It should be an interesting afternoon. I'll be speaking on a panel titled "Have the media undermined our democracy?" tomorrow (Saturday) at CA Common Cause's "L.A. Media Reform Summit" in Pasadena.

If you can't make it, here's my written testimony in response to the panel's topic: YES!!!!!

If you're in the SoCal 'hood and can make it, please come on by and say hello! The panel I'm on (with Democratic Congresswoman Hilda Solis, National Hispanic Media Coalition organizer Alex Nogales, USC journalism professor Jonathan Taplin, and Pasadena Weekly Editor Kevin Uhrich) begins at 1:45pm, but the opening salvo comes at 1pm from FCC commish Jonathan Adelstein. There some other interesting folks speaking throughout the day as well, including our good friend and great patriot, Bree Walker.

Joe Piasaki at Pasadena Weekly has good advanced coverage with the latest guest list.

More info, sign-up details, and a slightly outdated Guest List can be read here. The event is at: California Institute Of Technology, Beckman Institute, 400 S. Wilson, Pasadena, CA.

Post-Conference Update: I think the conference went very well, in many regards. Will try to get some video up shortly so you can decide for yourself...

[Updated post-show]

The good folks at L.A.'s Pacifica Radio affiliate, KPFK 90.7 FM, have asked me to drop in today from 2p-3p PT to host a "Special Hour of Election Year Coverage."

As you may have guessed, we'll be looking less at the "horse race" and much more at the "track conditions" today. We'll also be giving away a few DVD's of Uncounted to callers, chatting with a few special guests if we have time, and taking your calls and questions --- hopefully lots of 'em --- at: 818-985-5735.

I don't know that I'll have Internet access in the studio, but you can use this item as an Open Thread to talk about me behind my back during the show if you wish.

Tune in live from 2p-3p PT (5p-6p ET) on air in Los Angeles at 90.7 FM, in Santa Barbara at 98.7 FM, or listen live online right here.

Post-Show Update: It was a jam-packed, fast-paced hour! Featuring the latest on the dopes at Sequoia Voting Systems, a quick interview with Matthew Segal of Student Assoc. of Voter Empowerment (SAVE), call-ins from the "Diebold Document Whistleblower" Steve Heller, Tom Courbat of Riverside County, CA, and SAVE R VOTE, L.A. County's Judy Alter of Protect California Ballots, and tons of calls from listeners. Great fun. Thanks to the folks at KPFK. Hope they'll have me back in the future.

Show archive: You can download the MP3 (appx. 55 mins), or listen online here...

I'm in Phoenix tonight to appear at a Q&A, along with filmmaker David Earnhardt, following a screening of Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections.

The event is sponsored by KPHX 1480 and will be hosted by their own Cynthia Black of ActionPoint. If you're within spitting distance of Scottsdale/Phoenix, come on by and spit on us at 7:15pm @ Harkins Camelview 5 in Scottsdale. More details and advanced tickets right here...

(As ever, we're on our own dime, so if you can help with gas money we'll take it! Here's our latest cool fundraiser premium offers which include a copy of the Uncounted DVD, signed by the filmmaker, for folks who contribute $50 or more!)

I'll be appearing at a Q&A, along with filmmaker David Earnhardt, after a screening of Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections tonight in Tucson, AZ. As an added bonus, I'm told the blogging fools of Drinking Liberally Tucson will also be gathering after all of that to keep the party going.

If you're anywhere in the hood, please come on by, see a great film, and say hello! Screening begins at 7:30pm at the Loft Cinema , 3233 E Speedway Blvd. in Tucson. More details here....

I'll be in Phoenix/Scottsdale on Thursday night for another such screening and Q&A, this one sponsored by KPHX 1480/NovaM and hosted by ActionPoint's lovely Cynthia Black. Details on the Phoenix screening (7:15pm @ Harkins Camelview 5 in Scottsdale) right here...

(Gas is expensive these days. So our BRAD BLOG fundraiser continues. Please help support our work, and receive your own collector's edition copy of the Uncounted DVD, signed by filmmaker Earnhardt, as thanks! Just Donate $50 or more online right here! To do it via snail mail, see the address in the blue form on the right side of this page.)

[Updated Post-Show. Audio now available below...]

During my regular weekly Friday guest appearance on the syndicated Peter B. Collins Show at 5pm PT tonight (that's 6pm in Albuquerque), we were joined by guests...

• Laura MacCallum (now-resigned KKOB reporter who broke the Heather Wilson Vote-Buying stories before they were spiked by her own station after complaints from Wilson)
• Gov. David Cargo (former Republican NM Governor, one of several officials who made the initial allegations)
• David Iglesias (the former US Attorney from NM who was fired in the U.S. Attorney Purge after receiving inappropriate phone-calls from Heather Wilson, and Pete Domenici was not able to make it after all)

As you may have guessed, there continues to be much developing on this story. The trick will be continuing to cover it all as I must head out to the road again beginning tomorrow, for a couple of weeks. As always, I'll do our best, even from there, to continue coverage. Your help is much appreciated! (See bottom of this post for one way you can help us immediately!)

POST-SHOW UPDATE: Was a great hour, I think. Both MacCallum and Cargo did a great job of covering the meat and potatoes of it all, along with the always top-notch PBC. I was on live from the California State Ronald Reagan building downtown where I just finished attending and testifying at a hearing on the L.A. County "Double Bubble" ballot debacle. More on that when I can catch my breath (which you'll see I'm quite out of, at the beginning of the hour).

Here's the full hour, which is actually 42 minutes with commercials removed (courtesy of Green960's podcast archive.) Download MP3, or listen online right here...

Tom Herman of Vocalo.org (a project of Chicago's National Public Radio) had some good questions about how votes are counted in Illinois, and elsewhere, over the weekend. I tried to give him some good answers. I believe it was a very good, sober discussion on these questions, and one that might come in handy tomorrow and beyond.

Appx. 14 mins, download MP3 or listen online right here...

Before I became a real newsman, by the name of Brad Friedman, I played a fake newsman by the name of "Brad Friedman." The results were startlingly similar.

Before we get to this week's Super Duper Tsunami Bloody Tuesday, I thought it might be nice to have a smile before the storm and look back at Super Tuesday 2000. Back when things were still funny.

That year, on March 11th, I headed out to my polling place, with a video camera, as "Brad Friedman," one of the characters I played for a bunch of years on stage in a live comedy show that I co-produced here in Los Angeles called CRIME SCENE. (You can poke around and find some fun stuff to use against me in the old archives here.)

As you'll see in the following (hopefully) amusing video report, some of the candidate names were similar that year. And, as you'll see, then, as now, the line between fake reporting and real reporting was perilously thin. Enjoy...

The BRAD BLOG is four years old today! Though it feels like 40 for some reason.

If you're in the mood to leave us a much-needed birthday gift, we'll happily and gratefully accept it right here.

If you're in the mood to really make this year "count", please consider creating an automatic monthly support subscription of any $ amount you wish. It'll take you about 60 seconds. See the blue form on the right side of this page to set it up quickly.

We'll send a gift (we've got a number of cool premiums we'll contact you about) to anyone who signs up for $10 or more per month.

NOTE: I'll be "celebrating" by driving back up to Northern California for the bulk of the day, to speak this weekend at an alternative media conference in Santa Cruz. So I'll be "off the grid" until later tonight. If you're near Santa Cruz, please come on by if you can! There will be a bunch of great folks there, including (ironically enough) a panel I'll be speaking on Friday night, along with Elizabeth Kucinich and Elizabeth de la Vega (author of The U.S. v. George W. Bush). While I've spoken to both Elizabeths on the phone previously, I'll look forward to meeting them in person. Especially now!

Blogged by Brad from the road...

The Grand Lake Theater marquee in Oakland last Thursday Night, for the screening of UNCOUNTED: The New Math of American Elections...

More photos as I can get time to add them once I'm back home and/or off the road for a bit. Though here's a very quick clip from inside the theater --- with a great crowd turning out! --- during the screening...

Was great to meet so many of you there and at the Sacramento screenings on Tuesday! You are my heroes. Thanks for coming out! Buy a DVD and spread the word in your town...

UPDATE: Photos from the Sacramento screening, now posted by Bill of Sacramento for Democracy.

-- By Brad Friedman, The BRAD BLOG

Counting ballots is not done to find out what went wrong, but rather, to assure the results are right.

ATMs are fairly reliable. But I have a feeling if you get $300 from one of them, you'll likely count, by hand, all three hundred dollar bills to make sure they are there. Right? You'd be an irresponsible fool to do otherwise.

But with election results? Um, not so much.

Mahjoun at "Drunkard’s Lamppost" --- a blog which brands itself as "Politics with a spreadsheet and a calculator" --- offers a concise and easy to read summary of the results, as reported, in Diebold vs. Hand-Counted precincts in New Hampshire, along with a very sober analysis (notable for such a "Drunkard") of what may, and may not, be taken away from such an analysis.

Writes Mahjoun:

We concur. Although earlier in his piece, perhaps inadvertently, Mahjoun does a bit of "jiggery-pokery without any real evidence" himself, by stating:

Did she? Is there any evidence for that?

As they like to say over at Daily Kos, after all, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." But that only seems to work one way. So, what exactly is the "extraordinary evidence" for the "extraordinary claim" that for the first time in United States history, a woman has won a Presidential Primary Election, while staring down the barrel of dozens of independent pre-election polls, all predicting she would take a thumping?

Mahjoun's point might have been more accurately stated as "In the end, Clinton won because Diebold machines reported having tallied the ballots more in her favor in large precincts."

That can be proven, after all. The Diebold machines did report, after they, and they alone, counted the paper ballots, without examination or independent verification, that Clinton received more votes in enough precincts to be announced the winner of the election. But unless there's something I'm missing, that's the only thing in this whole matter which can proven.

Some democracy, huh?

In conclusion though, Mahjoun gets it dead right, by pointing out what is, perhaps, the most important take-away from this entire mess, unless you are the sort, unlike me, who enjoys seeing these nightmares and questions repeated over and over again, in election after election in this country:

Bingo. Buy that drunkard another drink!

But such responsible coverage, from the mainstream media --- or, more disappointingly, the supposedly-Progressive blogosphere, which has had no shortage of new epithets for The BRAD BLOG and its founding father, Brad Friedman, over the past week --- has not been easy to come by.

Rigging the Coverage...

10 minutes on this morning's Stephanie Miller Show. Discussing why things like actually counting the ballots in New Hampshire would have been a great idea. And on the lunacy and self-destructiveness of progressives (like this uninformed front-pager over at dKos, and his even lesser-informed followers, such as Markos himself) buying into the conspiracy theory that the dozens of verified, independent, multiple-sourced pre-election polls were wrong, but the unverified and uncounted election results, as announced, are somehow magically known to be accurate.

The results might well be right. But unlike the transparent and verifiable polls, no human being has actually bothered to count or even examine 80% of the ballots in NH. So whose the irresponsible crackpot here? Some of these folks are digging their own November grave.

We stay up all night without sleeping and go on Steph's show, you decide...

I was interviewed last week by IT Business Edge technology reporter, Carl Weinschenk, on the current state of e-voting as we head into yet another big election year.

During the course of the conversation, poor Carl was clearly growing increasingly distressed by the answers I had to offer to his questions. Understandably, he was looking for signs of hope. Here's a few snippets from what we'll call "the hopeful sections" of the full interview published over the week, and headlined "Bits, Bytes and Votes"...

The entire Q&A, including the less hopeful sections, is published right here...

Was a fairly raucus hour on today's Peter B. Collins Show (where I appear regularly in the 5pm PT hour on Fridays), as PBC has now been added to San Francisco's Green960, his latest affiliate station for his syndicated daily radio show.

Tons of great callers today (including a great wingnut call at the end of the hour) along with much buzz about the West Coast premieres of Uncounted. Two screenings will be sponsored in part by PBC's show and KSAC 1240am in Sacramento and Green960 in Oakland, on January 15th & 17th respectively.

I'll be showing up at both to speak at the Q&A's, and would love to see ya there! The owner of Oakland's Grand Lake Theater, Allen Michaan, called in during the show today to say that he'd run another screening at 9:30pm if we filled up the first one at 7pm! With 600 seats in this great old movie palace (see pix at link above) our work is cut out for us, so I hope you'll come by if you're anywhere near. More info here, with more to come soon.

Here's the cool 60 second spot that PBC is running to promote the screenings...

And here's today's hour in full. MP3 download, or listen online...

Me, on the Stephanie Miller Show this morning, with Guest Host Bree Walker, talking about the Iowa Caucuses, and various concerns thereof.

(Appx. 15 mins) Download MP3, or listen online here...

{Broken audio link now fixed. Sorry about that. --- BF}

By Brad, from Denver...

Damn bloggers. Following you around everywhere you go, with their nosy little cellphone cameras, writing down every little thing you do or say. Someone should make a law or something...bastards...

P.S. Thanks to the Coloradoans for Voting Integrity (who need a website!) and ProgressNow.org for inviting me to their Denver Roots Camp and for all the great grassroots work they are doing in their fights for truth, justice and the American way! Supermen (and women) all! Looking forward to coming back soon!