Guest Blogged by DES

After a brief hiatus, BRAD BLOG'S Last Week In Review returns for a short walk down memory lane, to remind you of the oodles of bloggy fun we've had this week in covering our great adventure in Democracy....

The courtroom has gone quiet for the moment as the jury finished its third day of deliberations to determine the fate of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Meanwhile, the hi-larious hi-jinx of the electronic voting machine companies and Florida's team of Elections Officials filled the void with more ludicrous entertainment!

And, of course we extend our deepest, heartfelt thanks to those who have so generously donated ... YOU help keep The BRAD BLOG going --- we wouldn't be here if it weren't for you (literally). Join in the fun of helping keep the lights on in Bradville! Please donate online via PayPal or credit card, use the blue form at right to sign up for a monthly subscription, or contribute via snail mail. As always, many thanks.

SUNDAY, Feb. 18th...

Complaint Filed With New CA SoS Against San Diego County's Registrar Mikel Haas
Guest Blogger Attorney Ken Simpkins Seeks Your Help in Bringing Accountability to One of America's Worst Elections Officials...

After being stonewalled by the San Diego County Registrar of Voters Office on requests for recounts, information regarding the right to vote on paper ballots, and the results of an audit of the November 2006 election, citizens are taking action.

MONDAY, Feb. 19th...

Please donate online via PayPal or credit card, or use the blue form at right to sign up for a monthly subscription, or contribute via snail mail.

Wilson Didn't Say Cheney Sent Him, Yet the GOP Operatives Keep the Legend Going
The Bush Administration, its Loyal Supporters and Now Even the Washington Post Help Spread the Demonstrably Misleading Canard
But Why?
*** Special to The BRAD BLOG
*** by Libby/CIA Leak Trial Correspondent Margie Burns

TUESDAY, Feb. 20th...

The False Dichotomies Being Used by Democrats and Their Public-Advocacy Group Supporters to Prop Up the Failings of the Holt Election Reform Bill
Misrepresentation of the 'Opposition,' Fear of Failure, and a Bizarre, Unsubstantiated 'Civil Rights' Argument All Employed to Avoid Legitimate Debate on the Dangers of the Pending Legislation...

VIDEO - Chris Wallace's Wingnut Doofus Moment of the Moment
Fox 'News' Host Blows It Big Time in Trying to Support Bush's Flip-Flop on North Korea
Carl Levin Smiles Knowingly...

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 21st...

EXCLUSIVE: REP. MAXINE WATERS ANNOUNCES INTENTION TO WITHDRAW CO-SPONSORSHIP OF HOLT ELECTION REFORM BILL!
Calls for a Return to Paper Ballots During Commemorative MLK, Jr., Keynote Address in Santa Cruz!
California Congresswoman is First of Bill's 192 Co-Sponsors to Pull Support Amid Heavy Criticism of Legislation by Election Integrity Advocates...

'Daily Voting News' Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

An article in today’s Oakland Tribune relates, “In a blow-by-blow on his school Web page and in a separate filing for an electronic voting lawsuit in New Jersey superior court, computer science professor Andrew Appel [Princeton University] details how he was able to purchase five of the Oakland-based company's AVC Advantage machines off a Web site auctioning government surplus items, pry open the backs and access the computer chips that control the vote count.

THURSDAY, Feb. 22nd...

Sequoia Voting Systems Spokeshole Laugh Line of the Moment...

"Steven Bennet, a Sequoia representative, said Sequoia won't agree to public disclosure [of source code on voting machines] since it would "jeopardize the security to all of our customers in California and across the country."

Where the Libby Trial Came From
Administration coordinated a PR firing squad, put together ad hoc PR hit on the WilsonsThe collateral damage was to classified, objective WMD analysis at the CIA...
*** Special to The BRAD BLOG
*** by Libby/CIA Leak Trial Correspondent Margie Burns

AUDIO - Brad on Air America's 'Politically Direct with David Bender'...
Thanks to David for the overly generous description as "The Paul Revere of the Election Integrity Movement"...
But I'll take whatever I can get! As he said, "One if by land, two if by sea, three if by Brad!"...

FRIDAY, Feb. 23rd...

SL TRIB: Cost for Utah Presidential Primary 'Balloons' from $850k to $3.4 MILLION(!) Due to New Electronic Voting Machines
Nice Going Guys!
(Guess You Shouldn't Have Enjoyed so Many Dinners With Those Diebold Salesmen...)

OFFICIAL FLORIDA AUDIT ON FL-13 RELEASED: Conflicting Conclusions Revealed Despite State Claim of 'No Evidence to Suggest Official Results in Error'
Election Integrity Advocates Contesting Race Call Report 'A Whitewash', Cite Partisan Makeup, Conflict of Interest, Flawed Test Methods of Audit Commission
Two State Reports Released Late Friday Afternoon Reveal Contested Results Imperiled by Extraordinarily Complex Touch-Screen Voting System...

Jennings Says Florida's Audit of Election 'Flawed, Incomplete'
Says State Report 'Provides Even More Compelling Reasons to Seek Investigation'...

SATURDAY, Feb. 24th...

'Daily Voting News' Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org:

Princeton’s Professor Ed Felten said this in regards to the Sarasota Co. Florida voting machine report, “Experience teaches that systems that are insecure tend to be unreliable as well — they tend to go wrong on their own even if nobody is attacking them.... Sporadic undervotes are the kind of behavior you would expect to see from a flaky voting technology. The study claims to have ruled out reliability problems as a cause of the undervotes, but their evidence on this point is weak, and I think the jury is still out on whether voting machine malfunctions could be a significant cause of the undervotes.”

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Princeton’s Professor Ed Felten said this in regards to the Sarasota Co. Florida voting machine report, “Experience teaches that systems that are insecure tend to be unreliable as well — they tend to go wrong on their own even if nobody is attacking them. Code that is laced with buffer overruns, array out-of-bounds errors, integer overflow errors, and the like tends to be flaky. Sporadic undervotes are the kind of behavior you would expect to see from a flaky voting technology. The study claims to have ruled out reliability problems as a cause of the undervotes, but their evidence on this point is weak, and I think the jury is still out on whether voting machine malfunctions could be a significant cause of the undervotes.”

The town of Putney, Vermont may be about ready to accept a free optical-scan machine from the state. They will no longer count their votes the traditional way; hand counting. Gone will be the crowd of counters sharing pizza and enjoying the community spirit. Putney is not alone as 75 of the state’s 246 municipalities have already made the decision to change over to optical-scan. ...

*** Special to The BRAD BLOG
*** by Libby/CIA Leak Trial Correspondent Margie Burns

Conventional wisdom is that when a jury spends much time deliberating, it will find a defendant not guilty. After two and a half days deliberating, the jury in the Libby trial went home today for the weekend.

So the rightwing noise machine thinks it smells blood and is starting some early gloating. Here, for example, is Rush Limbaugh --- premature but already tasteless: “So Fitzpatrick is sweating it out. Fitzrussert sweating it out. Fitzmatthews is sweating it out. Nobody knows what it means that the jury has yet to come back. Fitzsulzberger at the New York Times is probably sweating this out just a little bit.”

I don’t have time to rebut the kind of dishonesty that would connect the excellent and dedicated Special Prosecutor in the Libby trial, Patrick Fitzgerald, with NBC and the New York Times. I heard closing arguments in the trial last Tuesday and have not changed my own opinion that the prosecution rebuttal by Fitzgerald was awesome. Phenomenal. ...

The Christine Jennings (D) campaign has just sent us a statement concerning today's release of the state-commissioned audit of the flawed election during her race against Vern Buchanan (R) last November in Florida's 13th Congressional District.

See our earlier full coverage of the state reports here...

"The audit of Sarasota County’s voting system was flawed, incomplete, and provides even more compelling reasons for the Christine Jennings campaign to seek a thorough investigation by outside experts," the statement begins.

The complete Jennings statement follows below...

Late this afternoon, the state of Florida released a state-commissioned audit report detailing their investigation into the contested U.S. House Election in Florida's 13th Congressional district between Christine Jennings (D) and Vern Buchanan (R).

In two lengthy and carefully worded reports, released along with a statement from the new Secretary of State, Kurt Browning (R), the state audit report [PDF] concludes that "The audit team found no evidence to suggest or conclude that the official certified election results did not reflect the actual votes cast."

A statement issued in response by People for the American Way (PFAW), who, along with VoterAction.org, are representing the voter plaintiffs contesting the election in the state, have described the report as "a whitewash." Their statement, posted in full at the end of this article, points to the partisan makeup and conflicts of interest in the commission empaneled by the state to examine the firmware of the paperless ES&S iVotronic touch-screen voting machines used in the race.

The report "is the result of a flawed process overseen by people with a stake in the outcome," said PFAW President Ralph Neas in the statement, which also details a number of other flaws in the state's "independent" commission.

Additionally, The BRAD BLOG has found that details in one of the reports actually contradict both Browning's statement and the conclusion of the state's official audit. The reports, as well, reveal a stultifyingly complex process being employed to manage the most basic point of any election: The simple task of adding one plus one plus one...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

According to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, “A state-mandated test of voting machines before the March municipal election went off without a flaw Friday at the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections, officials said. Elections Supervisor Arthur Anderson tested 2 percent of the 830 machines that will be in use during the March 13 city elections, running mock ballots to make sure the computerized voting systems and touch-screen machines are working.” 2 percent? That’s not a test, it’s a spot check.

In a press release today PFAW said, “An audit report released by the Florida Secretary of State’s office regarding Sarasota County’s November election debacle came under fire shortly after its release today. “This audit’s a whitewash. It is the result of a flawed process overseen by people with a stake in the outcome, and it will not be the last word on this matter,” said People For the American Way Foundation President Ralph G. Neas. “Something went terribly wrong in Sarasota County last November—and voters have provided credible evidence that widespread voting machine malfunctions were part of the problem. Unfortunately, this report papers over that evidence.”...

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Democrat Tom Vilsack, the centrist former Iowa governor, dropped out of the race for the presidency because he was unable to raise the millions of dollars necessary to compete with the better known candidates. Vilsack made it clear that "money and only money" was the reason for ending his bid.

Immediately after the announcement, the campaigns of other presidential hopefuls began seeking out Vilsack's staff and wooing his political backers. Senator Barack Obama, for example, sought the support of prominent Vilsack supporter Gary Hirshberg, the founder of Stonyfield Yogurt, within two minutes of the announcement today. Although noncommital, an impressed Hirshberg had this to say:

Read the AP story about Vilsack at The Huffington Post

Utah wants to hold a Presidential Primary Election. But they seem to have run into a new snag...

Oh, well. What was that they were saying about these systems saving the taxpayer money?

(Hat-tip to the Utah Election Official who brought this to our attention. Bless you. And good luck.)

And as our good friend, the legendary and mysterious Freeway Blogger, mentioned when he alerted us to the above, "Remember, it's not what you say, it's how many people read it."

Pass it on.

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, “San Francisco supervisors told representatives of a voting machine company Wednesday that the firm will need to publicly display details of the software it uses to count ballots in order to win a $12.6 million, four-year contract with the city. At a Budget and Finance Committee hearing, Supervisors Tom Ammiano and Chris Daly urged representatives of Sequoia Voting Systems of Oakland to place software codes for touch-screen voting devices and paper ballot-scanning machines on the Internet or in another public forum, so the public can review how the machines tabulate votes.” ... Steven Bennet, a Sequoia representative, said Sequoia won't agree to public disclosure [of source code on voting machines] since it would "jeopardize the security to all of our customers in California and across the country."” ...

*** Special to The BRAD BLOG
*** by Libby/CIA Leak Trial Correspondent Margie Burns

At this writing, the jury is out in the perjury and obstruction of justice trial of I. Lewis Libby, former chief of staff for Vice President Cheney. When I left the courthouse this afternoon, Judge Reggie Walton was attending a memorial service, with the jury still deliberating for the second day.

I can make no prediction as to the trial outcome. However, in the interim some media outlets are pushing or falling into an insidious line that the Libby case is either too difficult and obscure to understand, or too trivial to bother with. Setting aside the allegations against Libby individually, this line is dangerous, partly because it is so blatantly the reverse of accurate. The CIA leak matter itself is actually very simple.

What the Libby case is about...

San Francisco is considering "upgrading" their voting systems to use Sequoia machines. They are demanding that the company publicly disclose their software source code for all to see. It's called transparency. That's a good thing.

But Sequoia is refusing. Yesterday, there was another discussion/debate on the topic at an SF Board of Supes hearing. The San Francisco Examiner reported this laugh line from the Sequoia spokeshole:

For those just joining the fun, who may be unfamiliar with guffaw-worthiness of Bennet's claim about concern for the security of his company's shitty voting systems, we'll refer you to this small sampling of previous relevant BRAD BLOG articles:

• Pro E-Vote Professor Accidentally Hacks Sequoia Voting System
• Sequoia's 'Yellow Button' Allows Voters to Vote As Many Times as They Want
• Sequoia Spokesperson Against Hack Testing of Touch-Screen Machines in Riverside County, CA
• Princeton Prof. Buys Sequoia System on Internet, Hacks It in 10 Seconds

...Along with a heads up that we'll have more --- much more --- on Sequoia's "concerns" about the security of their voting systems (or lack thereof) in a detailed investigative report in the very near future...

Was on Air America's Politically Direct with David Bender last night responding, in part, to Rep. Rush Holt, who was a guest on the show himself last week. (Interestingly enough, the show is sponsored by our friends at People for the American Way - PFAW.)

We spoke about the Holt Bill (good and bad), the Democrats (good and bad), and much more on the entirety of Election Integrity in an exceedingly jam-packed 20 minutes full of info (it was tape delayed out here in Los Angeles, so I got to listen to me while falling asleep...you can hear the coffee kick in about 4 or 5 minutes into the interview. )

Thanks to David for the overly generous description as "The Paul Revere of the Election Integrity Movement"...But I'll take whatever I can get! As he said, "One if by land, two if by sea, three if by Brad!"...

-- Brad on Politically Direct, 2/21/06 [MP3, 20 mins minutes]

Here's why...and how you can do it in 60 seconds...

(And thanks mightily to those of you who have already answered the call!)

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

An article in today’s Oakland Tribune relates, “In a blow-by-blow on his school Web page and in a separate filing for an electronic voting lawsuit in New Jersey superior court, computer science professor Andrew Appel [Princeton University] details how he was able to purchase five of the Oakland-based company's AVC Advantage machines off a Web site auctioning government surplus items, pry open the backs and access the computer chips that control the vote count. He said security features touted by the Oakland-based company on its Web site were not in place on the machines.” Meanwhile Sequoia ‘spokes-deceiver’ Michelle Shafer ignores the facts and says, "This is not a real-world scenario. The equipment is not kept somewhere where people have unfettered access to it." Shafer does not live in the real-world where counties allow “sleep-overs” or store the machines, in the open, without guard at the polls for days before and after an election. Shafer speaks from a different plane where down is up and up is down....