Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

With more than 80% of the precincts reporting, and challenger Ned Lamont leading Senator Joe Lieberman by about four percent, Raw Story has called the race (the Democratic primary for a run at the Senate) in favor of Lamont.

The returns today have been been closer than we might have expected, given a poll last week that showed Lamont leading by 54% to 41%. But a more recent poll, showing Lamont's lead as 51%-45%, indicated that the race could be much closer than that.

Based on previous experience, I always get nervous when a last-minute poll shows a big lead evaporating. I don't want to cast aspersions, and I have no reason to disbelieve the poll, but I know that if I were trying to steal an election and my candidate was way behind in the polls, I would want a poll to come along just before the election saying that my candidate was gaining ground fast.

Having said all that, it will be interesting to see whether Raw Story got it right this time, or whether there will be any last-minute surprises.

Personally, I am not holding my breath. I've been to this party before.

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Cindy Sheehan has once again established herself as an anti-war presence in Crawford, Texas. She has a new campsite near the palatial estate that "president" Bush calls his "ranch", and she is inviting people to join her.

Our friend Leon Smith of the The Lone Star Iconoclast has more. Here's a sample:

Camp Casey III: It's All About Peace

Leon is promising more coverage and we will try to keep you posted.

All the plans have been changing so fast! This recently-published interview is already way out of date, but still worth a read:

Return to Camp Casey: An Interview with Cindy Sheehan

In a just issued Press Release, VoterAction has announced that California voters are challenging the use of the Diebold TSx touch screen voting system and that they have filed a motion for preliminary injunction in state court.

This announcement follows the July 18 announcement that an attempt by the state to move the original suit from the state courts to federal court had failed.

The press release follows:

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

An early-morning report from the headquarters of Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney's campaign indicates that voting is not going smoothly in Georgia's 4th Congressional District. Congresswoman McKinney is involved in a runoff election against Hank Johnson, after "failing" to gain 50% of the votes in the first round of the primary three weeks ago.

According to the McKinney camp,

We've reported on McKinney's troubles in the first round of the primary (here and here) and we have also mentioned the smear campaign being waged against her --- and against opponents of electronic voting in general --- by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a so-called "newspaper" which is part of the so-called "Cox media empire". Judging from their coverage of the first round of the primary, we should not expect the AJC to pay any attention to the claims of irregularities in this election, regardless of how well documented they might be.

The BRAD BLOG, on the other hand, will continue to keep you posted.

We almost missed this report from Prensa Latina, exposing claims of yet another way to "game" an election:

What will they think of next?

And how long will it take before we start seeing this sort of thing here?

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

I'm working on a bunch of new things but most of them aren't ready yet. Oh well.

Your turn.

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

The Orlando Sentinel has posted a good article by Robert Perez called Opponent, where art thou? asks Democrat in which Perez does a very good job covering the lead-up to the Democratic Primary in the 24th District, between Clint Curtis and Andy Michaud. The winner will earn the right to run for Congress --- against Tom Feeney!

Many election integrity advocates have been hoping for a Feeny-Curtis race, which would certainly focus more light on some very key issues. But Curtis has to get by Andy Michaud first. And as Perez describes it, Michaud's strategy at the moment is very difficult to grasp.

Guest Blogged by Emily Levy

Claims that electronic voting equipment sleepovers are just peachy sound mighty defensive in an issue paper titled "Voting Equipment 'Sleepover' Practice" issued July 27, 2006 by the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials (CACEO).

It may come as no shock that the president of the CACEO is none other than Conny McCormack, Registrar of Voters from Los Angeles County, pictured here on a Diebold brochure. San Diego RoV Mikel Haas is on the Board of Directors. Despite the CACEO not being a government entity, it has an important job to do. Why, its motto is even "Officium populi, office of the people." But wait! In their bylaws we find, under "Objects and Purposes":

Guest Blogged By John Gideon

Just released by the Green Party US is a Press Release from San Diego County, CA that states, in part, "The Green Party of San Diego County does not endorse the protocols used for obtaining and tabulating votes during the June 6 primary and previous elections. As we outline below, the process is fundamentally insecure leading to election results that are neither accurate nor verifiable."

The complete Press Release is below:

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

According to ABC News and AP: Bob Ney Won't Seek Re-Election

AP writer Joe Danborn has some other details, including:

The Pittsburgh Tribune Review has more, including some quotes from an exclusive interview with Ney: Ney drops out of fall race

Who went on that trip to Scotland? Let's see ...

Guest Blogged By John Gideon

Vote-PAD is a low-tech, voting assistive device that was developed with input from the disabilities community. Because it is inexpensive to purchase and maintain, Vote-PAD is a threat to electronic voting systems. Vote-PAD also makes voting a possibility for a wider range of voters with disabilities than do almost all of the Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) or touch-screen voting systems.

Even though some northern California counties had already purchased Vote-PAD for use in their elections as their HAVA compliant voting system for voters with disabilities; the Secretary of State decided that they would have to certify Vote-PAD for use with the optical-scan systems that are in use in each of the user counties.

The state then wrote a test plan that was totally unfair to the voters with disabilities who were expected to test the Vote-PAD. The state did not use a Human Factors Usability Testing Expert, an expert in writing test procedures for disabilities access. Instead they wrote a procedure that would have been better suited to testing a computerized voting system and they appear to have done this without really understanding how voters with disabilities actually use the device.

It is important to note that the state of California has certified for use many voting systems produced by Sequoia, Elections Systems and Software, Diebold, and Hart Intercivic. These devices have been certified by the state as being HAVA compliant and usable by voters with disabilities. Yet, not one of the electronic voting systems has been tested specifically by the disabilities community or even advocates for that community. Instead, a cursory inspection was made by unqualified staff and/or unqualified consultants and they were all accepted for use.

Blogged by Brad on the Road from Minneapolis/St. Paul...

Just a quick personal blog item to touch base from out here on the road. I'm currently in St. Paul for just a few more moments. We drove up Friday (from St. Louis) to tape two episodes of John Forde's Mental Engineering for PBS. Not certain when these episodes will air (some time this fall, I believe) but I'll try to let you know when I find out.

I was honored to sit on a four-person panel with the brilliantly hysterical comedian Tom Rhodes, the delightful and smart media literacy professor Renee Hobbs from Temple University and the lovely and deviously clever actor Desi Doyen (DISCLOSURE: Desi is also my girlfriend)...

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Matthew Cardinale has the details:
BREAKING: Donzella James Contesting Primary in Georgia

A few choice excerpts:

And:

Please read the entire article.

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

A few days ago, on a long and very interesting thread, texaslady wrote:

Thank you WP and Brad for sacrificing time and careers to keep those who want to learn informed.

This was a strange and difficult comment for me to read. I was reluctant to accept the obvious truth behind texaslady's kind words. Ever since I started working with Brad, I have known that he walked away from a successful career in order to do what he does now --- investigating, blogging, keeping VR running, and many other things that we don't usually notice.

So I didn't have any trouble with texaslady's comment as it applies to Brad. But I had a lot of trouble with it as it applies to me. Apparently I've been blocking out the fact that my career is gone, too.

We love what we do, we would do it for free, and we often do so. But that's not always enough.

Now Brad and I are both up against the wall, and that's why we are turning to you --- again --- and asking for help.

If you can make a contribution --- large or small --- please do so! Find the blue box near the top of the right sidebar and follow the instructions from there.

We will appreciate it immensely. And even more important, we will use the money to keep the blog running, to keep the truth flowing, and in my case at least, to keep my little guys eating.

We really couldn't do this without you. But that's ok. Because without you, it wouldn't be worth doing!

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Lord, we don't need another mountain,
There are mountains and hillsides enough to climb
There are oceans and rivers enough to cross,
Enough to last till the end of time.

A hat tip to Burt Bacharach, and Hal David, and I hereby declare this thread OPEN!

[And a hat tip to "middleworld" for making us check. --99]