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The Secret Koch Brothers Tapes...

By Brad Friedman on 11/26/2004 5:38pm PT  

Warren Mitofsky, head of the consortium which gathers and publishes the exit poll data for all of the major networks and newspapers, has been claiming of late that those who relied on and/or published his exit polling data during the course of Election Day were mistaken to have done so. The reason being, Mitofsky recently emailed Keith Olbermann at MSNBC, is because those raw numbers, leaking out when they did, are more aptly compared to "the score at half time at a football game" rather than information to be used to judge against the final election results.

I believe Joseph Cannon gets it exactly right, however, when he responded yesterday with this thought:

No, Mr. Mitofsky. They should be compared to the score at half time at fifty football games. Better analogy: Fifty tosses of a coin. Error should skew in both directions; if the coin keeps coming up heads, something is wrong with that coin.

Of course, without the raw data from the exit pollsters, everyone is largely guessing. So I will associate myself with pollster John Zogby's sage demand on MSNBC last Wednesday wherein he said, "I think that the gentlemen who are responsible for the exit polls should be fully transparent, release their data, discuss their methodology. Let us see what exactly it is that happened, and why it happened...I'll take this opportunity right now to say I think that it's in the interest of healing this country and restoring some unity to this country for us to have a thorough investigation of what happened both to the election and with the exit polls."

Hear, hear, Mr. Zogby!...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---

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Or, Democracies That Live in Glass Houses
PRAVDA Tells U.S. to 'Like It or Lump It' in regards to Ukraine Election
By Brad Friedman on 11/26/2004 3:19pm PT  

A week or two ago I wrote an item here entitled "Why It Matters" which pointed to an article in the Russian PRAVDA Online discussing our election irregularities here in greater detail than we've seen from the bulk of the United States' own media.

My point in highlighting the article was that the world is watching carefullly what happens in the United States, perhaps now more than ever as we are attempting --- as claimed by the Administration, anyway --- to spread democracy around the globe.

Apparently I was more prescient that even I had imagined at the time in pointing out that particular article. Take a look at what PRAVDA Online now has to say about the U.S.'s recent objections to the election results in Ukraine:

Where was this condemnation during the appalling electoral fraud committed in the USA on November 2nd?
...
Mention of "electoral fraud and abuse" from an American observer was risible, after the two fiascos in the USA which saw the most flagrant examples of vote-rigging and electoral fixing in modern history.
...
When the Republican Party deploys electronic voting machines bought from Republican Party fundraisers who promised before the election to help the President to win, the OSCE [Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe] observers describe it as localised and insignificant incidents. However, when the incompent stooge Yushchenko fails to win in the Ukraine, it is fraud.
...
If the West has a problem with that - and it appears that "international law" is a concept with which certain countries have a problem to understand these days - too bad.

In plain English, you can like it - or lump it.

Any other questions?

If we can't get democracy right in our own country or even show an interest in the fairness and transparency of same by the bulk of our controlling governmental bodies and corporate media, then one can hardly expect the rest of the world to follow an example which we're not particularly interested in applying to our own democracy.

Expect the international influence of the American Empire to continue to crumble in country after country, region after region as we here at home continue to fiddle even while worldwide democracy burns as a direct result of our own apathy for maintaining the health of our own once-fervently held democratic principles.

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The BRAD BLOG Replies Back...With Fervor.
By Brad Friedman on 11/25/2004 12:19pm PT  

Apparently the number of Emails The NY Times has been receiving, spurred in no small part by our coverage here of their lack of, or otherwise condescending coverage of the hundreds of reports of "irregularities" in Election 2004 has caused a "flood" to their inboxes.

Or so says the New York Times "Public Editor" Daniel Okrent who has chosen to use his Times-supplied "blog space" to speak to that "flood" in his response posted here.

That response was both tepid, apologetic, and gave no real answers to the many concerns expressed by so many of you who have sent letters. Neither did he address any of the "15 Unanswered Questions" I compiled for them, and sent directly to Mr. Okrent's "flooded mailbox".

And so, I have now replied via Email to Mr. Okrent in regards to his reponse. I urge you to do the same. Here is my Email to him...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---

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(Though I do believe none was intended.)
By Brad Friedman on 11/24/2004 11:35pm PT  

"We cannot accept this result as legitimate because it does not meet international standards and because there has not been an investigation of the numerous and credible reports of fraud and abuse."
-- U.S. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, 11/24/04. In regards to Ukraine's recent election and the announced U.S. rejection of the results. From The Washington Post.

Welcome to CrazyWorld.

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An Update on BlackBoxVoting.org's Continuing Florida Fraud Audit
By Brad Friedman on 11/24/2004 10:24pm PT  

As promised, Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting.org has posted an update on the Fraud Audit she is now doing with a team down in Florida.

Last week she reported on their efforts to pick up the requested "Freedom of Information Act" documents at several Florida county election boards, and detailed a confrontation with election officials in Volusia County. She reported stonewalling from officials, incomplete records turned over, and having found official materials, including "polling tapes" in dumpsters outside election board offices. The "polling tapes" found showed discrepant numbers to the officially announced tallies. I've come to understand that "polling tapes" are the official records of who and how many voted at each precinct or voting machine as signed by poll workers before being handed off to officials for counting at the central tallying offices.

Today she reports that "Volusia County resident Susan Pynchon, with the help of Volusia County attorney Daniel R. Vaughen, P.A., filed a lawsuit on Tuesday, Nov. 23, seeking to set aside the Nov. 2, 2004 Volusia County election due to irregularities."

The full complaint is linked on her site, as well as a summary of the irregularities they've found in Volusia County to date. I've only had time to read the summary so far where many of the previously discussed issues are outlined. They are all troubling, worth reading. The last few in the list caught my eye...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---

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State Reports 106% Registered Voter Turnout!
By Brad Friedman on 11/24/2004 8:53pm PT  

As proof of how healthy our democracy is, WatchingTheWatchers.org has just informed us that Wyoming had a voter turnout rate of 106% this year!

That's right, according to the Wyoming Sec. of State's website (go ahead, click on it yourself), out of 232,396 registered voters in the state, 245,789 of them came out to vote this year!

Yes, go read those numbers above again. That's 13,393 more votes than voters in Wyoming! And yes, even the Sec. of State's website brags about the 106% registered voter turnout!

With national turnout rates somewhere around 60% this year, and only 56% showing up in Wyoming for their 2004 primaries, the state should certainly be proud of their new record turnout! Which beats the previous record in 2000 of 101% turnout!

Waytago Wyoming! You are "W Country" indeed!

Nope, nothing funny going on with voting in this country. Just worry about Ukraine. We're fine here. Nothing to see. Move on...

UPDATE: Eagle-eyed commentor Tracy updates us with a Nov 6th item from Wyoming's Casper Star-Tribune offering this "explanation":

"This was an exciting election day in Wyoming, with many people registering at the polls," Secretary of State Joe Meyer said Wednesday.
...
"It is possible to have a voter turnout of more than 100 percent because Wyoming statutes allow voters to register at the polls on election day," he said.
...
"Having Wyoming's Dick Cheney on the ballot has probably driven our high voter turnout the last two presidential elections," Meyer said.

So that explains that. For the record, Ohio, which doesn't have same day registration, but was the most contested state in the union this year had a registered voter-turnout of 69.86%.

Presuming interest was as high in Wyoming --- the reddest of the red states, where Bush won handily --- as it was in Ohio, that would mean that some 36% of the total electorate registered on Election Day in Wyoming.

As I said...keep moving...nothing to see here...these aren't the droids you're looking for...

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[UPDATED: Fixed Broken Links to NY Times Response!]
By Brad Friedman on 11/24/2004 11:39am PT  

Have to do some travelling here in the next few hours, so will be shortly out of the loop. There's several brewing items I'd like to comment further on, but for lack of time, I cover them quickly now and hit in more detail later as time allows:

  • The irony of the current situation in the Ukraine over the last couple of days has been almost too much to wrap my brain around. Thus, I haven't mentioned it until now. As of this morning, the U.S. Government's official position is that the election was not legitimate due to "numerous and credible accusations of fraud". While no fraud has actually been proven, the position seems to be based on the fact that the Exit Polls showed the opposition candidate leading by 11%, but the Kremlin-backed incumbent candidate ended up "winning" in the Final Results by 3%. Sound familiar? As I say, the irony is almost too much for my brain to process here for the moment. Not to mention that I've already seen more coverage in the Mainstream Media about possible fraud in the Ukraine Election than I have about the U.S. Election. A velvet revolution seems to be brewing now in the streets of Kiev...anybody up for one in the United States?
  • Another official government investigation into the alleged Voter Irregularities has been announced by a congressional committee. I was able to find word about that investigation only from the Newhouse News Service as of late last night. Perhaps it's getting more coverage in the Ukraine.
  • Finally this morning, the Email campaign encouraged on the BRAD BLOG (nice constructive item here and angry reactionary one here) to the NY Times has had enough of an effect to receive a reaction from their "Public Editor" (the NY Times' version of an ombudsmen), Paul Okrent. His reply --- a pretty lame and apologetic one as you'll see when you read it --- is posted online here. I'll most definitely be speaking to his reply later tonight when I'm settled back in, as I have more than a thing or two to say in reply. But the good news for the moment, as you'll note when you read his response, is that we've gotten their attention! Keep those Emails going! managing-editor@nytimes.com; executive-editor@nytimes.com; national@nytimes.com; editorial@nytimes.com; oped@nytimes.com; public@nytimes.com; letters@nytimes.com; magazine@nytimes.com; QandA@nytimes.com; washington@nytimes.com; TheBradBlog@cville.com?Subject=Investigate and Report On Voter Irregularity, Mistabulation and Fraud NOW!">Here again are the addresses to write to to encourage them to investigate and report on the many irregularities that have been found in our elections. (I know we don't live in the Ukraine, but still, alleged fraud in our elections would seem to be at least as trouble as alleged fraud in Kiev.)
  • As I've said, I hope to give each of the above items their proper due later tonight, hopefully along with more breaking news. In the meantime, safe travels to those of you moving about the country for Thanksgiving!

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    A Clear Channel 'Public Service' Billboard in Orlando, FL
    Driving the Message Home...
    By Brad Friedman on 11/23/2004 3:10pm PT  

    Any questions?

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    Completely Blowing the VoterGate Story
    By Brad Friedman on 11/23/2004 2:51pm PT  

    Maureen Farrell does a masterful job, in a new BuzzFlash piece today, of rounding up the national disgrace that is the current Mainstream Media coverage of VoterGate 2004. The piece is called "Election Angst Update: Clark Kent Vs the Media Wimps". The whole story is worth a read, particularly if you're new to what's been going on or are still in denial about the import of this story and how the MSM has so far completely missed it with the exception of one guy at MSNBC.

    Here's just one of her many money quotes:

    There is no doubt, of course, that had the e-vote been on the other foot, FOX News and Drudge would be discussing voter irregularities 'round the clock. And if Kerry's brother were Florida's governor and had a track record of disenfranchising Republicans, Rush Limbaugh would be throwing tantrum after tantrum. What do you suppose would have happened had the head of a voting machine company promised to deliver Ohio's electoral votes to John Kerry? Close your eyes and imagine.

    Still have questions? Go read the whole story.

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    By Brad Friedman on 11/23/2004 1:37pm PT  

    Predictably, the promised "Did E-Voting Work?" coverage from CNN's Judy Woodruff didn't add much to what we've already covered here. The only notable issue is that she discussed the GAO investigation reported in the previous item here and other concerns about E-Voting, as well as giving a mention to the up-coming Ohio Recount and the quarrels about thereof. Reporting on those items at all on CNN is a step up at least! So we'll take that as a luke-warmish good sign. (CNN's report on the GAO Investigation is now online. Woodruff's report on video is here.)

    In the meantime, real reporter Erica Solvig of the Cincinnati Enquirer slightly advances the Mysterious Goings-On in Warren County where you'll recall, unlike any other county in all of Ohio, all media were locked out from witnessing the vote tallying on Election Night. Warren County was amongst the last to report their results and one of the top Bush counties in Ohio. The reason given by Election Officials for the lockout was due to "terror warnings" they were said to have received from FBI/Homeland Security officials. It turns out the FBI has denied giving any such warnings to anybody in Ohio.

    In today's Enquirer Solvig reports that the lockout was planned in advance:

    County Commissioner Pat South has said the decision to lock the doors election night was made during an Oct. 28 closed-door meeting (the Thursday before Election Day). But in e-mailed memos dated Oct. 25 and Oct. 26 - released Monday after an Enquirer public records request - other county officials were already detailing the security measures, down to the wording of signs that would be posted on the locked doors.

    Not sure what we learn from that, other than the plan to lock-out reports was made in advance and Election Officials have been inaccurate about even that. Still no word on why it was all done at all, but hopefully Solvang will keep digging!

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    By Brad Friedman on 11/23/2004 12:03pm PT  

    With more than 14 Democratic Congressman now joining the call for the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to investigate the E-Voting Irregularities, word has just come out that they will indeed begin an investigation!

    I just saw it on the CNN crawl, and here is how Common Cause is reporting it:

    The Government Accoutability Office is going to investigate the voting irregularities of 2004 elections. Here is the press release we just received in our email minutes ago:

    Government Accountability Office to Conduct Investigation of 2004 Election Irregularities

    (Washington, DC) Reps. John Conyers, Jr., Jerrold Nadler, Robert Wexler, Robert Scott, and Rush Holt announced today that, in response to their November 5 and 8 letters to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the GAO has decided to move forward with an investigation of election irregularities in the 2004 election. The five Members issued the following statement:

    "We are pleased that the GAO has reviewed the concerns expressed in our letters and has found them of sufficient merit to warrant further investigation. On its own authority, the GAO will examine the security and accuracy of voting technologies, distribution and allocation of voting machines, and counting of provisional ballots. We are hopeful that GAO's non-partisan and expert analysis will get to the bottom of the flaws uncovered in the 2004 election. As part of this inquiry, we will provide copies of specific incident reports received in our offices, including more than 57,000 such complaints provided to the House Judiciary Committee.

    "The core principle of any democracy is the consent of the governed. All Americans, no matter how they voted, need to have confidence that when they cast their ballot, their voice is heard."

    The Members listed above were joined in requesting the non-partisan GAO investigation by Reps. Melvin Watt, John Olver, Bob Filner, Gregory Meeks, Barbara Lee, Tammy Baldwin, Louise Slaughter and George Miller.

    As well, more breaking news seems to be coming this afternoon as well. Notable items I hope to have more on later today:

  • Judy Woodruff teases with "Did E-Voting Work?" on her show scheduled for 3:30pm ET (12:30pm PT) (A report at CNN.com on the GAO Investigation is now online here. Video of Woodruff's report here.)
  • I may have some more "news from Jeff Fisher" for you later today (he called last night, and I hope to speak to him shortly)
  • And then there was this last night from Bev Harris at BlackBoxVoting.org:
    UPDATE due Tuesday Nov 23 --- A significant development, announcement late afternoon or evening.

    BREAKING --- MONDAY NOV 22 2004: Florida counties stonewall records requests. While some Florida counties have been attentive to the public interest and have promptly complied with our public records requests (scroll down for the Nov. 2 records request, for critical audit diagnostics), other counties have stalled, stonewalled, failed to comply in a timely manner, or outright refused to provide the records. Stay tuned for who they are and what happens next.

  • Apparently reports of my "vacation" may have been greatly exaggerated...Stand by...ALL DEVELOPING...

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    Or, the Lasting Effects of Electile Dysfunction
    By Brad Friedman on 11/22/2004 7:11pm PT  

    Several notable items concerning the theoretically upcoming full recount in Ohio:

    WELCOME BACK TO THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY!...You've been missed. Sort of. The Ohio Democratic party (if not the actual Democratic National Party) has joined the recount effort of the Greens and Libertarians in as much as they will be calling for volunteers, witnesses, funding etc. The extent to which they will actually be involved should become clearer as we get closer to the count. See their pathetically tepid or brilliantly under-the-radar Press Release today for more details of their return from the dead.

    THE RECOUNT BEGINS...UM...SOON!... The heroes of the hour, the Green and Libertarian parties who asked for the recount in the first place, are now urging Ohio's much-beloved (insert irony here) Sec. of State J. Kenneth Blackwell to begin the recount sooner than the currently scheduled date of "after Dec. 3" or "after Dec. 7" depending on where you get your info. As discussed on these pages previously, the time currently allotted for a full hand recount of the 5.5 million ballots in Ohio (70% of them paper punch-card "dangling chad" type ballots) would not be enough to comfortably finish a recount fully and accurately, the Greens/Libs charge, before the final certified numbers must be sent to the Electoral College in D.C. on Dec. 13th.

    --- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---

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    15 Unanswered Questions about Election 2004
    Since they can't seem to figure out anything worth investigating on their own.
    By Brad Friedman on 11/21/2004 12:48pm PT  

    In this previous piece, I reported on the latest New York Times article which essentially dismisses the very real concerns that millions of Americans have about our electoral system in the light of the 2004 Election results debacle. I suggested that readers managing-editor@nytimes.com; executive-editor@nytimes.com; national@nytimes.com; editorial@nytimes.com; oped@nytimes.com; public@nytimes.com; letters@nytimes.com; magazine@nytimes.com; QandA@nytimes.com; washington@nytimes.com; TheBradBlog@cville.com?Subject=Investigate and Report On Voter Irregularity, Mistabulation and Fraud NOW!">send email to The New York Times and let them know how you feel about their disgraceful performance in this regard. Keep those emails going!

    It occurred to me that since The New York Times can't seem to find anything worth investigating and reporting on for the American people in regards to the way their votes were counted --- or not --- in the 2004 election, that perhaps I'd help them out with a cheat sheet to help them get started. Here's just a few of the many questions concerning this year's election (none of them "conspiracy theories", all of them confirmed by actual election officials and/or reported on by local news outlets --- not just "crazy leftist bloggers" --- in the affected areas) that the "newspaper of record" may wish to consider assigning reporters to investigate and report upon. NOW!:

  • A UC Berkley study released Thursday of 15 counties in Florida has shown anywhere from 130,000-260,000 unexplained extra votes for George W. Bush in Florida in just three of those counties. The results of the study, which already take into account the widely reported "Dixiecrat Effect" in Florida, has now been duplicated and verified by an MIT professor commissioned by the Oakland Tribune. You have yet to report on the disturbing study at all. How can 130 to 260 thousand extra votes in just three counties in Florida be explained? Don't you think you should find out? And at least report on the study itself?
  • Incorrect information provided by the UniLect company to an election board in Carteret County, North Carolina resulted in 4,500 votes being entirely lost. The memory chip in one of their voting machines held only 3,005 votes instead of the 10,000 promised by the company. Those votes are now lost. What will be done for the 4,500 voters who had their right to have their vote counted taken away in the process? And perhaps more importantly, what other precincts and counties in the United States used the same type of machine with the same chip but didn't happen to notice that votes were lost? (HINT: Machines from the UniLect company were also in use in Ohio on Election Day, where counties reported many problems with those machines that went unsolved the entire day!)
  • In Broward County, Florida a "computer programming glitch" on a vote tabulating machine caused the counting of votes to begin going in reverse once the machine reached 32,767 votes. We're told they noticed the software bug in time. What other counties and states in the country use the same model counting machine with the same software error? And did they notice if the same problem occurred? The manufacturer of that counting machine, Electronic Software & Systems, Inc. (ES&S), attempted to discredit the report initially as "user error", but anyone familiar with computer programming recognizes the error that occurred at 32,767 --- it's a very specific number --- and any programmer can tell you why it occurred. HINT: It wasn't user error, it was programming error. And it happened at least twice there that we know about. (If you have trouble getting in touch with ES&S officials, ask Republican Senator Chuck Hagel how to reach them, he used to be their CEO until he retired to run for the Senate. And while you're poking around in Florida, you also may wish to investigate and report upon the tens of thousands of absentee ballots in Florida that went missing, and never made it to voters!)
  • In the Gahanna 1-B Precinct in Franklin County, Ohio, there were 4,258 votes counted for George W. Bush, yet only 638 total votes were cast in that precinct! How did that "glitch", noticed by citizens on the internet and since then confirmed by election officials, occur? Was it another problem with software? If so, what other precincts, counties and states in America use the same type of machine with the same type of software, but didn't happen to notice the problem? (You may also wish to report for the American people on which other precincts, counties and states used the same equipment and software that caused 33,000 straight-ticket votes to be miscounted as Libertarian votes in Utah!)
  • Why did Election Officials in Warren County, Ohio --- unlike every other county in Ohio --- lock out all members of the media from witnessing their counting of ballots on Election Night? They had claimed they were given warnings to do so by the FBI and/or Homeland Security Dept., but both the FBI and Homeland Security Dept. have denied having told anything of the sort to anybody in Ohio! Isn't that worth an investigation and a report of some sort? (For background, you may wish to know that Warren County was amongst the last to report it's totals on Election Night and also happened to report the 5th highest voting percentage for George W. Bush in the state and the absolute highest among counties with more than 23,000 voters.)
  • Why was the entire Auglaize County, Ohio Board of Elections placed on "Adminstrative Oversight" by the Ohio Sec. of State's office after one of their members reported that an unauthorized employee from Election Software & Systems (ES&S) was seen using one of the central tabulating machines just weeks before the election?
  • Why did elections officials in Volusia County, Florida give incorrect information to a "Freedom of Information Act" request by Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting.org? Why do the numbers she's found seem to indicate inaccuracies in the vote counting there? And why were official election materials found in the dumpster outside the Board of Elections when Harris and her team arrived to pick up such materials?
  • BlackBoxVoting.org (one of the plaintiffs in a California lawsuit against Diebold Inc. which ended just last week when Diebold agreed to pay some $2.6 million to settle the suit to avoid going to court) has also reported that software used in voting machines in this year's election was not certified and inspected as it was required to have been by law. How could that have happened? And what are some of the consequences of that? Will anybody be held accountable for it? If so, who, when, where and how? (You may also wish to know that last week, the conservative/Republican Washington Times reported on the confirmed security holes in Diebold software. Why haven't you?)
  • What reason do House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Senate Majority Leader Tom DeLay have for not allowing bills that would have required voter-verified paper trails for all electronic voting machines in the country from ever reaching the light of day in either the U.S. House or U.S. Senate? Why were those bills --- for two years --- never allowed to even come up for a vote? And how much money have those Republican legislators and all the rest received from the makers of electronic voting machines such as Deibold, ES&S and Sequoia?
  • All over Ohio, voters stood in line, often in the rain, up to 10 or more hours in many precincts --- the majority of them strong Democratic precincts. Yet, the Columbus Free Press has reported that as many as 68 voting machines stayed in storage instead of being deployed on Election Day to such heavily trafficked voting precincts. What explanation does Republican Sec. of State Kenneth Blackwell, in charge of both elections in Ohio and the Bush/Cheney campaign in the state, have to give for this outrage?
  • Why did Kenneth Blackwell shut down precinct after precinct in Ohio's largest minority areas (and the ones which most heavily vote Democratic) when every indication prior to this election correctly predicted that voter turnout would in fact be way up by huge numbers over the 2000 election?
  • The margin between Bush & Kerry on Election Night was approximately 136,000 votes. The Sec. of State's office in Ohio reported there were approximately 155,000 provisional votes left to be counted. Have they been counted? What's the new margin of difference now in Ohio?
  • The Presidential Candidates in the Green and Libertarian parties have joined together to demand a recount in the entire state of Ohio. When will that recount begin? Since 70% of Ohio uses punch-card ballots (as in Florida in 2000) a manual recount of millions of ballots could take quite a while. Reports have said that the recount won't begin until after Dec. 7th, yet the final tally must be ready to send to the U.S. Congress by Dec. 13th. How do they plan on doing a thorough and fair manual recount of all of those ballots in such a short time? Shouldn't the recount begin much sooner than Dec. 2nd as David Cobb, Green Party Presidential candidate has requested? (I'd give you a link to the page on www.VoteCobb.org which expresses this concern, but their site is currently unavailable, likely due to being either over-accessed by Americans attempting to support their efforts or, more likely, they are again under DDoS attack as has my own website been since I began reporting this story...As have other websites who have been attempting to report this story. Anything worth investigating there for you as well, perhaps?)
  • Why has the FBI raided, confiscated and locked-down computers and files at the CyberNET Group's office in Grand Rapids, MI? Is it related to information supplied to the FBI by Florida's U.S. Congressional candidate, Jeff Fisher? Has he actually supplied such information to the FBI? And if so, what sort of evidence does he have for the various claims that he's been making about the vote in Florida and elsewhere having been hacked? It's true he tells a strange and complicated story. So was the story of three cuban exiles breaking into the Democratic Headquarters in a Washington D.C. hotel at the order of an ex-CIA agent funded by a multi-millionaire in Florida. You may want to investigate instead of dismiss this report.
  • In 2000 much was made of the broadcast networks calling Florida for Gore an hour before the polls had closed in the panhandle of Florida, yet this year, when the Fox Network called Ohio for Bush at 12:41am and the Fox News Channel just three minutes later in the early morning hours of Election Night, voters will still lined up in Ohio to vote! The last vote was not made until 3:55am at Kenyon College in Knox County, Ohio (where there were only two voting machines to serve the entire large student population), a full three hours later. What is the Fox Network's explanation for doing precisely what they decried the other networks for doing back in 2000 when the call seemed to work at the time against George W. Bush?
  • I could go on, but that should be enough questions for the NY Times to continue to ignore for quite a while.

    Please continue to managing-editor@nytimes.com; executive-editor@nytimes.com; national@nytimes.com; editorial@nytimes.com; oped@nytimes.com; public@nytimes.com; letters@nytimes.com; magazine@nytimes.com; QandA@nytimes.com; washington@nytimes.com; TheBradBlog@cville.com?Subject=Investigate and Report On Voter Irregularity, Mistabulation and Fraud NOW!">let them know how you feel about their reporting or lack thereof!

    And send the link to this article to anybody and everybody you can!

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    By Brad Friedman on 11/20/2004 10:52pm PT  

    As if to say "Fuck off, Americans! We're busy with more important things!", The New York Times is running a smarmy little piece in tomorrow's Week in Review under the headline: "Still Unhappy About the Election? Here's a Place You Can Vent."

    It's a piece about some of the email that's been sent to the "National Association of State Election Directors" --- whoever the hell they are --- complaining about the way the election was run and the way votes were counted, mistabulated, or whatever.

    The New York Times has been bravely leading the way in ignoring the story of America's failure to hold an honest, clean and transparent election. Even though they've had time to dismiss the whole affair as "the conspiracy theories of leftwing bloggers."

    Their criticism and sniffing dismissal of those of us who give a damn about getting this story right and told to the American people accurately is ironic coming from the "newspaper of record" which spent a year helping us get into a war by becoming the unquestioning lapdog of the Bush Adminstration's rhetoric and inaccurate propaganda. They had to issue an apology for their crappy reporting. And they've got the gall to criticize "bloggers" for covering this story?!

    Still Unhappy About the NYTimes Disgraceful Coverage of This Story? Here's a Place You Can Vent!

    UPDATE: I've decided to help The NY Times do their job. Please see these 15 Unanswered Questions about the Election Results that they may wish to investigate. Apparently they need a cheat sheet to get started!

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    While Voters in Dem Districts Waited in Line for Hours!
    By Brad Friedman on 11/20/2004 9:13pm PT  

    I came across this story a few days ago but failed to blog it in the crush of...something or another. Glad I was reminded of it again today.

    The Columbus Free Press, (which, by the way, should be lauded for the superb job they have been doing covering the post-Election outrages in Ohio, unlike so many of their media brethren) documents the latest scandal to surface from Ohio's Election Night, this time in Columbus:

    The Board of Elections' own document records that, while voters waited in lines ranging from 2-7 hours at polling places, 68 electronic voting machines remained in storage and were never used on Election Day.
    ...
    An analysis of the Franklin County Board of Elections' allocation of machines reveals a consistent pattern of providing fewer machines to the Democratic city of Columbus, with its Democratic mayor and uniformly Democratic city council, despite increased voter registration in the city. The result was an obvious disparity in machine allocations compared to the primarily Republican white affluent suburbs.

    The formula used to determine where and how many machines will be placed is based on a maximum usage of 100 votes per machine so that the length of voting lines won't become a burden to voters.

    Once a machine is recording 200 voters per machine, 100% over optimum use, the system completely breaks down. This causes long waits in long lines and potential voters leaving before casting their ballots, due to age, disability, work and family responsibilities.

    A preliminary analysis by the Free Press shows six suburban polling places with 100 votes a machine or less, and only one in the city of Columbus meeting or falling under the guideline.

    The legendary affluent Republican enclave of Upper Arlington has 34 precincts. No voting machines in this area cast more than 200 votes per machine. Only one, ward 6F, was over 190 votes at 194 on one machine. By contrast, 39 Columbus city polling machines had more than 200 votes per machine and 42 were over 190 votes per machine. This means 17% of Columbus' machines were operating at 90-100% over optimum capacity while in Upper Arlington the figure was 3%.

    In the Democratic stronghold of Columbus 139 of the 472 precincts had at least one and up to five fewer machine than in the 2000 presidential election. Two of Upper Arlington's 34 precincts lost at least one machine. In the 2004 presidential election, 29% of Columbus' precincts, despite a massive increase in voter registration and turnout, had fewer machines than in 2000. In Upper Arlington, 6% had fewer machines in 2004 One of those precincts had a 25% decline in voter registration and the other had a 1% increase. Compare that to Columbus ward 1B, where voter registration went up 27%, but two machines were taken away in the 2004 election. Or look at 23B where voter registration went up 22% and they lost two machines since the 2000 election, causing an average of 207 votes to be cast on each of the remaining machines. In the year 2000, only 97 votes were cast per machine in the precinct. Thus, in four years, the ward went from optimum usage to system failure.

    If you're not outraged about that, whether on the Right or Left, then I hope you'll not do me the insult of calling yourself an American.

    The system is broken. Period.

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