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

While the GOP in Utah is demanding recounts in three races the state has to figure out how to do those recounts. If there is any doubt as to how the state is leaning you only need to listen to the Lt. Gov.'s spokesman, Joe Demma, who says "The area we see the most susceptibility to need a recount are the paper ballots." / A Grand Jury may explore nine issues with one race in Boyd Co. Kentucky where 530 more votes were cast than voters who voted. / Wherever the elections are close this fall, they'll most likely be scrutinized by armies of lawyers. By setting those January 2006 deadlines for various reforms, "Congress designed it this way so we would have 2006 be our 'get experience' year," says Doug Lewis, head of the nonprofit Election Center, which trains election officials. Then everything will be smoothed out in time for the 2008 presidential election. Or that's the idea, anyway.(USNews)...

From BlackBoxVoting.org yesterday...

See the BBV link for more details, and a "found copy" of the document via Archive.org.

According to Joseph Holder, the lead plaintiff in the VoterAction.org lawsuit against the State of California to halt the use and purchase of Diebold touch-screen voting machines, "Within the last month the link was still there and working."

But now it's gone. Go figure.

BBV sends the following update this morning...

The San Diego County Registrar's office seems to be playing games with the amount they are attempting to charge for the cost of a manual hand count request as filed for accountability in the June 6th Busby/Bilbray U.S. House special election.

As well, the office has so far refused to produce any of the documents requested by the voter who filed for the hand count as required by California state law.

As we reported originally, the SD County Assistant Registrar of Voters, Tim McNamara, had informed an Election Integrity advocate via email that the cost of such a count was estimated to be "in the range of $110,000 to $130,000 and would take approximately 24 to 30 working days." The total estimated cost would be $6000 per day. (Complete email from McNamara at bottom of this article.)

However, a story from Friday's North County Times in San Diego on the manual hand count request (they, inaccurately, call it a "recount request") quotes an estimate from the RoV's office that is less than half that size:

Further, SD County Registrar Mikel Haas has FedExed a letter to Barbara Gail Jacobson, the requester of the manual hand count, informing her that she must pay $6000 by 3pm this Tuesday, July 11th, to begin the count which he estimates in his letter will to be "between $120,000 and $150,000."

His letter also failed to include responses to numerous documents requested, such as chain of custody logs for ballots and voting machines, any of the audit logs from the machines used on election day, or any of the information requested on precinct voter breakdowns as allowed to the requester by state law (CA Election Code 15630 and other related sections) before such a hand count can begin.

All three sets of numbers for the fees associated with the count also failed to give any accounting for how the fees to be charged have been set. (Complete letter from Haas is also at the end of this article.)

"I have received no responses to any of my requests for information," Jacobson told us. "Not even any information on the required 1% manual audit that was supposed to have been done prior to the certification."

With three different sets of numbers now given from three different RoV sources, the question arises as to how they come up with such numbers in the first place.

All of the estimates, even the lowest of them, are far higher than similar quotes from other California country Registrars, as we reported previously. The highest of the numbers quoted by Haas come to nearly one dollar per vote, while in Orange County, CA, the registrar is reportedly charging some 14 cents per vote for a similar count.

Why the disparity in all of these numbers? It would be good to know.

Election Reform watchdog organization VelvetRevolution.us has taken up a collection for the costs associated with the entire legal battle over the Busby/Bilbray election. Contributions may be made here.

Meanwhile, Haas seems to be continuing his public misinformation campaign concerning the so-called Diebold voting machine "sleepovers"...

Tomorrow in the AM... San Diego County registrar's office quotes three different prices for costs of manual hand count request! Highest quote so far: $150,000 to count all votes in the CA50 Busby/Bilbray election! $6000 due on Tuesday, but no explanation for costs and no requested documents turned over by registrar as required by law.

Donations for legal fight being collected by VelvetRevolution.us: www.velvetrevolution.us/donate.php

See BRAD BLOG early Sunday morning for details...

UPDATE 7/9/06: Complete exclusive story now posted here...

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

In a sharply worded ruling, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Melvin Westmoreland said Friday that Georgia's voter ID law "unduly burdens the fundamental right to vote rather than regulate it" and would cause "irreparable harm."...

From today's Salon...

More available at the Salon link above.

Not certain which video of Curtis was shown (haven't been able to follow the Mexico Election crisis too closely, as we've been waylaid by the current fight for electoral integrity in this country of late), but it may have been the video of Curtis testifying under oath to a panel of U.S. House Judiciary Committee members in late 2004 or one of several available online in which I interviewed him (here's one, here's another with text transcript) during a late 2005 Election Reform summit in Portland, OR.

NASA's own Transit Workers Union has endorsed vote-rigging whistleblower Clint Curtis for Congress. Curtis hopes to unseat corrupt Republican congressman Tom Feeney in Florida's 24th U.S. congressional district this fall... and this particular endorsement has gotta smart.

The irony here (among many): Feeney's wife works for NASA, or at least she used to, and we believe she still does. As well, Yang Enterprises Inc. (YEI) --- the company for whom both Curtis and Feeney worked back when Curtis claims Feeney asked him to create vote-rigging software in 2000 --- has huge contracts with NASA to this day.

We're certain that even though Feeney was the Speaker of the Florida House at the same time he was YEI's general counsel and registered lobbyist, there was no conflict of interest there and Feeney had nothing to do with helping to secure those lucrative NASA gigs for YEI.

We're also certain that the junket Feeney took to Scotland to play golf with Jack Abramoff (on the lobbyist's dime) was purely for congressional business as well.

Here's the text of the ringing endorsement from the TWU Local 525...

Clint Curtis' website, should you wish to support him (and he can use it, as Feeney is rolling in dirty money) is www.ClintCurtis.com. You can read more about Clint Curtis's remarkable story in this quick summary including links to our original coverage of Curtis starting back in December of 2004.

On Thursday, we ran another Clint Curtis related item including a link to the first print publication of 'discovered' police photos taken at the 'suicide' scene of the investigator from the Florida Inspector General's office who had been looking into Curtis' claims when he suddenly turned up dead one morning in Valdosta, Georgia in 2003.

A scan of the actual endorsement letter follows...

I missed this a week or so ago when it originally aired, but caught it just now (hat tip Mary Macelveen).

Catherine Crier offered a devasting editorial recently on Court TV in regard to election integrity. Her piece was spurred by RFK's Jr.'s Rolling Stone exposé on the theft of the '04 Presidential Election, but covers a panoply of current threats to our electoral system --- described as "a full frontal attack on Democracy" --- including guys like Ohio's J. Kenneth Blackwell, convicted RNC/White House phone-jammer James Tobin and the Electronic Voting Machine Menace of Diebold and other private companies who have usurped our public election system.

Links to the highly-recommended video editorial titled "Defending Democracy: Can we promote democracy in Iraq while our own is under attack?" are at the bottom of this article, courtesy of David Edwards.

Here's a selection of extremely choice quotes from Crier's report...

It looks like American democracy has yet another new champion in the mainstream media!

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

...CONTACT...
Email: Crier Live

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

Recently Catherine Crier of CourtTV did a segment of her "Crier Wire" on elections and democracy. It is a must see. / The state of Indiana has now announced that they are sending their old voting machines to Benin in order to help to nurture democracy in that country, according to SoS Todd Rokita. Benin has been hand counting their paper ballots. Why can't we just leave the rest of the world alone? Maybe they have it right and we are wrong. / The county of San Diego has decided that any recount will cost petitioners about $1 per ballot to count. That's over twice as much as any other county is presently charging for a recount. One can only assume that the county really, really doesn't want any recount of their ballots....

Late Wednesday afternoon, a "Manual Hand Count Request under the Election Recount Provision" was filed at the San Diego County Registrar of Voters office by CA-50 voter Barbara Gail Jacobson. The request is for a full manual hand count of all paper ballots and paper trails in the recent June 6th Busby/Bilbray special U.S. House election in which programmed, election-ready Diebold voting machines were sent home with poll workers for days prior to the election in apparent violation of new laws and provisions by both state and federal authorities.

As California state election code requires that a candidate be named on whose behalf such hand count requests are filed, Jacobson named Republican Brian Bilbray in her filing. Bilbray is the candidate who was announced as the winner in the race by SD County Registrar Mikel Haas.

Jacobson's manual hand count request, as filed, is posted in full here.

The breaches in security for the exceedingly hackable Diebold voting machines and the subsequent decertified use of such systems in the important "bellwether" election have prompted a number of Election Integrity organizations to declare "No Confidence" in the results of the election as reported by Registrar Haas. Haas himself has even admitted that storage of such machines in poll workers' cars cannot be considered secure as required by state and federal law.

The fees estimated for the count, to be paid by the requester, have been set at an estimated $110,000 to $130,000 by the Registrar's office. That amount, nearly a dollar per vote, is far in excess of similar counting fees charged by other County Registrars in California.

Jacobson states in her hand count filing that she "submit[s] this request in the hope that ALL candidates and ALL voters in the United States of America, in the State of California, in the County of San Diego, and in the state's 50th U.S. Congressional District, may have confidence in the accuracy of the election returns as announced by the San Diego Country Registrar of Voters, Mikel Haas."

Nonetheless, Jacobson stated the request was "being filed on behalf of candidate Brian Bilbray," in accordance with state election law:

"The rule of law is important," wrote Jacobson, "I'm happy to follow that rule of law and hope that the San Diego County Registrar will now show an interest in same...for the good of our nation."

The filing includes a request for a number of detailed items --- including chain of custody logs for voting machines and the ballots themselves --- said to be needed before such a count can begin in order to ensure the integrity of that count.

In the meantime, the registrar's office has answered an inquiry into fees that may be charged for such a manual hand count of all paper ballots and paper trails, estimated to be as high as $130,000 or the equivalent of $6000 per day.

"Based on previous experience," wrote Tim McNamara, SD County's Assistant Registrar of Voters in reply to a recent emailed request for the costs of such a count, "the estimated cost of recounting ballots cast in this election using, for example, four counting boards would be in the range of $110,000 to $130,000 and would take approximately 24 to 30 working days. It assumes that the four boards in the example, working six hours a day, could hand tally 1,500 ballots each."

Election integrity advocate Linda Bagneschi Dorrance explained to The BRAD BLOG that estimates for a manual hand count in San Diego are nearly twice the cost for similar requests elsewhere in the state. Apparently California law allows elections officials to set just about any price they wish.

"The estimates...equate to about $1,083 per day per recount board," Dorrance explained to us. "We just succeeded in reducing Marin County's cost to I believe $500 per recount board per day. Still expensive, but about half the San Diego cost."

While Haas seems prepared to charge nearly $1 per vote to manually hand count, The BRAD BLOG has learned that other counties around California have charged as little as $0.14 per vote for a similar hand count.

Election protection organization VelvetRevolution.us has begun to collect donations for the legal fees associated with fighting for accountability in the Busby/Bilbray election, until such time as advocates on the ground in San Diego have created a legal fund for this purpose. Donations may be made here. (DISCLOSURE: The BRAD BLOG is a co-founder of VR.)

Recent reports from various organizations and media sources have lauded the state of California for requiring paper ballots and paper trails by law for all votes cast. As well, California's mandated 1% manual random audit law has similarly been recognized as an important safeguard for elections held in this state, along with a liberal "recount" provision allowing any affected voter to file for such a hand count when needed.

However, what isn't as well reported is the fact that there is no actual legal remedy if a variance from the official results are found during 1% hand audits. The audit may reveal the official count to be off by any percentage and there are no legal requirements or clear rules concerning what happens next in such an event. So far, The BRAD BLOG has been unable to obtain information on the 1% manual audit in the Busby/Bilbray election.

As to the costs for hand counts requested under the recount provisions in state law, it seems that election registrars are free to charge virtually anything they like for such counts. No uniform state standards for such fees seem to exist, which means the prices set for such counts may be set near-randomly --- and even prohibitively --- by elections officials. Such oversights in the law, of course, make accountability in such cases as this, where both state and federal election laws were clearly violated, very difficult to achieve.

A few of the opening paragraphs of the manual hand count request as filed Wednesday by Barbara Gail Jacobson follow below. The entire three page request can be read in full here...

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

Three Utah counties face the possibility of having to do recounts from the state's recent primary-election. However, the state has no procedure on how to do recounts, when to use the vvpat and when not to use it. The Lt. Gov seems to want the vvpat only used in 'extreme' cases but others point out that state law suggests the paper ballot is the official ballot. / Linda Lamone, Maryland's State Elections Director, in a statement on NPR's Diana Rehm program and speaking about the Brennan Center Report said that the job of election administrators is to promote confidence in the electoral process. What happened to running elections where the voter's choices are actually counted with no doubt as to the accuracy of that count? What happened to promoting confidence by ensuring the system to be used by the voters is secure? Burying your head in the sand and ignoring security vulnerabilities does not promote confidence....

More than a full year after I wrote the original draft for them, Hustler is now running my story on the mysterious "suicide" of Raymond Lemme, of the Florida Inspector General's office. This is the first time that uncovered police photos --- the ones which were not supposed to have existed --- have appeared in print, not counting the Internet, to our knowledge.

Here's a pornography-free PDF of the article --- (WARNING: Includes graphic photos. Plus a sidebar on Clint Curtis' run for congress!) --- as it's currently running in the September issue now available at a newstand near you. Unless you live in Utah.

(NOTE: Previously broken PDF link now fixed.)

For BRAD BLOG readers who may not have been around here long enough to know, read on for an explanation of who Lemme and Curtis are.

And meanwhile...in other 'Clint Curtis for Congress' related news...

Sacramento Bee columnist Peter Schrag runs a decent article on Busby/Bilbray election mess in today's paper.

I recommend you read it in full, as it's mostly balanced (in the honest way, not the Fox "News" way) and gets most of the elements of the story close enough for government work. In other words, it's a legitimate article, even with a few quibbles I have. But the legit effort is certainly appreciated in contrast with the lazy piece of disinformation disguised as a news article which ran last week in San Diego Union-Tribune on this matter.

Schrag's focus throughout is largely on the uber-matter in question; The looming threat we face to the legitimacy of American elections across the board. The article starts this way...

Schrag then goes on to slightly misrepresent my comments to him last week when he called, when he writes:

The misrepresentation, accidental as I'll presume it to be, is that yes, I've said we currently have no specific evidence that "the machines were fiddled with," as he put it. But we simply cannot know whether they were "fiddled with" or not, given Regisrar Mikel Haas' complete disregard for the new state and federal security mitigation requirements which were invalidated when the voting machines in question were sent home with poll workers for days and weeks prior to the election. In doing so, they were all rendered decertified, and thus illegal for use in the election.

Where I will take exception to Schrag's article is when he avers that "Bilbray almost certainly won the election."

Of course, Schrag has absolutely zero evidence with which to back up that assertion, so I really don't know where he gets it, other than by general knee-jerk habit that the media have of simply trusting elections officials and whatever they report to be the "results" of any election. (See Ohio 2004, et al.)

His closing sentence then, repeats again his earlier unsupported assertion, but closes on the right note:

Please read the article in full yourself so you can make up your own mind. He makes several good points worth reading in any case.

Oh...and one last point. Schrag writes:

The last part is true enough --- doubts about election results this November will plague this country no matter who wins or loses (see this earlier article today on that) --- but I'm not sure where he gets the idea that the "doubters" won't get that hand "recount" (of course he means hand count, not recount, since the ballots have not actually been counted) if they want it.

Those "doubters," however, will likely have to pay for it themselves, unless a judge orders otherwise. And, we're learning that, apparently, the registrar himself gets to determine just about any number he wants to charge for that manual hand count.

You can contribute to help defray legal costs to fight this battle over at VelvetRevolution.us for the time being. More on all of that tomorrow....

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

A losing incumbent in Polk County Iowa has filed all necessary paper work and a surety bond in order to qualify for a contest of the election. This was based on a ballot-counting malfunction in Pottawattamie County that prematurely named nine losing candidates as winners. County officials there acknowledged last week that they had failed to properly test their new machines prior to Election Day. (I spoke to a reporter last week who told me that the county had admitted not doing any L&A test at all.) / If you read the article from Winston Co. Mississippi you will come away with a warm and fuzzy feeling about their use of Diebold TSx machines recently. Diebold and the state have spared no expense in passing out disinformation and obfuscation....

BTCNews' Weldon Berger makes a very astute observation in an article posted Monday suggesting "Republicans set to cry 'Foul!' in November elections."

He contends (with a suggested measure of inside skinny) that the GOP will use the evidence and arguments of election integrity advocates, such as yours truly and others, in making their case that Electronic Voting Machine fraud may have occurred in certain close elections this November if needed.

Berger's observations are well supported by both common sense and history of the GOP --- who, unlike Dems, have proven themselves more than willing to pull out any and all stops to fight a close election and even go to court to throw out valid votes whenever necessary if that's what they need to do to win. The GOP doesn't have the same fear gene that curses Dems when it comes to standing up and fighting when they feel they've been robbed (or, perhaps more appropriately with the GOP, opportunistically announcing they've been robbed even when they haven't been.)

Berger's column ought to serve as a siren call for the DNC to wake the hell up about what's going on here. Before it's too late. If it isn't already.

My only dispute with the otherwise dead-on article is this contention:

Right sentiment. Wrong plan. The fact of the matter is that by the time such elections have been completed, it will have been too late to do anything about it. Especially if it's one of those sore-loser, tin-foil hat wearing Democrats making the charge (the same charge, made by a Republican, will be met with no such derision, of course --- except perhaps via irony-drenched coverage here at The BRAD BLOG.)

If the DNC wishes to stave off the possibility of electronic voting fraud this November, when thousands of crucial elections will take place on the very same day around the country, the time to do so is now. Not in November. The DNC and DCCC ought to be out here and all over the illegally run Busby/Bilbray special U.S. House election from June 6th. NOW.

I can't say it any clearer than that.

At least the DNC won't be able to say, come the day after, November 8th, that they hadn't been warned. Give Berger's article a read.