American democracy is the beacon and light and hope for the rest of the world. While their emerging democracies may not always take the exact form that ours does, central to all of them is --- and must continue to be --- "the expression of the will of the people" via clean and open elections.

Emerging democracies in the world, however, are taking note of the debacle we've had here again. Twice now in a row with our most important election. And with so many countries that we are attempting to push towards delicate democracies at this time, it's more important than ever.

This is the story running today Russia's PRAVDA: "Did Bush fix the elections? - Why did Kerry throw in the towel so soon?"

If we are unable to demonstrate to world an example of how clean, fair and transparent elections must be run, what in God's name gives any of you people the illusion that other countries will do any better? And what of the Moral Authority that we must have to require of them that their elections be clean, fair and transparent?

I don't care which side of the political winds you're on (Bush's, Kerry's or anyone else's), if America doesn't have a national election that we can proudly hold up as a shining beacon of democracy in our own country, we'll hardly be able to demand the same from any country in the rest of the world.

Wake up, America.

UPDATE: For more on all of this from "the Internationals" see this from The International Herald-Tribune as reported by AltWeeklies.com:

(Thanks Fin for the tip!)

CLARIFICATION: The Pravda article reported above is from Pravda Online - a distinct publication from the old Communist Party-Controlled Pravda Newspaper. Though Pravda Online is published in Russian as well as English, and it's journalists are made up of reporters from the old Pravda Newspaper, I should have made that distinction in my original article. See the comments on this item for more detail. Thanks Raw Story's John Byrne for calling the issue to my attention.

Okay, lots of stuff now beginning to come out this morning, folks.

First, credit where it's due to MSNBC's Countdown for being amongst the first and only major Mainstream Media to give full coverage to this scandal. You can watch most of the full 17-minutes report they did last night courtesy of our bandwidth friendly friends at "Crooks & Liars" (via Windows Media Player here) and Brian Duffy (via QuickTime version here).

Second, it looks like the DNC is finally beginning to show up and play. Ever timidly, as we'd expect from them, but they're beginning to show up nonetheless and have now issued a Press Release calling for accounting from the 50 Secretaries of States on their counting practices. Read their Press Release here. More on this later today. (and thanks to reader Mazelle for the tip!)

Also, according to that MSNBC report, 3 more House Democrats have now joined the call of the original 3 Dems (Nadler, Wexler & Conyers) on the House Judiciary Committee asking the GAO for an investigation. That's good news, but we're still waiting for the rest

Last, for the moment (though certainly not least!) --and I will have more detail on this shortly --- it looks as though 97,000 more votes than voters have been added to the tallies in Cuyahoga County, OH! Now that's where Cleveland is, so it's a heavily Democratic district (I believe it went 63%-33% in favor of Kerry), and it was that counties totals that everyone was watching on Tuesday night to see if it would close the previously announced gap for Bush in Ohio.

In some precincts, the vote tallies show as being some 1000% (yes, that's thousand!) higher than the number of actual voters in the precinct! I will have much more on that later today.

Could that mean too many votes were added for Kerry there? Yup. Could that mean too many votes were added for Bush there? Yup. Could there be an innocent explanation for it? Yup.

Would I like to see this cleared up even if it means fewer votes for Kerry in the end? Yup.

Do I think elections should be a helluva of a lot cleaner and more organized than the mess we're seeing in Election '04? Hell yeah.

Check out the DailyKos story and see what you think. More on that one in particular, shortly...

What's clear is that your hard work is beginning to get the traction it deserves! Keep making noise! Pass these links around, and demand that the Media and the Politicians account for whatever the hell is going on with these increasingly pungent smelling election "results"!

I referred to Auglaize County, Ohio in the previous item as having the 4th highest percentage of votes for George W. Bush in all of Ohio.

The Evening Leader is reporting on some very strange goings on in that county just prior to the election when the entire Elections Board was notified by Sec. of State J. Kenneth Blackwell's office that they were being placed on "administrative oversight". No explanation was has yet been given by the Ohio Sec. of State's office.

The nugget that caught my eye was this report of an ES&S employee reported using the main vote tallying computer --- against election protocol --- about two weeks prior to the election:

I've attempted, to no avail, to get more information on this story since the original report is not particularly well written, and offers quite a few vagaries. I couldn't reach the original reporter and Mr. Nuss did not return my call. Few other reporters seem to be looking into it. So at this point, I think it's important to get the story out there, and let the Internets take over. (Since apparently the Mainstream Media is more interested in Scott Peterson's hung jury, than the will of the people in the world's most important democracy.)

Citing "homeland security concerns", Warren County, OH was alone in locking out media from their counting of ballots on Election Night. They were amongst the last to report their tallies that night, and according to Ohio's Election Night website Warren County ended up having the highest percentage of Bush votes amongst all of Ohio counties that had a total vote turnout greater than 22,500.

There were only four counties with a higher percentage vote for Bush, and they all had 22,279 voters or less:

So what happened that night in Warren County when all of America was waiting for the counting to finish in Ohio to decide the election? Why was it the only county in all of Ohio where media was not allowed to witness the counting?

The Cincinnati Enquirer explained it this way:

It's ashame both Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein are apparently now dead, isn't it?

UPDATE: MSNBC is reporting that "the federal government" was involved in the lock-down!:

Connect. The. Dots. People.

UPDATE: 11/10/04 5:5pm PT Keith Olbermann of MSNBC's Countdown --- virtually the only major media organization giving this story the coverage it deserves --- has just reported that both the FBI and the Homeland Security Dept. have denied giving warnings in Ohio to anybody about anything. That would be contrary to the claims made in this report which quotes a letter from the President of the Elections Board in Warren explaining that the lockdown was due to warnings they'd recieved from the FBI. The letter says in part:

Okay. So now who's telling the truth? And why did they lock down Warren County and, unlike every other county in Ohio, disallow reporters from witnessing the vote tallying?

UPDATE: 11/23/04 Cincinnati Enquirer, the paper which broke the Warren County Lockdown story originally, reports that the county had been planning the action for at least a week prior to the election. Details...

Why is it only in heavy Democratic counties that votes just seem to disappear? But in Republican counties, votes just seem to get added? This time, "something zapped it" in a heavily Democratic country in Indiana:

Dots connecting yet for ya? If not, read on. Otherwise, I'm working on trying to organize some "action items" now. Hope to have news on that in the next day or two...

How many of these is it gonna take before the "Grownups" in the Media and the DNC realize what seems to be going on here?

Uh...perhaps it's the fact that ES&S employees are operating these machines?? Instead of Election Officials?! Isn't that the law in these matters?

As Raw Story originally reported on Wednesday, the Exit Polling on the day of the Election showed Kerry ahead by robust margins in many states. By the time the day had ended Kerry's margin had been eclipsed by Bush's. But, notably, that only happened in states that do not have fully voter-verifiable paper trails (e.g. E-Voting machines that don't offer printed/verifiable paper receipts for the voter to confirm that their vote was recorded correctly).

Here are a couple of rudimentary graphics now to show the difference.

In the 10 states polled where there were voter-verifiable paper trails, the Final Results barely differed from the Exit Polls (which, until this year, have been widely regarded as highly accurate since they are taken as folks actually leave the polling place). The average change from Exit Poll to Final Results in these states was a tiny .8% gain for Bush. (Exit Numbers displayed in BLUE, Final Numbers in RED):

And now look at the data from states where there are no paper trails. Note the huge difference in Final Results that changed radically from the Exit Polling results. The average gain for Bush --- in these states only --- was 6.25% over the Exit Polling numbers!

What could possibly account for the huge differences there between the Exit Polls and the Final Results? And only in the Non-Paper Ballot States?

The numbers shown in these graphs seem to be taken from the "4pm Exit Polls" as shown on this chart. That chart is not particular user-friendly, but with a bit of close study, it makes sense.

Those "4pm Exit Poll" numbers however, match up with the "Final 6pm Exit Polls" as reported by Raw Story on the day of. So I'm not sure if the person who compiled the chart and the above graphics was in a different time-zone to account for the 4pm/6pm discrepancy. It doesn't really matter to be frank, as long as the numbers were correctly reported. Which they seem to have been.

It's my understanding that a major news organization is investigating this part of the story now. So we'll see what can be learned in the days ahead.

UPDATE: 11/9/04 Raw Story asked a former MIT "Associate Professor of Mathmatics" to look at these results, and his conclusion was that the probabilities of the Exit Polls all closing for Bush the way they did was approximately "1 in 50,000 or .002 percent". Nonetheless, that same Professor has looked closely at the available Exit Polling data and has "ruled out any significance of a variance between electronic balloting and paper ballot states" in the matter. That story is here.

I have spoken to Raw Story editor, John Byrne about this, and he stands by the report though he adds that to get any conclusive information on the matter we'd have to now take a look at the Exit Polling data on a county-by-county level. At this time, that information has not been released to the public, though apparently it is for sale somewhere. Not sure at this time how much it would cost to purchase for further analysis (and not sure why, at this point, it isn't simply made available to the public given all the troubling reports about this election!)

{NOTE: This page has been reformatted and updated in our new blogging software. Please visit the updated page here.}

NOTE: The link for this BRAD BLOG stay-on-top index of most notable News & Action items is:
https://bradblog.com/archives/00000905.htm
Please feel free to link, or pass the link on, as you see fit.

What follows are links to the latest and most alarming information concerning the questionable results of the Presidential Election. I am updating the list with the most notable items as soon as I can verify the info. Newest items will be added to the top of the lists.

Not all BRAD BLOG items are listed here! Just the most notable, verified, newsworthy and/or troubling! Please scroll past this item to read all of the latest BRAD BLOG articles.

Thanks to those who have sent tips to investigate! I am attempting to look at them all. Also, thanks to those who have hit the "Support the BRAD BLOG" button to donate to the effort and help allow me to stay focused on this now, while time is of the essence!

Latest Notable NEWS ITEMS: (Most Recent at Top)

Latest Notable ACTION ITEMS: (Most Recent at Top)

The BRAD BLOG has been under DDoS hack-attack at various times since we've begun reporting this story. If you have trouble getting in or the site is slow in loading, that is why. Please keep trying.

PLEASE NOTE: I am not, for now, focusing here on alleged Dirty Tricks and/or reports of Voter Suppression/Disenfranchisement on Election Day though there were plenty of them (a database of such reports can be found here, and further info here). I am largely for now looking at emerging hard evidence documenting potential fraud and/or mistabulation of actual votes cast by Americans on 11/2/04, with a focus on disturbing trends related to Ohio and Florida.

For the record, I voted for neither Bush nor Kerry, but have been a long-time opponent of both Bush and the corruption in the two-party system. My interest in this story now is due to concerns about ensuring an accurate vote count that reflects the will of the people in the world's most important democracy!

Keep checking back for more items as they emerge! MEDIA INQUIRIES HERE...

ATTN: Mathematicians and Statisticians - Please see this item posted at eRiposte concerning how some of the reported voting numbers just don't seem to be adding up to the reported Final Results. I'd love if some of you could double-check those figures and let us know in comments if you find that their math holds up.

In the previous article, I outlined a report from July 2003 that described how to steal an election in America in 2004. Virtually everything in that list was "done" in time for the 2004 election.

The items concerning the corporate privatization of the vast majority of our "public" balloting and counting systems by companies who are very closely tied to the Republican party are described in this new article yesterday by Thom Hartmann in the Baltimore Chronicle & Sentinel. Read the whole thing if you can. Here's just a few of the troubling highlights:

The more I read this report/warning from July 2003 titled "Bigger Than Watergate!" - the more I feel like I did after 9/11. I'd heard all the warnings about bin Laden and Terrorism, etc., but I didn't take it all very seriously until after it was already too late.

The mindset is true for what I'd been hearing from BlackBoxVoting.org and others for years about the concerns about Electronic Voting machines. I was interested, but never took their dire warnings with much more than a grain of salt.

I was wrong.

Looking again at the story from July 2003, you'll find a chilling description of precisely what seems more and more to have happened in last Tuesday's election. For example, look at this passage explaining how one might steal an election in modern day America:

This is a precise description of what has happened in our country leading up to Tuesday's vote as foretold more than a year ago!

The onlyl place where reality varies from the scenario above is in the last step, "removing the risk of exit-polling showing up your shenanigans". It was, in fact, that apparent slip-up --- the reporting of exit-polling, and the way that final results ended up varying wildly from normally very precise exit-polling, but only in swing states where they have E-Voting that doesn't supply voter-verified paper trails --- that gave us all our first clue that something was amiss here. In all other states, the exit-polls were exceedingly accurate. And where the "errors" described occured, the final results always ended up swing in Bush's favor. Why wouldn't at least some of those errors show declines in Bush's support in some states?

Since the results of the Exit Polls tipped us off, we've been able to track down more and more evidence that begins to add up to an election stinking to high heaven. The BRAD BLOG will continue to stay on this story until the matter is appropriately resolved one way or the other.

Please check back frequently as this story unfolds, as it's important that action is taken quickly on this matter. Please see BlackBoxVoting.org for more information on how you can help, and make everyone you know aware of these problems ASAP in the meantime! It's important that this story begin to emerge to the American public as quickly as possible!

More soon...

Folks are beginning to pay attention, guys!

Wired Magazine is now reporting that three Members of the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee are now calling for an investigation of the troubling incidents that we've been reporting concerning irregularities in Tuesday's vote counting!:

Click for complete story...

Keep up the noise, guys! They're starting to listen! I've had other unconfirmed reports about both Dems and the Kerry campaign beginning to take notice of all of this as well!

UPDATE: House Judiciary Committee Letter to GAO, as mentioned above, available here in PDF format. (Hat tip "Shari H-D" for the link!)

In a different North Carolina incident to the one we've already report where some 4500 votes were lost for good from a single NC E-Voting machine, The Sun-Journal is now reporting additional North Carolina E-vote errors:

This machine in question, by the way, was also an ES&S machine.

The story also notes that "a national Republican political consultant who had watched the returns and had some concern that other precincts were involved in the problem entered the office." --- Hello? Are there "national Democratic political consultants" out there who are watching this stuff as well?!

I'm happy to report that folks are starting to catch on to all of this. Hunter over at DailyKos gives a very sober and detailed analysis of where things are at this point in regards to both counting votes and the serious potential fraud being looked at, much of it that we've reported over the last two days here in various items.

Lots of good and new information in that piece is offered as well. Including this little "anomaly" discovered in the released Franklin County, OH voting results in PDF format:

AP has now picked up that story, and some of the others I'd been telling you about over the last couple of days. But perhaps even more notably, Drudge(!) is also now pointing to that article!...So I guess it's now officially "news"!...DEVELOPING HARD...

Connecting the dots... Investigative reporter, Bev Harris, has been reporting on the various concerns related to electronic voting for some time via her site BlackBoxVoting.org She released a book within the last year on the topic, and likely has compiled more evidence on the matter than anyone else in the world.

After studying the audit logs from one Washington state county's voting machines (audit logs obtained through a "Freedom of Information Act" petition) they discovered 3 hours of deleted data on the logs from the primary election there just six weeks ago.

Today they posted this:

Visit the site for more details on how you can help...

Other ways you can help: 1) Send the link to this story and/or this blog and/or as many of the previous items I've reported on (scroll down!) to as many folks as you can! 2) If you find something you think I should look at, feel free to post here in comments or email me with a link (please pardon if I can't respond immediately, I assure you I'm looking at it).

The Mainstream Media has largely taken their lead from the Bush Administration and the Rightwing media to follow the "Great Bush Mandate" storyline despite the numbers --- at best --- just not adding up, and even if accepted at face value, they represent the slimmest margin for a sitting President since Woodrow Wilson in 1916!

I understand full well that "conventional wisdom" is already beginning to harden that Bush "won" this race, and I'm sorry to continue to offer troubling information to those of you who would have liked a clean result this time around. If that's where my investigation leads, I will tell you that. But as of now, every street I turn down seems to display more and more that something is rotten in the state of Diebold/ES&S. Pay. Attention.