AP is reporting tonight that some 2,600 ballots in Sandusky County, OH were double-counted on Election Night. Once again, the error occurred in a strong Bush county where the ersatz "President" won 56% of the vote (if my bad math is correct, totals from the Ohio website are Bush: 17,824 Kerry: 13,909 in that county.)

According to the AP story:

So the original 136,000 vote advantage for Bush keeps dwindling by the day. And soon, a full recount of the entire state.

Getting, fun, huh? Here's some speculative --- yet interesting --- math about what could happen in that coming Ohio recount from "jsmdlawyer" at DailyKos. But by all means, Mainstream Media? There's nothing to see here...Move along...Let's see that hilarious Turkey pardoning footage again! That was a riot!

I chanced across one of the CNN transcripts from a report on Nov. 10 that likely included screenshots from The BRAD BLOG as seen by several different folks on several different CNN programs that day.

This instance was from Newsnight with Aaron Brown where the blog of yours truly was probably shown under this text from Dan Lothian: [emphasis mine]

Blah, blah, he goes on. Setting aside the fact that I don't believe this blog has ever charged "massive fraud", though we have in fact looked closely at the possibilities thereof, (and no, they didn't bother to contact me to find out if that's what I actually "believe") it was the end of the report that I found demonstrative of the typically maddening laziness from the bulk of the Mainstream Media. Especially now in the wake of one "massively" fucked up electoral system. Here was their closer: [emphasis once again mine]

Ah, gotcha. The companies that make the machines then, the one's whose livelihood implodes based on documented evidence of widespread problems with those machines say that such reports "were sort of isolated incidents not widespread".

Well, that clears that up then! Thanks for the legwork, Dan! For a second I was worried that those machines might have been a problem!

To his (almost) credit, however, Brown replied with this:

And since that time, a full week ago, I've not heard tell of a single follow-up report by Brown, or anyone else at CNN on the entire matter. I guess it was just "isolated incidents" after all.

Well, that was fun. Just finished up the interview on the Pacifica Network's LA/Santa Barbara affilliate KPFK with host Jerry Quickley about blogging the whole story of the Election 2004/Voting Irregularity, Fraud, Mistabulation mess.

A fairly wide ranging conversation about how the blogs have played a key part in the story, the nap the mainstream media is largely taking, and how important it is that bloggers (aka CITIZENS!) are willing to examine what the corporate media, by and large, is apparently afraid to touch until the actual smoking gun shows up in their lap for them.

Quickley, by the way, is a madman. He also rocks. I look forward to doing it again soon.

I was able to nab the live stream from KPFK's site, so listen if ya like. About 17 minutes in your choice of 3 deliciously flavored formats:

God save Public Radio.

Justice Through Music (jtmp.org) has just announced this morning that they have doubled their previously announced $100,000 reward offer for evidence of voter fraud to $200,000!

Sources have also informed the BRAD BLOG that even that amount may be rising in the future, but I'm not prepared to confirm those details here yet.

For specific details on reward requirements, please see the Justice Through Music website.

All information and evidence should be submitted ASAP to reward@jtmp.org, while any questions about the reward or offer should be sent to questions@jtmp.org.

Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting.org is posting some interesting information from their "Fraud Audit" in Florida.

They're currently in Volusia County, FL and seem to have found some...oddities.

Markusd from DailyKos has a nice roundup of Harris' troubling postings, today on Democratic Underground.

UPDATE: More on this as I've had a better chance to plow through a lot of the postings on this. Bev Harris' main report may be easier to read via her original Democratic Underground posting version. The same information has also just been posted to the front page of BlackBoxVoting.org

Apparently there was missing poll data, discovered "poll tapes" (still trying to determine exactly what those are), differing counts on the differing tapes for atleast one precint in Volusia (Precinct 215, reportedly an "African-American" one where there were extra votes for Bush and other Republicans), items found in a trashbin ready for shredding instead of given to Harris in compliance with their "Freedom of Information Act" and Public Records requests, attorneys, cops, and the eventual "lockdown" of the central GEMS tabulation system in Volusia County and other information.

The bulk of it, perhaps as importantly, caught on film by the cameras of the VoterGate.tv folks who, Harris mentions later in the thread, are "running on fumes" and could use either money, or additional hands on deck as they also hope to cover the coming action in both Ohio and New Hampshire.

While the folks at DU seem to consider this as a "smoking gun" found, I will be waiting and watching for further, more specific details. It's certainly interesting and bears close watching.

And then, this rather tantalizing morsel, a short reply on the thread from Andy Stephenson, one of Bev's partners down there, who posts at DU under the name "God_bush_n_cheney". Here it is in total:

AP reports that the Sec. of State in New Hampshire has given the go ahead for the first look at the Diebold "accuvote" machine totals in several counties. It will begin on Thursday, and Nader will then have the right to ask for recounts in more counties as needed.

A series of investigative stories (here, here, and here) by WISHTV.com in Indianapolis from April of this year, have just come to my attention (sent by several different readers).

They concern yet more troubling reports about the Election Systems & Software (ES&S) company, who's software and tabulating machines, along with Diebold's, are responsible for tabulating about 80% of the votes in America. Both companies were founded by the same man, who just happens, along with the rest of their Boards of Directors to be big donor/supporters of the Republican Party.

The series of reports from WISH-TV earlier this year tell of ES&S employees surreptitiously installing illegal, uncertified software, into the voting and tabulating machines in Marion County, Indiana. They then ordered their regional ES&S project manager to lie about it to county officials. She refused. As had her husband in a previous ES&S incident, where he was also a project manager, in a different Indiana county. He was fired for his refusal.

In one of the reports, the Marion County Clerk Doris Anne Sadler is quoted as saying that ES&S "has willfully and purposely deceived me and the Marion County election board...[W]ith complete disregard for business ethics and with intent to deceive, [ES&S] deliberately worked to keep their actions from the Marion County election board and its employees."

The county's election board vice chair added, "Throughout the process, there have been missteps and outright fabrications and mistruths given to us by the vendor implementing the election process."

The assiduous BRAD BLOG readers will note that ES&S has popped up time and time again in so many of these stories of "irregularities" related to electronic voting and tabulating machines. Amongst the many troubling incidents so far reported here:

• ES&S Employee found on Auglaize County, OH Computer! Just weeks before election! County had 4th highest Bush vote percentage in the state!
• 10,000 Extra Votes Added in Nebraska County! Another ES&S computer "failure".
• 50,000 Votes LOST in LaPorte County, IN County! Yet another ES&S computer "failure". This one in a heavily Democratic county.

Additionally, DailyKos reported late last night on yet another Indiana county where the U.S. Congressional results are now in doubt and a recount may be coming shortly due to revelations from nearby Franklin County where a recount was already held after it was discovered that the optical-scan tabulating machine was counting straight Democratic ticket votes as Libertarian votes!

I've been hearing more and more drumbeating lately for either an entire national audit of all the votes in this year's election, or even more drastically, a re-vote of the whole damn thing. The more I learn about what an ungodly mess we have on our hands, the more I am beginning to think such ideas may not be crazy after all.

And along with all of these continuing reports I'm still left to ask, where the hell is the mainstream media who should be all over these stories that rock the very core of our democracy?! This is about our voting system for christsake! Clearly we can't count --- for now --- on the Republican cronies at the Justice Department to look into these matters. This time, it's up to the citizenry it seems, and we sure as hell could use an assist from that supposedly "Liberal" Media right about now!

An attorney for John Kerry and associate dean at Yale Law School asks in a Nashua Telegraph editorial, "Did lawyer-observers on Election Day miss fraud incidents?". A few highlights...

Hear, hear!

(Thanks tipster Mazelle for the link!)

A good Presidential Library represents both the man and his Presidency. The new Clinton Library seems even more fitting than I might have thought. Tell me...is it just me?

Sure, there's a bloodbath purge going on in the Administration. From cabinet positions ("See ya, Colin! And thanks for nothin'!") being populated with hardline Bush sycophants like Alberto "Torture's Fine With Me, thanks!" Gonzales and Condoleezza "See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil, Lie me a River" Rice to the incidiously overt KGB-like politicalization of the previously and historically nonpartisan CIA. (By the way, all of America's failures in the last four years? They weren't the CIA's fault, no matter what your political leaders / radio talk show hosts are selling you.)

While American Moderates/Undecideds had hoped for about two minutes that "we might all come together now", I have a feeling that it won't be long before even those ostriches will soon begin to see that Bush 43 v2.0 will do little but solidify his aptly-deserved legacy of "Worst President Ever".

Which is just one reason to make sure he actually won this time.

In any case, my hope is that it won't take a full four more years, incurring irreconcilable international damage to our country, or increase the already scandalously-under-reported body count and human carnage to record proportions before the American sheeple finally "get it" and demand better for themselves and their country which deserves so much more. But this morning, I'm not particularly optimistic.

In the meantime however, now that Condi's moving to State and the position of NSA is therefore currently wide open, I'd just like to toss the idea out there that I'm available.

Don't make me beg, people. You have my number. Just get it out of my FBI file.

I'll be happy to speak with you any time.

Though I fully realize I'll probably be overlooked yet again. Bastards.

The Green and Libertarian party efforts to raise funds for their jointly requested recount demands in Ohio have been successful! They've raised the initial $150,000 in just four days from over 3,000 American citizens!

Now, they are raising funds to mobilize for the effort, with a goal of $100,000 by November 22nd. If you can help, click here to donate.

Additionally, they are also seeking folks in Ohio to act as "witnesses" to the recount. If you can help them out, be sure to click here to volunteer!

In the meantime, it seems to me that the Mainstream Media is once again taking a nap. I'm not sure that it's yet hit them that a complete recount of Ohio's 11,306 precincts in 88 counties will soon be taking place. Some 70% of those counties, as I understand it, are punch-card ballots, which means we'll soon be counting hanging chads again. Oh, well, they'll figure it out eventually.

For the record, unlike Florida in 2000, there is a specific statewide standard in Ohio for determining the eligibility of a vote on a punch-card ballot. If two corners are detached, it counts as a vote, so the ridiculous argument of "equal protection" that Bush was able to argue to the Supremes in 2000 shouldn't work here. Though I'm sure they'll be coming up with something...Stay tuned...

UPDATE: Looks like someone's finally waking up to what the Greens and Libertarians are up to! The graphic above appears broken as of this update because there is either incredibly high traffic over at the Green Fundraising website (where the graphic comes from) or someone is attempting to hack the site. Either way, looks like their little Cooperative 3rd Party "coup" is finally getting some attention!