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Latest Featured Reports | Tuesday, November 28, 2023
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The World is Watching
By Brad Friedman on 11/9/2004 1:34pm PT  

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:

[A] group consisting of 92 international election monitors, invited by the State Department, gave a rather dim assessment. The International Herald Tribune reported, The observers said they had less access to polls than in Kazakhstan, that the electronic voting had fewer fail-safes than in Venezuela, that the ballots were not so simple as in the Republic of Georgia and that no other country had such a complex national election system.

(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.




Mainstream Media Coverage, DNC Press Release & 97,000 Extra Votes in Cuyahoga County, OH!
By Brad Friedman on 11/9/2004 12:07pm PT  

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"!




It Gets Curiouser and Curiouser...
By Brad Friedman on 11/8/2004 10:09pm PT  

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:

In a letter dated Oct. 21, Ken Nuss, former deputy director of the Auglaize County Board of Elections, claimed that Joe McGinnis, a former employee of Election Systems and Software (ES&S), the company that provides the voting system in Auglaize County, was on the main computer that is used to create the ballot and compile election results, which would go against election protocol. Nuss claimed in the letter that McGinnis was allowed to use the computer the weekend of Oct. 16.

Nuss, who resigned from his job Oct. 21 after being suspended for a day, was responsible for overseeing the computerized programming of election software, according to his job description. His resignation is effective Nov. 11.

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.)




All Media Locked out of Counting due to
Warren County Bush Vote Nearly Highest in State!
By Brad Friedman on 11/8/2004 9:36pm PT  

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.

  • Warren 92,251 votes - Bush: 72.1% Kerry: 27.53%
  • There were only four counties with a higher percentage vote for Bush, and they all had 22,279 voters or less:

  • Mercer 20,058 votes - Bush: 74.89% Kerry: 24.55%
  • Putnam 18,631 votes - Bush: 76.20% Kerry: 23.34%
  • Holmes 10,976 votes - Bush: 75.61% Kerry: 23.89%
  • Auglaize 22,279 votes - Bush: 73.78% Kerry: 25.71%
  • 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:

    Citing concerns about potential terrorism, Warren County officials locked down the county administration building on election night and blocked anyone from observing the vote count as the nation awaited Ohio's returns.

    County officials say they took the action Tuesday night for homeland security, although state elections officials said they didn't know of any other Ohio county that closed off its elections board. Media organizations protested, saying it violated the law and the public's rights. The Warren results, delayed for hours because of long lines that extended voting past the scheduled close of polls, were part of the last tallies that helped clinch President Bush's re-election.

    "The media should have been permitted into the area where there was counting," Enquirer attorney Jack Greiner said. "This is a process that should be done in complete transparency and it wasn't."

    Warren County Emergency Services Director Frank Young said he had recommended increased security based on information received from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation in recent weeks.

    Commissioners made the security decisions in a closed-door meeting last week, but didn't publicize the restrictions that were made until after polls closed.
    ...
    Typically, the Warren County commissioners' room is set up as a gathering place for people to watch the votes come in. But that wasn't done this year.
    ...
    A representative of The Associated Press, which had stringers at every Ohio board of elections site, said no such election-night access problems were reported outside of Warren County.

    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!:

    the decision got more dubious still when County Commissioners confirmed that they were acting on the advice of their Emergency Services Director, Frank Young. Mr. Young had explained that he had been advised by the federal government to implement the measures for the sake of Homeland Security.

    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:

    In a face to face meeting between the FBI and our director of Emergency Services, we were informed that on a scale from 1 to 10, the tri-state area of Southwest Ohio was ranked at a high 8 to a low 9 in terms of security risk. Warren County in particular, was rated at 10 (with 10 being the highest risk).

    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...




    'Something zapped it'
    Something? (ES&S Again!)
    By Brad Friedman on 11/7/2004 8:18pm PT  

    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:

    "Maybe there was a power surge," LaPorte County Clerk Lynne Spevak said. "Something zapped it."

    At about 7 p.m. Tuesday, it was noticed that the first two or three printouts from individual precinct reports all listed an identical number of voters. Each precinct was listed as having 300 registered voters.

    That means the total number of voters for the county would be 22,200, although there are actually more than 79,000 registered voters.
    ...
    Spevak said workers at the clerk's office thought a computer correction could be done once they received a software patch from Election Systems and Software, the Chicago company that provided the tabulation software. However, the patch did not work.

    "We thought we could get a copy of it e-mailed file to us and start all over, but once the program was downloaded from Chicago, it still didn't work right," Spevak said.

    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...




    ES&S Strikes/Fails Again
    By Brad Friedman on 11/7/2004 8:07pm PT  

    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?

    Sarpy County election officials are trying to figure out how they ended up with more votes than voters in the general election. As many as 10,000 extra votes have been tallied and candidates are still waiting for corrected totals.
    ...
    For some reason, some votes were counted twice.

    Deputy Sarpy County Election Commissioner Ed Gilbert says, "It affected 32 of the 80 precincts. And I suppose as many as 10,000 votes."

    Sarpy County borrowed the election equipment from Omaha-based Election Systems & Software. Its employees operated the machines that are now double-checking the ballots.

    No one is sure exactly what went wrong.

    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?




    ...Comparing States With and Without Voter Paper Trails
    Only Bush's Counts Improved
    By Brad Friedman on 11/6/2004 6:11pm PT  

    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!)




    The major points in the story so far...
    By Brad Friedman on 11/6/2004 1:58pm PT  

    {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)

  • All "Clint Curtis" and other "Grand Theft America" articles now at BRAD BLOG TOO until bandwidth can be increased at BRAD BLOG!

  • BRAD BLOG EXLUSIVE! WHISTLEBLOWER AFFIDAVIT: Programmer Built Vote Rigging Prototype at Republican Congressman's Request! CLAIM: Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL) Asked Company to Create E-Vote Fraud Software!
  • CHICAGO TRIB: Dead Voters, Double Voters, Discounted Votes ...And Bush margin in OH is decreased by 17,000
  • MORE: Supplemental Judiciary Committee Letter to Blackwell! BRAD BLOG Reporting Included in Official Update to Ohio Sec. of State!Also...Exit Poller Mitofsky Asked to Testify, Release 'Raw Data'
  • BRAD BLOG EXLUSIVE - CONFIRMED!: House Judiciary Committee Dems Announce Public Hearings on Voting Irregularities! ... ALSO: Detailed Excerpts from the Blackwell Letter!
  • SOURCE: House Judiciary Committee Dems to Announce Public Hearings on Voting Irregularities!
  • BRAD BLOG Reveals Exclusive Details on Delaware County, OH's Activist Republican Judge! Uses Tax-Payer Funded Website to Quote Scripture! And More!

  • >>> Click here to DISPLAY ALL NEWS ITEMS <<<
  • >>> Click here to SHOW ONLY LATEST NEWS ITEMS <<<
  • Activist OH County Judge Halts Green/Lib Recount! And the KERRY/EDWARDS Campaign Comes to the Rescue!!!
  • BlackBoxVoting.org Files Lawsuit Against Palm Beach County, FL!
  • NY DAILY NEWS: 3rd Party Candidates Out-Polled Bush in OH! Precinct-by-Precinct Analysis of Cuyahoga County Shows Disturbing Trends. As Another Mainstream Media Outlet Enters the Investigation!
  • 15 Unanswered Election 2004 Issues that The New York Times Might Wish to Investigate and Report on!
  • Kerry's Margin over Bush increases by 9,242 in Cuyahoga County, OH After Provisionals Counted Count Certified after Testimony Heard about the 34% of Provisionals Tossed Out
  • Greens/Libertarians File for Recounts in NV and NM!
  • The Stench Builds in Ohio...And the Numbers Still Refuse to Add Up
  • AP Updates Ohio Election Sitch, Fox News Censors the Story!
  • Ohio's Spoiled Election: A "Floodtide" of Evidence Emerges!
  • Blackwell and Ohio Sued by Voters' Rights Group for Rejection of Provisional Ballots Many tossed for simply being cast at the wrong table in the right building!
  • Pravda Uses Nov 2nd Election Against us in regards Ukrainian Election Objections And properly so.
  • BBV UPDATE: Troubling Details Emerge in Florida!
  • 106% Voter Turnout in Wyoming! State's official website shows 13,393 more votes than registered voters!
  • GAO to Investigate Voting Irregularities! And other Breaking News that may be coming this afternoon!
  • Reward for Evidence of Fraud Raised to $200,000! Previous award amount now doubled!
  • Monday's Ohio Recount Round-Up! The Dems Join In! The Greens/Libertarians Maneuver! The G.O.P Begins to Block (Surprised?)! And other Odds 'n' Ends
  • 68 Voting Machines Never Deployed in Columbus, OH! While Voters in Dem Districts Waited in Line for Hours!
  • Lawyers to Challenge Elections in OH (Also - Bloggers Right, Mainstream Media Wrong)
  • Bush Received 130,000-260,000 Extra Votes in 3 FL E-Vote Counties! UC Berkley Analysis Announced Today!
  • 2,600 Ballots Double-Counted in Sandusky County, OH
  • BBV: Evidence of Fraud in Florida?! Troubling Reports from Bev Harris in Volusia County, FL!
  • Indiana, ES&S and One Ungodly Mess! Stunning reports of illegally installed software from April of 2004 add to already-horrific mess!
  • Nader's NH Recount to Begin Thursday!
  • Greens/Libertarians Meet OH Recount Cost Goal! Now Seek Funds for "Mobilization" and Volunteers to be "Recount Witnesses"!
  • Nader's Demand for NH Recount appears to be Moving Forward Set to begin Nov. 24th
  • Provisional Ballots Being Discarded in OH!, "New Ruling" tosses out ballots without Date-of-Birth...Also - 19,000 unexplained ballots added in Bush-heavy Miami County, OH
  • BlackBoxVoting.org: FRAUD Audits, Investigations Launched in FL, NM, AZ, GA, NV!
  • 33,000 Ballots 'Discovered' after 'Programming Glitch' in UT County!
  • WASHINGTON TIMES: Major Security Holes Found in Diebold Software! The most 'Conservative' of newspapers admits vote-counting software vulnerable to hackers!
  • Diebold Settles California Law Suit for $2.6 Million
  • FRIDAY AFTERNOON UPDATE: 250 Million to 1 Odds on Exit Polls; Good MSNBC Reporting; Green/Libertarian OHIO Recount Update
  • Green & Libertarian Parties to Call for Ohio Recount! Cobb & Badnarik to join forces! Must raise $113,000 quickly!
  • Kerry Attorneys Return to Ohio! Vow to keep Kerry's promise to "Make Sure Every Vote Is Counted"
  • UPDATED! FBI & Homeland Sec. Officials Deny Warren County's Claim! Say they never warned Warren County about anything! SEE ORIGINAL STORY: Warren County, OH Vote Count Tallying Done in Secret! Officials site "homeland security warnings" from federal officials, County had near largest % of Bush votes in state!
  • The Mysteries of Cuyahoga County, OH
  • 22,000 Votes Errantly Given to Bush in Guilford County, NC! Caused by "computer error".
  • BlackBoxVoting.org Hacked; 150,000 Votes Already Miscounted or Lost!
  • MORNING UPDATE: Mainstream Media Shows up, DNC Issues Press Release, and 97,000 Votes ADDED in Cuyahoga County, OH?!
  • ES&S Employee found on Auglaize County, OH Computer! Just weeks before election! Fourth highest Bush Vote % in State!
  • 50,000 Votes LOST in Dem Indiana County! Yet another ES&S computer "failure".
  • 10,000 Extra Votes Added in Nebraska County Another ES&S computer "failure".
  • *** Diebold Inc. gave $411,320 to Republicans and promised "to deliver the Ohio electoral vote to the President"! Also, please watch this film!
  • Graphical Look at Exit Polls vs. Final Results in Paper vs. Non-Paper Ballot States
  • Dems on House Judiciary Comm. ask GAO for Vote Count Investigation!
  • 11,238 More E-Votes Recorded Than Actually Cast in single NC Precinct!
  • 70,000 Votes "Discovered" in Broward County, FL; Extra Presidential votes "show up", results of local initiative overturned after find! Software glitch in counting machine blamed.
  • 4,258 votes for Bush in single OH precinct where only 638 votes total were cast!
  • NC election officials admit 4500 (out of 7000) votes lost entirely on a single E-voting machine due to memory limit on machine; Same machines used in OH!
  • Huge discordance between "Expected Votes" (based on party registration) and "Actual Votes" in Florida, but only occuring in counties with Diebold/ES&S optical scan counting machines!
  • 11/4/04: BlackBoxVoting.org announces "fraud took place in the 2004 election through electronic voting machines"; Launches massive "FOIA" petition for audit logs and other material.
  • 11/2/04: BlackBoxVoting.Org issues urgent notice to disconnect modems from E-Voting machines after 3 hours of data discovered deleted by "hackers" on Washington state primary E-Vote machine audit log!
  • 8/14/03: Diebold CEO says he's "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year" in Republican Fundraising Letter. More on Diebold here.
  • Latest Notable ACTION ITEMS: (Most Recent at Top)

  • Tell The Boston Globe to Investigate and Report NOW too! Easy Email link provided!
  • Rally in Columbus, OH! Saturday Dec. 4th! Be there! And pass it on!
  • Tell The NY Times to Investigate and Report NOW! Easy Email link provided for you!
  • Greens/Libertarians Meet OH Recount Cost Goal! Now Seek Funds for "Mobilization" and Volunteers to be "Recount Witnesses"!
  • SEEKING PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONAL HELP/RESOURCES
  • ONLINE PETITIONS/EMAIL DRIVES YOU MUST SIGN NOW...
    · MoveOn.org's ONLINE PETITION
    · Election Protection/People for the American Way's ONLINE EMAIL DRIVE
    · Act for Change/Working Assets ONLINE EMAIL DRIVE
  • · DTMagazine.com's ONLINE PETITION


  • >>> Click here to DISPLAY ALL ACTION ITEMS <<<
  • >>> Click here to SHOW ONLY LATEST ACTION ITEMS <<<
  • Your help is needed to look at Florida and the Exit Polls and a few other items!
  • More Action Items on WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP from Citizen's Alliance for Secure Elections
  • Terry McAuliffe has asked for feedback...Watch This Film Now! And then pass the link to everyone you know!
  • Email everyone you know about these various items! Post about them on other blogs, bulletin boards and chat forums! Point folks to specific articles, this blog, or specific articles that we're linking to! The story needs to be told before "conventional wisdom" gets even more hardened!
  • Stop by BlackBoxVoting.org right now to see if you can help answer their urgent call for Attorneys, Computer Specialists and/or Donations to aid their current investigation!
  • 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...




    By Brad Friedman on 11/6/2004 12:26pm PT  

    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.




    To the Owners Go the Spoils.
    By Brad Friedman on 11/6/2004 11:31am PT  

    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:

    As more and more analysis is done of what may (or may not) be the most massive election fraud in the history of the world, however, it's critical that we keep the largest issue at the forefront at all time: Why are We The People allowing private, for-profit corporations, answerable only to their officers and boards of directors, and loyal only to agendas and politicians that will enhance their profitability, to handle our votes?
    ...
    About two years ago, I wrote a story, "If You Want To Win An Election, Just Control The Voting Machines," that exposed how Senator Chuck Hagel had, before stepping down and running for the US Senate in Nebraska, been the head of the voting machine company (now ES&S) that had just computerized Nebraska's vote. The Washington Post (1/13/1997) said Hagel's "Senate victory against an incumbent Democratic governor was the major Republican upset in the November election." According to Bev Harris, Hagel won virtually every demographic group, including many largely black communities that had never before voted Republican. Hagel was the first Republican in 24 years to win a Senate seat in Nebraska, nearly all on unauditable machines he had just sold the state. And in all probability, Hagel will run for President in 2008.

    In another, later article I wrote at the request of MoveOn.org and which they mailed to their millions of members, I noted that in --another state that went all-electronic-- "USA Today reported on Nov. 3, 2002, 'In Georgia, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll shows Democratic Sen. Max Cleland with a 49%-to-44% lead over Republican Rep. Saxby Chambliss.' Cox News Service, based in Atlanta, reported just after the election (Nov. 7) that, "Pollsters may have goofed" because 'Republican Rep. Saxby Chambliss defeated incumbent Democratic Sen. Max Cleland by a margin of 53 to 46 percent. The Hotline, a political news service, recalled a series of polls Wednesday showing that Chambliss had been ahead in none of them.'" Nearly every vote in the state was on an electronic machine with no audit trail.
    ...
    In the years since those first articles appeared, Bev Harris has published her book on the subject (Black Box Voting), including the revelation of her finding the notorious "Rob Georgia" folder on Diebold's FTP site just after Cleland's loss there...
    ...
    Congressman Rush Holt introduced a bill into Congress requiring a voter-verified paper ballot be produced by all electronic voting machines, and it's been co-sponsored by a majority of the members of the House of Representatives. The two-year battle fought by Dennis Hastert and Tom DeLay to keep it from coming to a vote, [insured] that there will be no possible audit of the votes of about a third of the 2004 electorate.




    A Haunting July 2003 Report...
    By Brad Friedman on 11/6/2004 10:05am PT  

    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:

    Imagine then if it were possible to somehow subvert the voting process itself in such a way that you could steal elections without anybody knowing.

    Imagine for example if you could:

    - secure control of the companies that make the voting machines and vote counting software;
    - centralise vote counting systems, and politicise their supervision;
    - legislate for the adoption of such systems throughout your domain, and provide large amounts of money for the purchase of these systems;
    - establish systems of vote counting that effectively prevent anybody on the ground in the election at a booth or precinct level - from seeing what is happening at a micro-level;
    - get all the major media to sign up to a single exit-polling system that you also control removing the risk of exit-polling showing up your shenanigans.

    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...




    Troubling Evidence is Beginning to Mount!
    By Brad Friedman on 11/5/2004 5:38pm PT  

    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!:

    Three congressmen sent a letter to the General Accounting Office on Friday requesting an investigation into irregularities with voting machines used in Tuesday's elections.

    The congressmen, Democratic members of the House of Representatives from Florida, New York and Michigan, cited a number of incidents that came to light in the days after the election. One was a glitch in Ohio that caused a memory card reader made by Danaher Controls to give George W. Bush 3,893 more votes than he should have received. Another was a problem with memory cards in North Carolina that caused machines made by UniLect to lose 4,500 votes cast on e-voting machines. The votes were lost when the number of votes cast on the machines exceeded the capacity of the memory cards.

    There were also problems with machines that counted absentee ballots in Florida. Software made by Election Systems & Software began subtracting votes when totals surpassed 32,000. Officials said the problem affected only certain countywide races on one of the last pages of the ballot. Elections officials knew about the problem two years ago, but the company failed to fix the software before the election this year.

    Reports from voters in Florida and Ohio also indicated that some of them had problems voting for the candidate of their choice. When they tried to vote for John Kerry, they said, the machine either wouldn't register the vote at all or would indicate on the review page that the vote was cast for Bush instead.

    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!)




    By Brad Friedman on 11/5/2004 3:13pm PT  

    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:

    A systems software glitch in Craven County's electronic voting equipment is being blamed for a vote miscount that, when corrected, changed the outcome of at least one race in Tuesday's election.

    Then, in the rush to make right the miscalculation that swelled the number of votes for president here by 11,283 more votes than the total number cast, a human mistake further delayed accurate totals for the 40,534 who voted.
    ...
    An override, like those occurring when one attempts to save a computer file that already exists, is supposed to prevent double counting, but did not function correctly, [Craven County Elections Director, Tiffiney] Miller said.

    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?!




    What a Difference a Day Makes.
    By Brad Friedman on 11/5/2004 11:53am PT  

    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:

    Franklin County, OH: Gahanna 1-B Precinct
    638 TOTAL BALLOTS CAST

    US Senator:
    Fingerhut (D) - 167 votes
    Voinovich (R) - 300 votes

    US President:
    Kerry (D) - 260 votes
    Bush (R) - 4,258 votes

    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...




    Massive 'Freedom of Information Act' Filing Now Under Way!
    Pay Attention!
    By Brad Friedman on 11/4/2004 9:19pm PT  

    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:

    THURSDAY Nov. 4 2004: If you are concerned about what happened Tuesday, Nov. 2, you have found a home with our organization. Help America Audit.

    Black Box Voting has taken the position that fraud took place in the 2004 election through electronic voting machines. We base this on hard evidence, documents obtained in public records requests, inside information, and other data indicative of manipulation of electronic voting systems. What we do not know is the specific scope of the fraud. We are working now to compile the proof, based not on soft evidence --- red flags, exit polls --- but core documents obtained by Black Box Voting in the most massive Freedom of Information action in history.

    We need: Lawyers to enforce public records laws. Some counties have already notified us that they plan to stonewall by delaying delivery of the records. We need citizen volunteers for a number of specific actions. We need computer security professionals willing to GO PUBLIC with formal opinions on the evidence we provide, whether or not it involves DMCA complications. We need funds to pay for copies of the evidence.

    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.




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