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Plus Contact Info for Mikel Haas...
By Brad Friedman on 7/13/2006 4:23pm PT  

Barbara Gail Jacobson, the hand count request in the Busby/Bilbray election was on the Thom Hartmann Program this morning, and Thom was kind enough to send us the audio file. She speaks about much of what we discussed in our report earlier today regarding the stonewalling from San Diego County Registrar of Voters Mikel Haas.

As I've got to get outta here and down to San Diego for the DemocracyFest! I don't have time to say much more for now, so please review that article if you have any questions about this.

-- Barbara Gail Jacobson on the Thom Hartman Program, 7/13/06 [MP3, about 5 minutes]

As well, a few folks have asked about contact info for Haas. Here it is:

Mikel Haas, Registrar of Voters
5201 Ruffin Road, Suite I
San Diego, CA 92123
P O Box 85656
San Diego, CA 92186-5656
1-800-696-0136 (858) 565-5800
(858) 694-2955 Fax
Hours 8:00am - 5:00pm
E-mail: rovmail@sdcounty.ca.gov
Website: www.sdvote.com

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Attorney Papantonio on Mike Malloy Show: 'We're gonna shut down some of these companies'!
Excoriates 'Indolent Democrats' and 'Lazy Media' for Not Taking Action; Lauds BRAD BLOG for Putting Issue on 'Radar Screen'...
By Brad Friedman on 7/13/2006 11:15am PT  

The first of several federal whistleblower qui tam (fraud) suits have now been filed against one of America's major electronic voting machine companies, The BRAD BLOG can now report.

Florida attorney Mike Papantonio who, along with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. hosts Ring of Fire, weekends on Air America Radio, was a guest on Mike Malloy's radio program last night. [Complete audio is available at bottom of this article.] He discussed the upcoming whistleblower suits that he and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. are filing against several of the voting machine companies. Pap was loaded for bear.

During the interview, he gave several new details on the federal fraud suits now being filed, which include several whistleblower plaintiffs whose stories were originally reported here at The BRAD BLOG, as mentioned last week in a quick item here, with some fresh details of our own. Pap reported last night that the "dream team of lawyers" they've assembled to take on these evil, irresponsible, anti-American companies includes a bunch of those who took on the tobacco companies in a successful quarter billion dollar suit --- so they're not likely easily intimidated, we'd think.

Papantonio is a senior partner at Levin Papantonio Thomas Mitchell Echsner & Proctor, P.A., a Pensacola lawfirm. (website here) RFK Jr. is also "of counsel" for this firm.

Speaking of the level of fraud to be revealed by the suits, which must be sealed by law for 60 days as the Attorney General decides if they will join the complaint, Papantonio told Malloy: "When you hear the details, when you hear the caliber of the fraud... you... it'll make Americans feel like they're living in a damned banana republic, a third world country. I have never heard such outrageous facts."

"And you know what?" he continued, "We've had our investigators look at it. We verified everything. And when you hear it, you're gonna say, 'Not in America.' ...Bad news is: Yeah, it is in America."

The fraud suits, Papantonio said, are "a way to get at their money, and that's the only thing these people understand."

"At the end of the day, we're gonna shut down some of these companies," Papantonio said. "Some day these hacks are gonna be across the table from me, and they're gonna have to answer the questions that nobody else has been able to ask them."

Pap excoriated the DNC, "the indolent Democrats and the lazy media," for not participating in any of this, and decried the fact that he and RFK Jr. were essentially forced to take action on their own, given the Dems' failure to do anything.

He also spoke of the voting machine "sleepovers" about which we've been reporting here in detail of late. As well, he had several kind words for this website and several other election integrity groups. "Unless you had these organizations out there like Black Box Voting or BRAD BLOG, people like that, paying attention to this, this wouldn't even be on the radar screen," he said.

You can listen to the entire segment in full right here:

-- Mike Papantonio on the Mike Malloy Show, 7/12/06 [MP3]

(Thanks to Ring of Fire producer Scott Millican for the heads-up and for the smartly edited, commercial-free audio file!)

UPDATE: AP finally notices the spate of lawsuits being filed against these e-voting companies and their shitty wares across the country. AP is still way behind us here at The BRAD BLOG, of course, and haven't noticed the RFK Jr. suits, but hey, they don't have the access to the huge resources and manpower that we are able to leverage here, with our enormous staff and boundless funding, so we'll cut AP some slack. They're just a little blog or something, right? I'm sure they're doing their best. Thanks to Pam of The Democratic Daily for the heads up!

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Registrar Mikel Haas Refuses to Supply Chain of Custody Docs as Requested by Voter, Fails to Explain $150,000 Cost Estimate, $6000 Deposit Demand, Disparity in Quotes; Runs out Clock...
Hand Count Filer: 'It seems nobody is accountable here, and the voters are just left out to dry.'
By Brad Friedman on 7/13/2006 5:37am PT  

"It seems the Registrar is the judge and juror, the decider and the arbiter and is accountable to no one. Clearly, we've been stonewalled by the Registrar," opined Barbara Gail Jacobson in regard to having little or no legal recourse to challenge the seemingly arbitrary rules set by San Diego County Registrar Mikel Haas concerning her requested hand count of ballots in the special U.S. House election held in California's 50th district on June 6th.

Jacobson's request to hand count paper ballots and "paper trails" in the disputed CA-50 Busby/Bilbray election to replace the jailed Republican Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham looks to have hit a brick wall. The SD Country Registrar of Voters office has refused to provide chain of custody documents sought by Jacobson in relation to her request, filed after the revelation that the election employed Diebold optical-scan and touch-screen voting machines in apparent violation of both state and federal law.

In a letter sent Tuesday by Jacobson to Registrar Haas' office, in reply to an email the office had sent late that day, the San Diego resident requested a written commitment that the requested documents would be provided before a hand count would begin, and prior to the payment of the $6000 as demanded by Haas --- by 3pm Tuesday --- to cover the costs of the first day's counting on Wednesday.

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

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By John Gideon on 7/12/2006 5:01pm PT  

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

Salt Lake County has 2 primary races to recount. The recount will be done in a couple hours according to news reports this morning. That means they will just run the tapes again and come up with the same answers. No real recount. Garbage in – Garbage out! / This evening the county reported that they had completed the recount. There was no change. Salt Lake County Clerk Sherrie Swensen says the result is a big boost of confidence in the new electronic voting machines. / The Arkansas Co., Arkansas Election Commission Chair told a court that she got a bill from ES&S for programming PEBs in the primary and run-off elections recently and "of course it's wrong". / Avante International Technology is suing Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia for patent infringement / Accenture is failing in another state, Wisconsin, to provide a voter registration database on time and that works....

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

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Cites Extraordinary Security Flaws Recently Discovered in Touch-Screen Systems Used in State...
By John Gideon on 7/12/2006 3:10pm PT  

A press conference to announce the filing of a lawsuit in Georgia by a group of voters and organizations on behalf of all voters in the state will take place tomorrow.

The suit, according to a press release (posted in full below), calls for action that will "Immediately decertify the state’s Diebold Election System" due to the extraordinary vulnerabilities found in the system by computer scientist Harri Hursti over the last several months.

Georgia, along with the state of Maryland, was one of Diebold's original "showcase" states. They first employed their systems in 2002, and continue to use the paperless touch-screen Diebold AccuVote TS system which has been shown to be extraordinary susceptible to tampering, according to leading computer scientists, in just two minutes time with no password necessary.

A media advisory announcing a press conference tomorrow, and another describing the action being taken in detail both follow in full...

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

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Avante International Technology Corporation Files Suit Against Use of Paper Trail Printer, Op Scan Technology by Voting Machine Giants...
By John Gideon on 7/12/2006 12:54pm PT  

In a just issued Media Release SimmonsCooperLLC has announced that their client, Avante International, has decided to sue Diebold, Elections Systems and Software (ES&S), and Sequoia Voting Systems for infringing on their patents for voter verified paper audit trail printer and some optical-scan patents.

The full Media Release follows...

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

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REP. JERROLD NADLER (D), NEW YORK: 'Do we care less about our voting machines than our ATM machines?'
By John Gideon on 7/12/2006 8:51am PT  

Last night, Tuesday, Kitty Pilgrim stood in for Lou Dobbs for "Democracy At Risk" on CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight.

Tonight's report (text transcript at bottom of this article) featured a discussion of the reliability of the voting machines used across the United States. Featured in tonights segment were John Washburn of VoteTrustUSA.Org, New York Congressman Jerrold Nadler, and EAC Commissioner Paul DeGregorio.

DeGregorio had this to say about the reliability standards:

We believe that it is very important that these guidelines and any kind of standards be improved all the time, and we're working on spending federal money to do that because we want voters to have trust and confidence in the voting process in America.

Even though the standards have not been changed since the 2002 standards went into affect and they have not been changed as of yet in the proposed standards that were signed into existence by the Elections Assistance Commission. There is no trust and confidence when elections officials can't even get their facts straight.


Video in Streaming Flash format...
Video in Windows Media format...

The complete text transcript follows…

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

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An Incredible Report Tying Together Dozens of Stories We've Been Reporting for Months here at BRAD BLOG!
(Thus exposing our secret news reporting center to the world! Damn her!)
By Brad Friedman on 7/11/2006 7:00pm PT  

Wow...CourtTV's Catherine Crier on Crier Live just covered virtually everything we've ever discussed on this blog in one fell swoop! Had I known it was possible, I would have used five and a half minutes to tell all these stories, instead of the past two years! ;-)

As well, she included several incredibly kind words about both The BRAD BLOG and yours truly (and a picture of me to boot, sorry about that!) generously urging folks to visit this site:

If you want to learn about the state of our election process, I urge you to visit BradBlog.com. Brad Friedman has worked doggedly on this issue, amassing tons of valuable news and information on this subject.

She covered loads of stories that we've been secretly reporting here where the rest of the MSM could never ever notice... From the recent Busby/Bilbray Diebold voting machine "sleepover" fiasco to the Hand Count Fee scam that's followed, to the video-taped testimony of vote-rigging whistleblower Clint Curtis naming Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL) as the rigger, to Bush-appointed former EAC commissioner DeForest Soaries' exposure of the cruel federal hoax, to now-disgraced Monterey County, CA Registrar of Voters Tony "Trust Me" Anchundo who faces 43 criminal counts and much more!

I was contacted recently by the show and they informed me they have been BRAD BLOG readers for quite a while. Their report this evening demonstrates that quite clearly. They managed to show, very smartly and in a single report, how all of these items we've been reporting on --- for what seems like forever --- actually all tie together. (What, no Ann Coulter Voter Fraud to boot? Maybe next week...)

I'd pull out some quotes, but it won't do her report justice. See the full video (courtesy of David Edwards, natch) or text transcript which are both available below.

I've been asked to appear on the show next week, and we're trying to work out the dates to see if it's possible, since --- theoretically --- I'm supposed to be hitting the road for a long-planned and much-needed vacation for several weeks after appearing at this weekend's DemocracyFest! in San Diego. But hopefully we'll work something out...


-- Video in Streaming Flash format...
-- Video in Windows Media format...

Below is the text transcript as forwarded by the good Crier Live folks [and edited slightly for legibility]...

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

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By John Gideon on 7/11/2006 5:19pm PT  

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

San Diego Co. is charging between $0.76 and $0.95 per ballot for a possible recount but Orange Co. California charged $0.14 per ballot for a comparable recount last April. The county says the extra cost is to cover making other documents available. / Over 4000 Riverside Co. California ballots were rejected because they were not received prior to election-day. / Unfortunately a judge in Texas found that Travis Co. can continue to use their unverifiable voting machines....

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

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Demands Chain of Custody Docs Be Supplied as Allowed by Law, Time to Review Them; Asks for Accounting for $150,000 Counting Fee and the $6000 Immediate, Up Front Demand by Registrar Mikel Haas...
By Brad Friedman on 7/11/2006 3:42pm PT  

Absolutely zero time at the moment for analysis or commentary. So see these previous stories first if you're not familiar with things up until now...

  • 7/7/06: "EXCLUSIVE: Manual Hand Count Requested in Busby/Bilbray Race! Registrar Quotes Fees for Count as High as $130,000!" FULL STORY...
  • 7/9/06: "Busby/Bilbray Registrar's Office Quotes Three Different Prices for Cost of Hand Count to Voters, Media; No Explanation Given for Disparities! (Fee Estimate Raised to $150,000, though Media Told Number Would be Half That!)" FULL STORY...
  • ...Before reading the following reply from CA50 voter, hand count requester Barbara Gail Jacobson. Her reply submitted this morning follows in full... (If I have a moment to update this item with commentary, analysis, or additional detail, I'll try to do so later.)

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

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    Now-Former Monterey County, CA Registrar of Voters, Tony 'Trust Me' Anchundo, Told Brad on Air that Voters Need to 'Have Trust and Faith' in Election Officials...
    He Now Faces Charges of Forgery, Misapplication of Funds, Embezzlement, Falsification of Accounts and Grand Theft to the Tune of $70,000...
    By Brad Friedman on 7/11/2006 8:05am PT  
    "There is obviously going to have to be some trust and faith in the elections official, or in this case, it's me."
    -- Then Monterey County, CA Registrar of Voters, Tony Anchundo on the Peter B. Collins radio show, 10/24/05

    "Anchundo to face 43 criminal charges
    DA: Ex-registrar spent $70,000 on personal purchases"

    -- Headline of the Salinas Californian, 7/6/06

    The astute BRAD BLOG reader may recall my appearance on the Peter B. Collins show last October when the good Peter B. had invited Monterey County, CA Registrar of Voters Tony Anchundo into the studio to demonstrate the county's brand-spankin' new Sequoia touch-screen voting machines that were slated for first time use in last November's special election.

    That interview, both audio and complete text transcript, is right here...

    After Anchundo's in-studio demo of how the new system is supposed to work, I pressed Anchundo to find out whether or not he actually intended to count the virtually uncountable "toilet-paper roll" voter-verified paper trails created by the Sequoia machines or if he would rely on the machine count. He committed on air that the county had planned to count "100%" of those paper trails.

    Incredulous, but nonethless happy to have that promise on-air and on-the-record, I asked which count would be the official count in the case of a discrepancy; the paper count or the machine count. He said we'd have to trust him to make the best decision at the time. "Faith-based voting," in other words.

    While I was skeptical that he'd even be able to count those paper trails at all --- or even that it could be done in reality, even if they'd wanted to --- he promised to come back to the show after the election to report on how the 100% count went and which count they ended up using.

    Weeks and months went by and Peter B. and his producer attempted to book Anchundo, the 13-year Registrar, for the promised follow-up. It seemed the office was not eager to return calls or book a return appearance.

    Then last April, Anchundo suddenly and mysteriously resigned --- just six weeks before the California primary elections --- leaving county officials "stunned", as the Monterey Herald reported it at the time.

    And then finally, last Friday, a caller to Peter B.'s show, during my regular weekly appearance there, gave us a tip to this report from the Salinas Californian...

    Anchundo to face 43 criminal charges
    DA: Ex-registrar spent $70,000 on personal purchases

    By CHRISTOPHER ORTIZ
    The Salinas Californian

    The Monterey County District Attorney's Office announced Wednesday it has filed 43 criminal charges against former Registrar of Voters Tony Anchundo, saying he spent more than $70,000 on personal purchases using county-issued credit cards, then tried to cover his tracks.

    The charges include 25 counts of forgery, 14 counts of misapplication of funds, three counts of embezzlement and falsification of accounts by a public officer and one count of grand theft.

    If found guilty on all charges, Anchundo could face 12 years in jail.

    More details at the Californian, but all I can say is: "Trust and faith in the elections officials,"...indeed, Mr. Anchundo. A picture perfect lesson in why no elections officials should ever be trusted.

    Just ask the heroic and legendary Ion Sancho, Election Director of Leon County, FL who said in a speech last May: "Trust no one. If it can't be verified, it can't be used."

    Or ask the courageous Yolo County, CA Registrar-Clerk, Freddie Oakley, who smartly wrote recently about some of her election official colleagues: "They also argue that, 'We have to trust our poll workers…' To this I can only say…only if they are incorruptible."

    Or finally, ask Oregon Secretary of State, Bill Bradbury, who delivered this knock-out speech last November:

    We cannot simply react and play defense against a rising tide of legitimate public questions and concerns. Elections are the foundation of democracy, and our democracy cannot function without full public confidence in the fairness of elections. We must proactively offer the public an elections system that is clean, transparent, fair, and above reproach. We must be able to prove that all of our claims about elections are true.
    ...
    We cannot ignore our constituents. It's not enough anymore to simply tell them "just trust us."
    ...
    We believe that our elections are accurate, but we need hard evidence to show the public.

    If only San Diego County Registrar Mikel Haas --- who has never heard of an indicted election official, and isn't concerned that a poll worker might try to tamper with a programmed election-ready voting machine when he allows them to keep them in their car, house or garage for weeks before an election --- would care as much about his voters as Sancho, Oakley or Bradbury... Unfortunately, Haas seems to be falling into the Anchundo category instead.

    Trust me.

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    Reports on Lack of Security Standards for Electronic Voting Machines...
    Kitty Pilgrim: 'The federal government has basically dropped the ball'
    By John Gideon on 7/11/2006 4:49am PT  

    On Monday night, Lou Dobbs and his correspondent, Kitty Pilgrim, again did a segment on "Democracy At Risk" on CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight.

    Tonight's report (text transcript at bottom of this article) featured a discussion of the certification standards used (or, more accurately, not used) for the certification of voting machines by the US Government. Featured in tonight's segment were Michael Waldman of the Brennan Center For Justice, John Washburn of VoteTrustUSA, and Rev. DeForest Soaries who resigned from his post as the first chairman of the federal Election Assistance Commission (EAC).

    Soaries was also recently interviewed by Rolling Stone's Tim Dickinson.


    Video in Streaming Flash format...
    Video in Windows Media format...

    The complete text transcript follows...

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

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    Says Little Interest in Washington for True Election Reform, Federal Agency Created after Florida 2000 Election 'Put Together With Spit'
    By Brad Friedman on 7/10/2006 10:01pm PT  

    "We really had to put together a federal agency with spit," says Rev. DeForest Soaries in a great interview by Tim Dickinson for Rolling Stone exposing (again) the cruel federal hoax.

    Soaries was the first chair of the Elections Assistance Commission (EAC) created by the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) in the wake of Florida 2000. He's a Republican and a Bush appointee. Apparently, one of the few honest ones left. He resigned some time ago, apparently out of frustration with the EAC and the fact that the entire commission seems to be little more than a bad joke.

    Here are a few choice clips from the interview...

    ROLLING STONE: What led you to resign?

    DeForest Soaries: It wasn’t until I worked in Washington on an issue as generic as this that I realized how pitiful and perhaps how hopeless Washington really is. For God’s sake…if any issue should be the catalyst for bipartisan cooperation, this is the issue: voting.

    It was probably the worst experience of my life. I found that there is very little interest in Washington for true election reform. That neither the White House nor either house of the Congress seems to be as committed to guaranteeing democratic participation in this country as we seem to be in other countries. It’s an embarrassment that we don’t have a broad enough consensus among political leaders that true reform should take place. I could count the members of Congress on one hand that took these issues seriously.
    ...
    We don’t have a performance rate for machines. If we discovered that of 10,000 Diebold machines model XYZ, 1,000 break down during the day, is that acceptable or unacceptable? If it were a toaster we could tell you, it were a tire we could tell you. If a certain tire malfunctions a certain number of times then they have a recall.

    We have no basis for having a recall of any particular type of voting equipment because there are no standards. And when we do have standards, even these standards are required to be voluntary. So is a one percent error rate good? Is a two percent error rate good? 5,000 votes cast, only 4,000 counted? Is that success or failure?

    So when you ask me about Ohio, you can recite to me the worst data that anyone has unearthed in Ohio, I would have to say to you — very technically — so what? What does it violate?

    It may violate your sensibilities, it may violate my sensitivities, it may violate someone else’s sense of fair play. But the Secretary of State of Ohio has proven that you can get straight through an election by saying: We broke no law. You see the problem?

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    By John Gideon on 7/10/2006 5:12pm PT  

    Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

    Voters in at least one precinct in Mobile Co. Alabama were apparently given the wrong ballots on June 6. In precincts with split districts all voters were apparently given ballots for only one district. In one precinct 108 voters live in one district but no votes were voted for either candidate for State Representative. / The EAC is finally going to take over the testing and certification of voting systems. Will anything change? / ...

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

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    On Busby/Bilbray, Diebold, California and Democrats Fears of Fighting for Electoral Integrity...
    ALSO: Catherine Crier to Cover Busby/Bilbray, Clint Curtis, NH Phone-Jamming Tomorrow Night!
    By Brad Friedman on 7/10/2006 4:24pm PT  


    Not much time for comment, so here's my interview from over the weekend on Air America's Ring of Fire with Robert F. Kennedy & Mike Papantonio. I'm sure you guys will have plenty to comment on. We discussed Busby/Bilbray, Diebold, and the DNC/DCCC fears about jumping into the fight for electoral integrity and taking on these god-forsaken awful e-voting machines.

    More on all soon. Plenty to say and write, but little time to say it or write it for now... :-(

    -- Brad on Ring of Fire, 7/8/06 [MP3, Appx. 15 minutes]

    UPDATE: Forgot to add, reliable sources tell me that Catherine Crier of CourtTV's Crier Live --- who filed an extraordinary video editorial recently on the dangers of E-Voting --- will be covering Busby/Bilbray, Clint Curtis and the NH/White House Phone-Jamming convictions tomorrow night (Tuesday) at 5pm ET/PT!

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