Guest Blogged by David Cobb.

Mr. Cobb's first subject:

The growing "New Voting Rights Movement" demands that we fully "democratize" US elections by implementing the Voter Bill of Rights. (This will necessarily include a discussion of the need for multi-party democracy and why the progressive movement actually *needs* the Green Party).

Hocking County, Ohio's recount whistleblower, Sherole Eaton --- who was recently fired without explanation in the wake of having reported on a voting company employee tampering with the hard-drive of a central tabulating computer and offering "cheat-sheets" prior to the recount of the November 2004 Presidential Election --- received some support yesterday from both a Court Order and several dozen backers at a dramatic Board of Elections meeting.

Attorney Cliff Arnebeck, one of the attorneys who filed a case in Ohio to have the November Election results set aside due to evidence of fraud, served County Board of Elections officials with a court order mandating Eaton not be replaced until further court orders are issued.

"Yesterday was the first of what I hope are many victories for Sherole," Karla VanBibber told us via Email earlier today. VanBibber, who is Sherole's niece attended the meeting, and described the moment when Arnebeck arrived with the court order: "The expressions on the board members faces when given the court injunction was priceless."

VanBibber also gave us her take on the reactions from the Board Members in the face of questions from supporters about Eaton's dismissal, which she says is illegal under Ohio law. "Their sputtering and faultering and lying was unbelievable," she said. "It's amazing how the arrogance we see in the Bush administrations has filtered down to the local level as it has."

Apparently, they won't be giving up the fight for Eaton, who is recovering from recent brain surgery, but attended the hearing "in apparently good spirits and seemingly good health - full of energy and zeal and very appreciative of the support," according to Evan Davis's detailed account of the meeting at Ray Beckerman's blog.

Said VanBibber, "We knocked them down a few notches yesterday, we won't give up until they're on their knees and Sherole has her job back."

Eaton's firing, and her dramatic appearance at another recent Board of Election hearing, just two days surgery, was covered in this previous BRAD BLOG report.

Hocking County's Logan Daily News also had a report today on yesterday's meeting. "[Sherole] was so happy this morning when she received her paper," VanBibber said, "she came over and was so excited and for the first time in awhile was optomistic."

Logan Daily News described Arnebeck's dramatic appearance at the meeting...

In an open letter to John Tanner, Chief of the Voting Section of the Dept. of Justice, Bob Fitrakis of the Columbus Free Press responds to the unrequested and blatant whitewash "report" that the DoJ published last week on disenfranchisement (or a lack thereof, as the the DoJ "report" characterized it) in Franklin County, OH.

Fitrakis has been on the ground since Day 1 (and before) in Ohio, and knows whereof he speaks.

The more one looks at the outrageous "report" from the DoJ, the clearer it becomes what a despicable obfuscation that particular piece of propaganda was meant to be. For our money, the DoJ "report" represents perhaps one of the most chilling set of tea-leaves we've seen so far as an indication of just how cooked this DoJ now is, and to what lengths they are prepared to go in order to mislead the American public and media away from the truth.

We're not particularly prone to hyperbole, but we find this small indication of what the DoJ is now made of to be particularly troubling. Anyway, read Fitrakis' rebuttal to get a sense of how outrageous that "report" actually was...

There is almost no other way to put this, but we are simply floored by the report just released by the Department of Justice concerning the Franklin County, OH elections.

If there ever was a report which could be called a whitewash, this would be the very dictionary definition --- with the emphasis on WHITE.

The DoJ four-page report, based on dodgy figures, uninvestigated charges and undocumented information and details, simply concludes that "Franklin County assigned voting machines in a non-discriminatory manner", that "no violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act" was found and they "are thus closing our file."

In truth, a detailed analysis of the flaws in this report, and an unwaivering condemnation of this reprehensible piece of "official documentation" is needed. But as folks are disappearing for the Holiday Weekend, we're afraid any analysis we took the time to compile right now would likely get lost in the holiday news-hole. So, for the moment, we're gonna dump these documents here and leave the detailed analysis and shouts of outrage and condemnation to BRAD BLOG readers. If we can follow up a bit more after the holiday, we will.

Essentially, John Conyers' office requested a criminal investigation by the Department of Justice investigation back in January on a number of very troubling matters related to Ohio's 2004 Presidential Election on behalf of the minority members of the Judiciary Committee. (Letter requesting a Special Prosecutor from the DoJ is here [PDF]. Coverage of it by RAW STORY is here, and BRAD BLOG's own reporting at the time, which led to one of the complaints in the letter to the DoJ, is here.)

Amongst the items for which Conyers' January 14, 2005 had requested an investigation at the time --- according to the response to the report Conyers sent on Wednesday --- were "serious charges concerning Voter Intimidation and Misinformation; Improper Purging and other Misconduct; Caging of New Minority Voters; Misuse of HAVA Funds; Tampering of Voting Machinery and Records; Perjury by a County Board of Election Official; and the Misuse of the Great Seal of the United States on Secretary of State Blackwell's Personal Campaign Materials."

While no "substantive response to the many instances of voting irregularities and civil rights violations in the state of Ohio" about which Conyers' submitted evidence has been forthcoming by the DoJ since that January letter, apparently someone within the DoJ took it upon themselves to conduct --- and as we've said WHITEWASH --- an investigation concerning what happened in just one county in Ohio.

The DoJ's resulting four-page report, conducted by "The Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division" and sent to Franklin County officials on Wednesday, is a masterwork of obfuscation, disinformation, misinformation, smoke and mirrors and out and out lies. And remember, it comes directly from your Department of Justice.

As we've said, a more detailed point-by-point analysis of the outrage is called for. But for now, we feel it's important to get the information out as is so folks can see with their own eyes what has "flabbergasted" Conyers' as according to the response he sent in reply to the DoJ yesterday.

There is, however, at least one paragraph which jumped out at us, but that Conyers' reply does not deal with directly (understandably, frankly, since there is so much to be "flabbergasted" about in this DoJ report!). We feel this one is important to point out as we find it particularly disconcerting for what the future may hold in Ohio [emphasis added]:

Yes, you read that right. Franklin County's "bi-partisan" Board of Election has just now "purged" 114,000 voters from the rolls! Tee-ing things up nicely, it would seem, for many more thousands of voters to find themselves suddenly ineligible to vote when they show up at the polling place in 2006!

Over one hundred thousand voters scrubbed from the voting rolls in just one Ohio County alone by their presumably "bi-partisan" BoE. That, while we have learned over the past several months how these Ohio BoE's are certainly not "bi-partisan" as Blackwell and their other defenders continue to maintain since a) There are "Democrats" on these boards who are specifically plants, in other words, "Democrats" in name only and b) All BoE members serve at the partisan pleasure of the distinctly partisan Secretary of State and Bush/Cheney Co-Chair, J. Kenneth Blackwell, who has routinely threatened BoE members with dismissal if and when they refuse to follow his personal partisan edicts.

But that's just one of the outrages. We'll let Conyers' handle a few more. Here is his response to the DoJ report first, followed by the complete report itself by John Tanner, the Chief of the DoJ's Voting Section. Prepare to be appalled...

Feeling scandal fatigue towards what is increasingly being revealed to be an indescribably filthy Republican Party / Bush Administration? Too bad, get ready for a bit more.

In just one of the increasingly too-many items that BRAD BLOG has been unable to find the time to investigate properly and report on of late, is the story of political operatives Sproul & Associates and the enormous amount of money they were paid by the Republican Party before, during and after the 2004 Presidential Election for services-still-unknown.

We had received some of the early tips on this matter based on the tireless digging of John Brakey (he, of the similarly under-reported Arizona Electoral Fraud "Rosetta Stone" investigation) but were unable to find the time to investigate and report on it properly. Thankfully, Mark Crispin Miller was able to find the time and has filed his first report on the matter today.

Miller does a fine job of making sense of a very complex set of numbers, representing millions of dollars paid to the firm of the former head of the Arizona Republican Party and the Arizona Christian Coalition.

Those numbers have since been changed, re-dated, re-apportioned, re-described, re-catagorized, disappeared and otherwise gamed in their filing of same by the RNC to the Federal Elections Commission since the November election, and even within the last few weeks!

Those of you paying close attention may remember former employees of Sproul's firm, Voters Outreach of America, alleging that the firm had shredded thousands of voter registration forms in a number of states prior to the election. Democratic voter registration forms only, mind you. They are reportedly now under criminal investigation in the state of Oregon related to such charges.

In any case, if you're not too exhausted already by the myriad other Criminal Enterprises being revealed daily as Business-as-Usual by George W. Bush and his Republican Party win-at-all-costs Partners-in-Crime, you may want to get a load of this one.

Is there no end to the corruption these guys are capable of?!

At least we can rest easy knowing that Bush didn't get a blowjob in the oval office (that we know of). If that had been the case, we're certain that Congress and the American Corporate Media would finally have found something criminal enough to merit a thorough investigation on behalf of the American People.

Long Live the Bloggers!

The liars and hucksters of the "American Center for Voting Rights" are at it again.

As those who remember our series exposing this phony Republican front-group will recall, the ACVR calls themselves a "non-partisan" group and claims a tax-exempt status in exchange for it.

They are, however, comprised of two key high-level GOP operatives: Mark F. "Thor" Hearne, the General Counsel for Bush/Cheney '04, Inc., and Jim Dyke, the Communications Director for the RNC.

ACVR has yet to produce their legal 501(c)3 paperwork --- which allows them tax-exempt status --- to us as they had promised, and when Thor Hearne testified at a Congressional hearing just three days after the creation of his phony organization in March, he identified himself only as a "long time voting rights advocate". Apparently he forgot to mention his or Dyke's direct connection with Bush/Cheney and the RNC.

In response to today's long-await report, "Democracy at Risk: The 2004 Election in Ohio", from the DNC on the problems, including massive voter disenfranchisement and other chicanery in Ohio during the 2004 Presidential Election, the ACVR has just released another smokescreen in favor of Voter Disenfranchisement, this time in the form of a Press Release in response to the DNC report.

Get a load (and we do mean load) of this:

It must be made clear that these guys are snake-oil salesman of the highest order. Note how they disingenously make the point to appear as if they are in general agreement with the DNC report, but quickly slide the focus elsewhere, away from Ohio where the disenfranchisement and electoral chicanery was at maximum impact courtesy of a crooked Secretary of State and Ohio Bush/Cheney Co-Chair (both in the name of J. Kenneth Blackwell). In Ohio, Blackwell still refuses any real investigations of the machinery or of the criminal allegations.

From there, the press release slithers predictably over to the notion of voter fraud which, by our count, has resulted in two --- that's two --- cases in the entire state of Ohio of anyone fraudulently casting a vote last November. Contrast that to the thousands of documented cases of provisional ballots discarded, electronic votes flipped from Kerry to Bush, hours-long lines and too few machines in Democratic precincts only, and legitimate voters surprised to find they'd been purged entirely from the voting rolls.

(CORRECTION: It was not two cases of voter fraud in the state of Ohio as we originally suggested above. We've found the information we had recalled, but couldn't find at the time we filed this report originally. According to a June 15, 2005 story headlined "Rampant Voter Fraud a Myth" from Cleveland Plain Dealer, the actual number of fraudulent votes in the state of Ohio was not two. It was four. The article begins: "Of 9,078,728 votes cast in Ohio in 2002 and 2004, only four were fraudulent, according to a new review by a pair of voter advocacy groups." The BRAD BLOG regrets the error.)

Nonetheless, as these operatives move to encourage the enactment of Voter ID laws which will disproportionately disenfranchise millions of minority, elderly and urban Americans (read: Democratic voters), through backchannel political manipulation, they continue to misrepresent their phony "non-partisan" creds. More from Dyke's release...

In this 40th Anniversary year of the Voting Rights Act, there are few Americans as despicable as those who use the cynical veneer of presenting themselves as "Voting Rights Advocates" when they are anything but. The are, in fact, the complete antithesis of those brave advocates and activists who have given so much --- including their lives --- in the fight for a right to vote in America. Not to mention those Americans who have been sent to fight and die right now around the globe under the premise of "spreading democracy" by the paymasters of Hearne and Dyke of the ACVR.

The ACVR clearly has both the money and political pull, however, to make great strides in this area. Real Voting Rights groups were not called as witnesses by Rep. Bob Ney's (R-OH) trumped up Congressional Hearing on the Ohio Irregularities, but Hearne was. That, just three days after his organization appeared on the World Wide Web with a snailmail address at a P.O. Box in a UPS Mailbox Etc. store in Houston, TX, which nobody for the organization has yet to claim as their own. (Hearne is from St. Louis, MO, Dyke now lives in North Carolina).

As well, the cooked Baker/Carter Commission on Election Reform --- headed appallingly by Bush Family crony, James Baker, who successfully ensured that American citizens would not be allowed to have their votes counted in 2000 --- has Thor Hearne sitting as a member of their "Advisory Panel". No real Voting Rights groups have been invited to sit on that commission or its advisory panel.

It pays to have unscrupulous friends in high places.

And, just in case you have any further questions about the sort of unrepentant, un-American, opportunistic phonies these guys really are, take a look at this short video clip --- from ACVR's own website --- of Hearne testifying to Ney's committee last March wherein he avers that it was John Kerry's team that systematically attempted to misinform voters about when Election Day actually was.

Perhaps this is one of the letters (courtesy of FreePress.org's book "Did George W. Bush Steal America's 2004 Election: Essential Documents") that Hearne suggests, in his video testimony, that the Kerry campaign was sending out to trick voters into not voting:

These guys --- both the sort who would send the letter above and those who make up the ACVR --- are vermin. And it all serves as a good reminder of why it's so important to continue everything that we're doing here. There is a special place in hell waiting for these creeps. May God save America from cretins like these.

For more information on the "non-partisan" tax-exempt ACVR scam and the snakeoil salesmen who invented it, Bush/Cheney '04 National General Counsel Mark F. "Thor" Hearne and RNC Communications Director Jim Dyke, please see BRAD BLOG's full Special Coverage of the "American Center for Voting Rights" at https://BradBlog.com/ACVR.

We congratulate the Republicans in Washington State for fighting so hard to ensure the accuracy of the election for Governor there. We're glad to see a political party willing to fight for the validity of every vote.

If they had an actual case, however, as the Democrats do in numerous other states where they've failed to fight the way Republicans do for every vote, John Kerry would likely be the President by now.

Nonetheless, here's the key information on the GOP's resounding defeat as reported by today's Seattle Times...

So. No fraud found in Washington State. For the Governor's race anyway. We suppose the only thing that Wingnut Tinfoil Hat Wearers will now be able to use in order to counter the calls for a similar investigation of the Presidential Election in states where the votes were never actually counted (like J. Kenneth Blackwell's Ohio for example) will be those slashed tires in Wisconsin.

Beyond that, we're certain those GOP'ers who were outraged by what they thought they saw in WA will be calling for the same strict standards to be applied to the rest of the country any moment now. Right?

The mighty Bob Fitrakis of the Columbus Free Press --- responsible for boatloads of tremendous investigative reporting on the ground from Ohio in Election 2004 and one of the participants in the Moss v. Bush lawsuit seeking to set aside the election results in the Buckeye State --- has been mostly quiet of late while working on an upcoming book on all of the above to be published soon.

Today, however, it looks like he's unleashed quite a bit of what he hasn't been able to report on over the last several weeks while hard at work writing the historical record. His new article on the "rise of the right wing juggernaut in Ohio" sheds fresh light on several key points on the insidious Election Night machinations, and even those to this day, of Ohio's Election Viceroy, Sec. of State J. Kenneth Blackwell (also the Co-Chair of Ohio's Committee to Re-Elect Bush/Cheney '04).

Amongst the several noteworthy new items Fitrakis catches up on today is some inside skinny on the now-infamous Warren County lockdown on Election Night when an apparently phony "Homeland Security Alert" led Board of Elections officials to issue an unprecedented scheme that shut out all press and witnesses from late-night vote counting in the county's election center.

Free Press has received an insider's account of what happened that night. Here's a sample:

As well, in a section of the article sub-headed as "Whitewash with a black face", Fitrakis connects a few more interesting dots on the phony GOP front-group busy conning America and hoping to derail true Electoral Reform. Fitrakis ties together the "non-partisan" hoaxsters of the "American Center for Voting Rights" (ACVR) --- the group we originally exposed several weeks ago exclusively here --- with some of the other folks who testified recently at Rep. Bob Ney's hastily convened U.S. House Administrative Hearings on Electoral problems in OH...

RAW STORY breaks open the Carter/Baker Election Reform Commission hoodwink!

Frontpage headline screamer:

Full story now here.

From RAW Reporter Larisa Alexandrovna's Exclusive:

• Deep GOP, partisan and Voting Machine Company entanglement in formation of Commission!
• Unauthorized use of the Carter Center name by the Commission on all of its literature though Carter Center says they will have no involvement whatsoever with Commission!
• Commission hold hearings in separate room from audience who may only watch via closed-circuit TV!
• Background security checks required for audience members by Commission, denied by Secret Service!
• As well, BRAD BLOG has learned that the Commission has given the reason for separating audience from Commission is due to Secret Service security concerns. However, as of yet, we have been unable to confirm any such Secret Service request that any such directive came from them! (Warren County anyone?)

Velvet Revolution (an organization comprised of nearly 100 real Election Reform and Voting Rights groups and co-founded by BRAD BLOG author, Brad Friedman) issued a press release on March 30th, calling for Baker to immediately step down from this commission.

VR has now launched an action to allow citizens to contact Carter and the rest of the Commission to let them know we've had enough boondoggling of our democracy! Click here to send Email to Carter & the Commission! Say no to Baker & his anti-Reform cronies!

For more information on the "non-partisan" tax-exempt ACVR scam and the snakeoil salesmen who invented it, Bush/Cheney '04 National General Counsel Mark F. "Thor" Hearne and RNC Communications Director Jim Dyke, please see BRAD BLOG's full Special Coverage of the "American Center for Voting Rights" at https://BradBlog.com/ACVR.

In a letter sent yesterday by Congressman John Conyers, the ranking minority member of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, to former-President Jimmy Carter, Conyers has expressed his "strong opposition" to the "conflicting interest" of having Bush/Cheney loyalist, James A. Baker, III serve as the Co-Chair of a recently seated blue-ribbon commission set to investigate Election 2004!

Carter has been named as Co-Chair, along with Baker, on the secretly convened and recently announced commission to investigate problems in Election 2004 and to make recommendations on changes needed to improve accuracy, confidence, transparency and inclusion in the American Electoral System.

From Conyers' letter to Carter [PDF]...

In the letter, Conyers also calls upon Carter to include true Voting Rights and Election Reform advocacy groups such as Velvet Revolution on the commission which is currently staffed instead by politicos and Bush/Cheney/RNC cronies.

ALSO: The BRAD BLOG can now confirm that Mark F. (Thor) Hearne, II, the National Attorney for Bush/Cheney '04 Inc. and leader of the recently invented, phony GOP front group calling themselves the "non-partisan" American Center for Voting Rights (ACVR) has been seated on the Academic Advisory board for this commission!

The fix, as we've been warning for some time, is clearly --- and dangerously --- in with this commission!

For more on the Bush/Cheney/RNC-run ACVR and how they are tied directly to the Baker/Carter Commission, please see the BRAD BLOG Special Coverage page on the developing ACVR scam.

UPDATE: The letter from Conyers to Carter is now posted here [PDF]. As well, Conyers has just blogged on the topic, and added even stronger language for his concern of Baker on this commission. From the just posted item at ConyersBlog:

...MORE WILL BE COMING ON BRAD BLOG CONCERNING THE BLUE-RIBBON COMMISSION, ITS MAKE-UP, AND THE INSIDIOUS GAMING OF ITS MANDATE...STAY TUNED...

For more information on the "non-partisan" tax-exempt ACVR scam and the snakeoil salesmen who invented it, Bush/Cheney '04 National General Counsel Mark F. "Thor" Hearne and RNC Communications Director Jim Dyke, please see BRAD BLOG's full Special Coverage of the "American Center for Voting Rights" at https://BradBlog.com/ACVR.

It'll be little surprise to BRAD BLOG readers who are by now aware of the phony "non-partisan" "voting rights" group recently created by high-level Bush/Cheney/RNC officials, but the coordinated strategy for smoke-screening what really happened in Election 2004 now seems to be in full swing.

In an Email sent yesterday by the RNC Political Director, Mike DuHaime, members of the huge RNC Email list are pointed to the 31-page hoax report [PDF] created by the three day old Talon News-like, tax-exempt, self-proclaimed, "voting rights" group, American Center for Voting Rights (ACVR).

The ACVR is anything but "non-partisan" and their so-far known ringleaders are actually Mark F. (Thor) Hearne, the National Counsel for Bush/Cheney '04 Inc. and his partner-in-crime Jim Dyke, the RNC's Communications Director. (Click here for our Special Coverage page on the ACVR for more details.)

The ACVR report was presented by the GOP front group to Congress in a U.S. House Adminstrative Committee hearing on the Election Mess in Ohio. The then-three-day old group, masquerading as a "voting rights" organization, was the only such group called as witnesses in the hearings convened by the committee's Chairman, Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH).

As well, the creation of the ACVR seems to be smartly-timed with the creation of a supposedly "bi-partisan" blue-ribbon commission convened to study and recommend solutions for Electoral Problems in 2004. The Commission was seated in secret, announced on Thursday at 2pm, and lauded in a Press Release published by ACVR just 24 minutes later!

The commission, as announced, is set to be co-chaired by James A. Baker, III, the mastermind and architect of the 2000 Bush/Cheney strategy to ensure that votes were not counted in the state of Florida. The other co-chair is former-President Jimmy Carter who led a similar commission with respected elder statesman, former-President Gerald Ford after the 2000 Election debacle led by Baker on behalf of the Bush Family.

The RNC email, sent to believers on Tuesday, described the ACVR report as "document[ing] massive amounts of voter intimidation by Democrats and their third-party allies".

Of course, the report doesn't. Neither does it document the thousands of verified instances of real election fraud, irregularities, intimidation, disenfranchisment, miscounted and uncounted votes that occurred in Ohio and elsewhere in the last general election. Many of the real documented reports of evidence of went actually went wrong last November are contained in a 102-page report submitted to Congress after months of investigation by the minority staff of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee.

But in GOP Land, where black is white, wrong is right and where Republicans seem to have divorced themselves from reality...simply saying something makes it so. The Email and the link to the report is even now being circulated widely on Rightwing blogs and "centrist" newspapers and news services.

Here is a copy of the disingenous and misleading email sent yesterday by the RNC Political Director about the "non-partisan" report created by the RNC Communications Director and Bush/Cheney '04 Inc.'s lead attorney...

The National General Counsel for Bush/Cheney '04 Inc., Mark F. (Thor) Hearne, II gave testimony on behalf of his three-day old "American Center for Voting Rights" (ACVR) last Monday at a U.S. Congressional Hearing. He represented the only "Voting Rights" group at the hearing --- called by Republican Bob Ney (R-FL), Chairman of the U.S. House Administration Committee --- purportedly investigating the '04 Ohio Presidential Election mess.

Hearne didn't bother to mention that he worked for Bush/Cheney '04 as their top attorney in his testimony. We're not positive, but fairly certain that no high-level Kerry/Edwards employees were invited to testify, whether they represented a phony "non-partisan" group like the ACVR or not.

Despite the claims of tax-exempt non-partisan status by this Talon News-like outta-nowhere GOP front group, the two known ring-leaders (that we've been able to identify so far) of this phony "Voters Rights" organization masquerading as if they are not-an-insult-to-real-Voters-Rights-groups-everwhere, are both currently veryactive partisans.

Jim Dyke, the group's press spokesman and website administrative and technical contact who, as well as being the 2004 Communications Director for the Republican National Committee, is also a current Fox News GOP Analyst according to Joseph Cannon (though he mentioned to us that, so far, he was unable to confirm that information). He does, however, offer a fine analysis of just one of the likely true missions for this group, and why they have suddenly appeared. And for the record, Cannon made note of this nascient and suspicious ACVR popping up the day before we did!

Meanwhile, Ron Brynaert, a frequent BRAD BLOG commenter, and editor of Why Are We Back in Iraq? has been digging into more on our friend Thor (here and then here) and has uncovered, amongst other chestnuts, Hearne's featured speaking engagement at the Republican National Lawyers Association (RNLA) shindig down at the Florida Chapter's 2005 kick-off on April 14th!

According to the Republican Party-sponsored RNLA's website...

The Coral Gables reception --- where they will no doubt continue the fiction that it was voters not lawyers who who decided the election --- is said to be "free" on the RNLA website! Wanna go and say hello to the non-partisan Thor and his Republican National Lawyers Association friends? The website says, "Please RSVP by emailing despain@republicanlawyer.net or calling 703-719-6335 by April 12th"

We might suggest you actually call or email prior to April 12th, as we have a feeling this "free" event is about to become a very closed-to-the-public event.

For more information on the "non-partisan" tax-exempt ACVR scam and the snakeoil salesmen who invented it, Bush/Cheney '04 National General Counsel Mark F. "Thor" Hearne and RNC Communications Director Jim Dyke, please see BRAD BLOG's full Special Coverage of the "American Center for Voting Rights" at https://BradBlog.com/ACVR.

Thanks to the dilligence and footwork of a few BRAD BLOG readers and foot-soldiers, we are now able to offer an Exclusive photographic look at the location of the mysterious "American Center for Voting Rights" (ACVR)! Or at least a look at the mysterious and unnamed Dallas, TX company who is said by ACVR press spokesman, Jim Dyke, to have developed their website.

After recently reporting that the newly-formed, tax-exempt, "non-partisan", "voters rights" group, calling themselves the ACVR, is apparently little more than a GOP front group run by Dyke (the 2004 Communications Director for the Republican National Committee), Mark F. (Thor) Hearne, II (the National General Counsel for Bush/Cheney '04 Inc.) and others, we sought to learn more about them.

In our exclusive BRAD BLOG interview yesterday with Dyke, the "contact" person for the group --- which suddenly appeared on the Internet last Thursday and was then called to give expert testimony last Monday before a U.S. Congressional House committee on the November Election Irregularties in Ohio --- we had asked Dyke about the location of the ACVR.

The hard-right Republican (responsible, among other things, for posting folks in "Flipper" dolphin costumes at John Kerry events in 2004) instructed us that, though he personally was in Charleston SC, the Dallas TX address on the Internic record for the new group --- the one which shows they just purchased their website domain just last week --- belonged to "the company that designed the website".

Here's the clip from yesterday's interview where we asked about that Dallas TX address on the Internetic record for the AC4VR.com, the group's Internet domain:

We've yet to hear back from Dyke, but by way of a reminder, here again is the screenshot from the ACVR's Internic registration which has, as of this posting, now been locked from public view:

As you'll note, Dyke himself is listed on that record as both the group's "Administrative" and "Technical" contact at the address of "jim@dykeassociates.com".

Further, this morning a BRAD BLOG commenter noted that the Internic record for the domain name of DykeAssociates.com itself shows that the domain was established by Dyke in December of '04. By this afternoon, however, the information from dykeassociates.com's Internic record has also been made private as the one from AC4VR.com. Here is the information available before it was hidden by the owners from public view:

So if Dyke himself is in South Carolina, and his own company is established as being in Washington D.C., who or what is "the company that designed the website" whom Dyke couldn't remember the name of, and who is described as working out of "8409 Pickwick Lane 299" in Dallas TX?

An intrepid BRAD BLOG reader took a field trip to that address this morning to find out for us and has now sent back Exclusive photographs!

Here now --- for the first time on the Internets --- is an Exclusive BRAD BLOG look at "8409 Pickwick Lane 299", the address for the Dallas, TX company who designed the website for the ACVR or --- perhaps even more likely --- the headquarters for the American Center for Voting Rights itself!...

Monday's testimony to a U.S. House Committee by Mark F. (Thor) Hearne, the leader of the American Center for Voting Rights (ACVR) --- who also happens to be the National Counsel for Bush/Cheney '04, Inc. --- has just been added to the website of the "non-partisan", tax-exempt, one-week old "Voting Rights" group.

In his testimony, Hearne failed to mention to the U.S. House members, either his connection to Bush/Cheney or his long roots in the Republican party going back to the Reagan Administration. The testimony was given last Monday to the U.S. House Administration Committee at hearings held on the Ohio Election problems. The hearings to which Hearne was invited were held just 3 business days after the ACVR suddenly appeared for the first time on the Internet...or anywhere else that we've been able to find. More on that here.

In Hearne's testimony, as seen via the page posted today on the ACVR's website [UPDATE 2007: the testimony may now be found here in the Interenet archives, since ACVR has deleted their site], he describes himself as a "a longtime advocate of voter rights and an attorney experience in election law". No mention of his long-term pedigree as a high-level GOP operative...

The rest of his testimony is available at the ACVR website. [UPDATE 2007: ACVR's website has been removed from the Internet, browse their old site here via the Internet Archives.]

Here again is a photo of Hearne taken a few weeks ago at a Republican National Lawyers Association reception in Ohio:

We've learned more about both the mysterious outta-nowhere election experts at the ACVR and Mr. Hearne's "non-partisan" activities which we hope to report later this evening as we've got to do a couple of radio interviews for the next several hours, beginning in just a few minutes.

So check back shortly, and for now...we'll just say...DEVELOPING...

UPDATE: The ACVR National Headquarters! Uncovered! BRAD BLOG has the exclusive photographs!

For more information on the "non-partisan" tax-exempt ACVR scam and the snakeoil salesmen who invented it, Bush/Cheney '04 National General Counsel Mark F. "Thor" Hearne and RNC Communications Director Jim Dyke, please see BRAD BLOG's full Special Coverage of the "American Center for Voting Rights" at https://BradBlog.com/ACVR.

So much crime fighting, so little time. I've fallen desperately behind on posting some of the radio appearances I've done of late. (Along with falling behind on everything else...so my continued apologies for unreplied email, unread comments, and un-everything I wish I had more time in each day for! I'm doing my best however, and will keep chasing to get caught where it's possible.) To make up for the unposted radio spots, here's a collection of some freshly minted ones of which you may choose to listen at your liesure...Or not.

3/23/05: 35 Minutes yesterday on Michelangelo Signorile's Sirius OutQ show. Guest-hosted by our good buddy John Aravosis of AMERICAblog! Good fun this one! Covering just about everything! And, on the usually gay-themed show, John calls me a "heterosexist"! Check it out...Streaming RealPlayer, Windows Media Player, or MP3 Download.

3/23/05: Just over 23 minutes yesterday on Atlanta, Georgia's "Wednesday World Party" on WFRG. On BRAD BLOGGING, Velvet Revolution and Georgia's new return to Jim Crow voter ID laws. Live and local, baby! Streaming RealPlayer, Windows Media Player, or MP3 Download.

3/22/05: 20 minutes from our weekly Tuesday gig with our new buddy, Don Grady of Louisiana Live. Always fun. On the latest BRAD BLOG goings on, Raymond Lemme and more... Streaming RealPlayer, Windows Media Player, or MP3 Download.

3/21/05: 30 easy-goin' minutes from a 3/21/05 interview on Guy Rathbun's KCBX show, "An Evening With..." In this case, it was an evening with yours truly. On VR et al. I think it was a nice interview. Enjoyed it very much. Guy is good. The show won't actually air until 3/30/05, but Guy was kind enough to post the recorded interview on his archives today. So kind, in fact, that I'll let him us to the bandwidth for the MP3 of the interview.

3/21/05: About 15 minutes last Monday on Lila Garrett's Connect the Dots show on KPFK, Pacifica Radio's Los Angeles affiliate. On Velvet Revolution, and Los Angeles registrar Connie McCormack's fight to keep her best friend --- who sells machines for Diebold in Southern California --- in da money. Streaming RealPlayer, Windows Media Player, or MP3 Download.