state party," and aren't endorsing a candidate, The BRAD BLOG has previously noted "Esser the Suppressor's" fealty to John McCain's state campaign chairman, AG Rob McKenna, Esser's old chum, and the man responsible for helping to push the last state chair (a woman) out of the job, in order to replace her with Esser.

He arguably returned the favor during last Saturday's GOP caucus in the Evergreen State by halting the counting with just 87% of the returns in, just after McCain, who'd been trailing Huckabee for most of the night, finally took a 242 vote lead...