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(Will Someone Please Tell the Headline Writers at the New York Times and the Associated Press?)
By Brad Friedman on 11/10/2006 3:27pm PT  

ComputerWorld has just posted the following article of mine in full. Here's the first few (pre-CW-edited) grafs to whet your appetite...

ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINE SLAYS NINE!
Terrorizes Florida in Thrill-Kill Rampage

That headline was from a satirical column written by Andy Borowitz and published last Monday, the day before Tuesday's mid-term election.

Unfortunately, given the post-election coverage by some of the nation's leading media --- or at least their headline writers --- it seems that only an event such as a Diebold voting machine becoming "unmoored from the floor and...trampling everyone and everything in its path," as Borowitz wrote, would qualify as anything more than a "glitch," "hiccup," "snag," or "snafu". At least if you gauge the coverage from the headline writers at NYTimes or Associated Press.

"Voting System Worked, With Some Hiccups," declared the AP headline on Wednesday. "Polling Places Report Snags, but Not Chaos," echoed the Times.

"Hiccups"? "Snags"? Try telling it the thousands of voters around the country who were unable to simply cast a vote last Tuesday because new, untested electronic voting machines failed to work. Monumentally. Across the entire country.

"Not Chaos"? Apparently the Times headline writers failed to check with the folks in Denver who were lined up around the block for hours to vote. They didn't even bother to read the the Denver Post, who headlined the problem as a "Voting Nightmare" during the day on Tuesday and quoted voter Lauren Brockman saying "We will not get to vote today," after he had showed up before work to vote at 6:45 a.m. at the Botanic Gardens only to wait in line for an hour before giving up.

They didn't check with Colorado's Gubernatorial candidate Bill Ritter, who had to wait almost two hours to vote, or with Sean Kelley, a Denver resident who said to the Post, "I can't believe I'm in the United States of America," before he gave up and went home without voting after waiting three hours in line when electronic machines broke down.

The courts in Colorado refused to allow the city's new consolidated "Election Centers" to remain open for extra hours that night. And yet this was only a mid-term election, with far lower turnout than we can look forward to in 2008.

Similar problems led slighly more responsible officials to order polls to be kept open longer than scheduled in at least eight other states due to voting machine problems. In a NY Times story published the day before (which apparently the headline writers of the previously mentioned piece failed to read), it was reported that in Illinois "hundreds of precincts were kept open...because of late openings at polling places related to machine problems" and in Indiana "voting equipment problems led to extensions of at least 30 minutes, in three counties."

Other states where polls remained open late due to the inability of legally registered voters to vote when they showed up earlier in the day include Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, Indiana, and Ohio.

But the list of problems and, yes, meltdowns (not "glitches" "hiccups" "snags" or "snafus") is still pouring in from around the country. My inbox has been beyond readability since polls opened on Tuesday morning, and my ability to keep up had already been near the breaking point in the weeks prior just from similar reported disasters that occured with these failing, flipping, and flimsy new pieces of junk during the Early Voting period in Florida, Arkansas, Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, Texas, and California, just to name a few.

On Election Day, the Electronic Frontier Foundation had received about 17,000 complaints on their toll-free hotline by 8pm. Common Cause received 14,000 calls by 4 p.m. John Gideon at VotersUnite.org performed the Herculean task of logging as many news reports as he could in a searchable online database of reported election problems that day.

One big fat bullet seems to have been dodged when George Allen conceded in his Virginia Senate race Thursday. Had he chosen not to, America would have found itself smack-dab in the middle of another Florida 2000 crisis with the balance of the entire United States Congress depending on voting machines in a state which offer absolutely no way to recount ballots to achieve any form of accuracy or clarity in the race. The battle of the forensic computer scientists trying to figure out what happened would have been another long national nightmare.

But that didn't happen, so everything's cool...

For the complete story, including other bullets barely dodged this week --- from the Santorum Senate race in Pennsylvania to innumerable U.S. House elections currently uncountable and unrecountable due to the failures of these god-forsaken machines --- and the ravages of an American electoral system in tatters no matter how the headline writers at the major national media and the Voting Machine Apologists are hoping to spin things...see my complete piece just published at ComputerWorld...

(Oh, and find out how that Diebold Voting Machine Killer Rampage in Florida comes out too!)

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Election Attorney Paul Lehto Blames Registrar Mikel Haas's Administration of Election, Refusal to Properly Count Paper Ballots for Discrepancy
Says, 'Abuse of Discretion' Improperly Delayed Count of Paper Ballots, Creates 'Second Class Ballots, Voters'
By Brad Friedman on 11/10/2006 12:43pm PT  

This just in from attorney Paul Lehto concerning the People's Republic of San Diego, where one of the country's most irresponsible Registrar of Voters, Mikel Haas, defied the California Secretary of State by refusing to count paper ballots as "normal ballots" on Election Night.

Lehto says Exit Polling data commissioned from Zogby International shows a '6-Point Distortion' from the "results" as so far announced by Haas's office in the Francine Busby/Brian Bilbray U.S. House election in California's 50th Congressional district.

The complete results of the Zogby polling is available for download here [PDF].

NOTE: Busby (D) has appropriately refused to concede the race against her opponent Bilbray (R) until all votes have been properly counted. As of this moment, the San Diego County Registrar's website shows "100%" of precincts reporting despite thousands of uncounted paper ballots, absentee ballots and provisional ballots. Those "results" show Bilbray leading Busby 53% to 43%.

In fact, however, given Haas's defiance of the California Secretary of State's order to provide an adequate number of paper ballots for all voters who, in California, may vote by paper for any reason if they wish, coupled with his irresonsible --- and likely illegal --- decision to send all of the county's pre-programmed, election-ready, hackable Diebold touch-screen voting systems home on "sleepovers" with pollworkers for a full three weeks prior to the election, it is literally impossible for there to be any confidence in any of the reported "results" as announced for any election this year in San Diego. The county's elections are now officially and wholly corrupted by Haas's abominable and disgraceful election administration, fed by his apparent loathing of voters and democracy.

ALSO NOTE: The VelvetRevolution.us Election Strike Force, of which The BRAD BLOG is a co-founder, contributed to the funding of this Zogby poll. Please consider donating to VR in support of such efforts!

Lehto's press release follows in full...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - NOVEMBER 10, 2006
Contact: Paul Lehto, Esq., 425.422.1387

CA 50 EXIT POLL ESTIMATES 6-POINT DISTORTION ENABLED BY REGISTRAR’S ABUSE OF DISCRETION

Haas’ Decision To Delay Paper Ballot Count
Artificially Inflates Votes For Republican

November 10, 2006 San Diego, CA – Attorney Paul Lehto, a national expert on election integrity, today released the results of an independent Zogby exit poll of voters in the November 7 election in California’s 50th District. The exit poll shows the race much tighter than the results published by the San Diego Registrar of Voters as of the day after the election, six percentage points closer. Moreover, after adjustment for an oversampling of Bilbray voters, the adjusted poll shows Democrat Francine Busby well within the margin of error, making the race uncertain in actual outcome. Paper based votes yet to be counted favor Francine Busby, such as paper ballots obtained at the polls, which constitute 6.4% of all voters and favor Busby 58% to 39%.

The poll also contains important findings about the relationship between different forms of voting and voter demographics, revealing a tendency for Democrats to use paper ballots versus other forms of voting such as electronic machines. In violation of state and federal law, and despite lawsuits filed to stop the process, San Diego Registrar of Voters Mikel Haas delayed the paper ballot count for paper ballots obtained at the polls by fully qualified voters, preferring to have other forms of ballots have been counted preferentially first, attempting to justify this second class service to paper-based voters by stating “this is an electronic election” when in fact the public is legally allowed a choice of either technology.

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---

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San Diego 50th U.S. House Candidate Says She Won't Consider Conceding Until All the Votes Are Counted!
By Brad Friedman on 11/8/2006 4:00pm PT  

U.S. Rep. Brian Bilbray appears to have handily won reelection to the House but his opponent, Francine Busby, said she won't consider conceding the race until all of the votes are counted.

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...

Despite Busby's statements, CNN and The New York Times called the race in [Brian] Bilbray's favor.

Part of the delay in tallying the votes stems from the countywide deployment of new electronic voting machines for the first time this election. That prompted local Democrats and election watchdog groups to urge voters to request paper ballots.

Busby said that her own ballot was mistakenly counted as provisional after she requested a paper version. Her vote won't be added to the official total until the Registrar of Voters verifies that she's an eligible voter.

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.

Voting machines malfunctions at numerous polling locations also forced many voters to manually register their opinions via paper ballots and Busby's campaign claimed that some precincts had reportedly run out of ballots.

In the days leading up to the election, the Registrar of Voters also ran out of absentee ballots and was forced to send out photo copies, which will take days to manually transfer to official ballots by hand.

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.

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By Brad Friedman on 11/8/2006 3:19pm PT  

From today's New York Times in an article headlined "Blogs Take Lead in Reporting Polling Problems" by Tom Zeller, Jr.:

Brad Friedman, perhaps the most dogged critic of electronic voting machine technology in the blogosphere, said he saw his site traffic spike at left-leaning Bradblog.com, as reports of machine malfunctions began pouring in from around the country.

"Folks understand by now that I’ll get these stories out so that they’ll get confirmed," Mr. Friedman said.

Well, somebody hadda "take the lead in reporting polling problems," Zeller! ;-)

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By Brad Friedman on 11/8/2006 1:26pm PT  

(Here's a good place to start. Though, NOTE TO CIO Insight: they weren't "glitches," they were failures.)

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UPDATE: And This Afternoon with Chris Duel on KTSA in San Antonio...
By Brad Friedman on 11/8/2006 12:17pm PT  

After co-anchoring last night's 9-hour Velvet Revolution Election Strike Force radio marathon spectacular until the wee hours, we were still more than happy to wake up and speak to both Stephanie Miller and then Thom Hartmann this morning...


-- Brad on Stephanie Miller Show, 11/8/06 [MP3, 9 minutes]


-- Brad on Thom Hartmann Program, 11/8/06 [MP3, 8 minutes]

UPDATE 4:57pm PT: And here's another from this afternoon with Chris Duel on KTSA News-Talk 550 AM...


-- Brad on Chris Duel Show, 11/8/06 [MP3, 11 minutes]

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Tester Announced 'Winner' in Montana, But We Say What's the Hurry?
By Brad Friedman on 11/8/2006 10:55am PT  

We'll have much post-mortem to come today, and likely for the next several. Now that the media has announced John Tester (D) the "winner" in Montana, the balance of the Senate all comes down to Virginia. Will it get ugly? We hope so.

For now, here's a far-from-complete list of folks that The BRAD BLOG feels shouldn't concede or shouldn't have conceded, and a few whom we congratulate for announcing they don't plan to do so. More soon on these races specifically and why we feel this:

SHOULDN'T CONCEDE:
George Allen (R-VA) U.S. Senate
Conrad Burns (R-MT) U.S. Senate
Bruce McPherson (R-CA) Secretary of State

SHOULDN'T HAVE CONCEDED:
Jim Talent (R-MO) U.S. Senate
Rick Santorum (R-PA) U.S. Senate
Harold Ford (D-TN) U.S. Senate

ANNOUNCED THEY WON'T BE CONCEDING UNTIL EVERY VOTE IS COUNTED:
Francine Busby (D-CA) U.S. House, CA-50
Bob Fitrakis (G-OH) Governor, Ohio
Clint Curtis (D-FL) U.S. House, FL-24

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By Alan Breslauer on 11/7/2006 11:02pm PT  

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer


Earlier today, on Lou Dobbs Tonight, Kitty Pilgrim reported on a number of E-Voting problems.

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Says Will Do 'Forensic Reconstruction' to Determine 'If Election is Supported by Actual Voters'
By Jim Cirile on 11/7/2006 10:27pm PT  

Guest Blogged by Jim Cirile

As of midnight EST, MSNBC reported that with 90% of the vote in, Tom Feeney was projected to win FL-24 57%-43%.

As loyal BRAD BLOG readers know, Feeney, one of CREW's 20 Most Corrupt Congressmen, was being challenged for his congressional seat by election fraud whistle-blower Clint Curtis, who alleges Feeney asked software designer Curtis to design vote-rigging software.

Curtis just got off the phone with BRAD BLOG'S Brad Friedman, broadcasting live in the Election Meltdown-apalooza. Curtis says he "apparently lost 57-43%" based on MSNBC results with 90% of the vote in --- but notes that there were "oddities" --- for example in some districts there were more Republican votes than there are registered Republicans. Of course, some Dems or independents could have voted for Feeney, but statistically, that is highly unlikely.

Curtis says "We have a lot of feet we'll be putting on the ground," and he will now do a "forensic reconstruction" to find out "if the actual election is supported by actual voters." Imagine that!

Note that there are STILL no numbers being reported from Seminole County per the FL Sec. State website (as of 12:06 PM EST).

In short, Curtis is not conceding. We say BRAVO! If he lost fair and square, that's fine, we will all accept that. It's the "fair and square" part we are just a bit uncertain of. Who was it who once said "Trust Yet Verify"? Why, it was Ronald Reagan. Wise man occasionally, it turns out. Stay tuned for more news from FL-24. It's likely this story may continue for awhile. And that, friends, is a good thing.

UPDATE: 2:20 AM Eastern time with 99% reporting:

District 24
Tom Feeney (R) 122,938 58%
Clint Curtis (D) 89,158 42%

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Getting too hard for our dial-up friends on the other thread.
By Agent 99 on 11/7/2006 9:27pm PT  

Continuing the previous thread... which includes more details on the Election Integrity Broadcast Marathon with Peter B. Collins and Brad Friedman (listen up right here!)

Everyone, please start commenting on this thread now. We want to hear from our dial-up friends, and long threads knock them out of the conversation.

UPDATE FROM BRAD: Feel free to call in as well at 888-573-8372 and let us know how we're doing! Thanks Kira and 99 for doing a beautiful job here! Jim Cirile to blog a fresh Clint Curtis item shortly I'm told!

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By Alan Breslauer on 11/7/2006 8:30pm PT  

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer


Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum concedes to Senator elect Bob Casey.

UPDATE FROM BRAD 11/8/06 7:56pm: Please note, his concession came only after he succeeded in getting the PA Republican Party to send a letter to Secretary of the Commonwealth demanding that voting machines in 27 counties be impounded after reports that Republican votes were flipping to Democratic on touch-screen machines. Ya don't hear that very often. We support the impounding of those machines...though we received late-night reports that Santorum and the GOP had withdrawn their request. More soon...

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By Alan Breslauer on 11/7/2006 2:37pm PT  

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer


Joe Scarborough, Bob Shrum and Pat Buchanan all go off on e-voting machines earlier today. Scarborough and Shrum also wonder what Republican's have against paper trails. All three pundits look for Democrats to retake the House.

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Dems Seek Extension of Voting Times after Hundreds of Voters Turned Away from Polls as Machines Fail...
'We Will Not Get to Vote Today' Says Voter Turned Away After an Hour Who Had Arrived at 6:45am...
By Brad Friedman on 11/7/2006 1:19pm PT  

From Denver Post...

Democratic party leaders are planning to seek a two-hour extension for voting in Denver, due to massive computer problems which have created long lines, and kept many from casting their vote.
...
The problems began right at 7 a.m. as computer problems at the voter-check in stations bogged down, creating a bottleneck in the first hour of voting as a rush to the polls overloaded the system.
...
At Denver Botanic Gardens, more than 200 voters backed up in a line that stretched out of the gates and down the block more than half way to 11th Avenue.

"We will not get to vote today," said a frustrated Lauren Brockman as he left the Botanic Gardens.

He lined up at 6:45 a.m. hoping to beat the rush, only to stand in line for close to an hour before leaving.

But an hour wait was short, compared to some.

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Voting Machine Companies (as expected) Blame 'Human Error'... (True enough, since the idiots who created these machines, and agreed to use them are most likely 'human')
By Brad Friedman on 11/7/2006 1:08pm PT  

First, they're not "glitches"...They are failures! This from AP...

Programming errors and inexperience dealing with electronic voting machines frustrated poll workers in hundreds of precincts early Tuesday, delaying voters in Indiana, Ohio and Florida and leaving some with little choice but to use paper ballots instead.

In Cleveland, voters rolled their eyes as election workers fumbled with new touchscreen machines that they couldn't get to start properly until about 10 minutes after polls opened.

"We got five machines --- one of them's got to work," said Willette Scullank, a troubleshooter from the Cuyahoga County, Ohio, elections board.

In Indiana's Marion County, about 175 of 914 precincts turned to paper ballots because poll workers didn't know how to run the machines, said Marion County Clerk Doris Ann Sadler. She said it could take most of the day to fix all of the machine-related issues.

Election officials in Delaware County, Indiana, extended voting hours because voters initially couldn't cast ballots in 75 precincts. County Clerk Karen Wenger said the cards that activate the push-button machines were programmed incorrectly but the problems were fixed by late morning.

Pennsylvania's Lebanon County also extended polling hours because a programming error forced some voters to cast paper ballots.

As expected --- and you'll be seeing and hearing a lot of this all night --- the Voting Machine Companies who have created the equivalent of Ford Pintos with these machine that "blow up" during normal use, no matter how careful a "driver" might be, are blaming "human error"...as opposed to themselves...and the election officials who were dumb enough to be suckered in by the wining and dining and false promises of the company lobbyists who are plying their insidious trade courtesy of your tax payer dollars...

But voting equipment companies said they hadn't seen anything beyond the norm and blamed the problems largely on human error.

"Any time there's more exposure to equipment, there are questions about setting up the equipment and things like that," said Ken Fields, a spokesman for Election Systems & Software Inc. "Overall, things are going very well."

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Smartcard Encoders Reportedly Not Working...Paper Ballots Not Available Everywhere...
By Brad Friedman on 11/7/2006 12:17pm PT  

From Salt Lake Tribune in Utah, the state which ran the 23-year elected Emery County, UT Election Administrator, Bruce Funk out of a job when he dared allowed independent investigators to test the new Diebold touch-screen systems forced on him by the state...

Utah County voters planning to cast their ballots on the way to work were stymied by technical problems with the state's new voting machines, while some in Salt Lake City also saw delays at the polls.

Robert Nelson was among those in Provo and other locations in Utah County who were unable to cast their votes using the new voting machines when the polls opened. After arriving at his polling location at 7 a.m., Nelson said he spent an hour and a half hoping the machines would be fixed.

"The workers were earnestly trying to get the machines to work, but not a one in our precint worked," Nelson said. "I work in Salt Lake City, so I couldn't wait for the machines to work."

Similar reports came in from other areas in Utah County, including Lindon. The clerk's office said the problem had been solved and the machines were up and running as of 8:55 a.m.

In Salt Lake City, some locations only had one machine up and running when the polls opened at 7 a.m.

No voting machines were initially operational at Highland High School, although some 25 people were already waiting in line to vote when the location opened.

The local ABC affiliate is reporting the Lt. Governor (a big supporter of Diebold, as we recall) says the problem is in the voting card encoders...

Utah's Lt. Governor Gary Herbert says voting machine encoders, used to program individual user cards have been incorrectly programmed, causing delays for many voters, primarily in Utah County.

Herbert says the problem is associated with voter card encoding machines, which have failed to function properly.
...
Many voters have experienced delays, and have been told to come back later.

Some voters have opted to use paper ballots, which are also available at most, if not all polling locations.

Herbert says the primary encoding machine problem has not been fixed, but provisional systems have been put in place and no one should be turned away.

Too late, Lt. Governor. Nice going.

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