Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

I never thought I would be in agreement with a Florida Secretary of State but Kurt Browning was exactly right when he stated, "The interest groups are looking for a system that is 100 percent perfect. I don't know how many times I have to tell them this: it's just not going to happen." The statement was aimed at groups like American Association of People with Disabilities and Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition and People For The American Way. These groups argue against solutions that will allow the disabilities community and the foreign language community to vote in private and without assistance while preaching that only Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines are the solution.

Yesterday Sen. Dianne Feinstein formally asked the Government Accountability Office to do a “top to bottom investigation” of paperless voting machines with a focus on the machines used in Sarasota....

Oh, the indescribable irony continues.

Former-hooker-turned-fake-journalist James "Jeff Gannon" Guckert responded (sort of) to a recent BRAD BLOG article referencing his White House "correspondent" fakery, as filed by our special Libby/CIA Leak Trial correspondent Margie Burns.

We failed to notice the response/obfuscation on his little blog when it was originally published since, frankly, the traffic from "Gannon's" site didn't trigger high enough numbers for us to take note of it in our "incoming traffic" hit-counter.

While we hate to draw any more attention to the silly, disgraced GOP operative, his presence in the White House briefing room --- dropping phony Administration talking points (or perhaps more precisely, Office of the Vice-President) during the early days of the CIA Leak revelations --- deserves notice and further investigation, in our opinion.

Also of note is the subsequent scrubbing of White House website documents referring to "Gannon's" questions at the time. That matter was also recently reported by Burns, and seems to be in apparent violation of the Presidential Records Act of 1978.

Anyway, we'll make "Jeff's" day and send him a bit of traffic today by quoting the lead of his blog item, in which he knocks the irony meter off the chart by calling Joe Wilson a "proven liar," and even goes so far as to write (apparently with a straight face): "The search for truth is not a smear campaign, it is the essence of journalism."

Fifteen more minutes, then, for silly "Jeff":

You'll have to read the rest of his piece to see how Republi-journaloid "Gannon" doesn't actually bother to offer any actual "proof" for his case that Wilson is a "proven liar." But in "Jeff's" imaginary Fox "News"-based world, we suspect that simply saying something out loud --- like "we know for a fact that Saddam Hussein has nuclear weapons" or "the insurgency is in its last throes" --- is "proof" enough for him and the other Bush dead-enders still left out there.

Blogged by Brad from the road...

New Hampshire Election Integrity advocates bird-dogged the prospective Presidential Candidate and co-author of the disastrous Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002, Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT), a couple of weeks ago concerning the failures of that bill. The short video follows.

We hope other folks will do same with Presidential Candidates from any and all parties and share their video tapes of responses. One of the things we learned in Arizona from Ted Downing, the chair of the Election Integrity Committee of the state's Democratic Party (the only state party in the union to have such a committee!), is that he plans to ask each and every Presidential Candidate to appoint an Election Integrity "Cabinet Member" to their campaign staff. We'll try to report back if and when any of those candidates take him up on that.

(Links to my radio interview with Downing and others in Arizona while Guest Hosting Mike Malloy and Peter B. Collin's shows are right here.)

We'll just add one comment in reply to the below video for the moment: Mr. Dodd, the system has not been "improved since 2000." It is far far worse.

(Hat-tip Nancy Tobi and the folks at Democracy for New Hampshire)

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

According to a new report issued by VoterAction and Demos, “Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines, once considered essential to ensuring private and independent voting booth access for voters with disabilities, often do not work as promised, according to a new report published today. Authored by access technology expert Noel Runyan and published by election reform groups Demos and Voter Action, 'Improving Access to Voting: A Report on the Technology for Accessible Voting Systems' shows that, due to inadequate or malfunctioning voting machines, voters with disabilities are frequently forced to ask for assistance or compromise the privacy of their vote— severe violations of federal disability accommodation requirements. The report details significant difficulties for voters with disabilities, including: the lack of a controllable interface for those who are unable to use touch screens or tactile key inputs; inadequate audio access features for people with visual or cognitive impairments, with dyslexia, or with severe motor-impairments; and lack of privacy curtains to prevent others from reading the voters’ selections on their visual displays.

'I originally had high hopes for the new voting machines' said Noel Runyan, the author of the report. Runyan, who is blind, is a professional electrical engineer who has spent much of his career developing access technologies for people with visual impairments. 'Even with my technical background and the help of poll workers, I could not get the Sequoia Edge II DRE to work. I have since tested most of the available voting systems at conferences and at the National Federation of the Blind’s accessible voting systems lab, and my fears have been confirmed: Most of the DREs deployed were not designed with real disability access in mind.'”...

Blogged from the road by Brad Friedman...

Yes, I'm still on the road. And thus I'm still unable to fully and completely cover events surrounding the dangerous provisions of the Holt Election Reform legislation (HR 811).

For the short term then, I'll quickly point to a few notable critiques of the bill, as currently written, from the Election Integrity community.

Why Democratic-based public advocacy groups such as MoveOn, Common Cause and PFAW are supporting this bill in direct conflict with the bulk of the Election Integrity community continues to be beyond me. Perhaps worse, they are doing so via campaigns that succeed in misleading their members about the facts of the bill.

As I've said many times, though the Holt legislation contains many good and needed provisions, it has several serious flaws --- including, perhaps most notably, a failure to ban all disenfranchising DRE/touch-screen systems --- which will likely lead to this bill being seen as "HAVA 2" by 2008 if it's passed as is.

Unlike the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA 1), the Dems will not have Republicans and the disgraced former Rep. Bob Ney to blame when the shortcomings in the bill are revealed before, during, and after the next Presidential Election.

Quickly then --- before I must shuffle to the next hotel --- allow me to point you to the "Essential Revisions to HR 811" as drafted by many in the Elections Integrity community and hosted by VotersUnite.org and signed by several other notable Election Integrity groups such as VoterAction.org, BlackBoxVoting.org, and many others.

As well, a blind technology expert, Noel Runyan, has today released a scientific paper, "Improving Voter Access," documenting the failures of existing DRE/touch-screen technology (to-be-institutionalized by the Holt Bill if passed) to meet the needs of the disabilities community. The paper is released under the notable auspices of both Demos and VoterAction.org. Press release here.

Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting.org has issued her own statement/concerns as well right here: "Beware of the Bandwagon --- A concise list of problems with Holt Bill HR 811"

Just after the Holt Bill dropped, we also ran a notable Guest Blog from Demos's Democracy Fellow and the founder of the National Voting Rights Institute, John Bonifaz, who is critical of the bill's lack of a ban on DREs: "Why the Holt Election Reform Bill Must be Amended to Guarantee a Real Paper Ballot."

Those are just a few of many such statements from various elements of the Election Integrity community concerning the Holt Bill as it's currently written.

It's simply mindblowing that so many Congress members, including Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida --- who issued his own near-clone of HR811 yesterday in the Senate --- along with so many Democratic-based public advocacy groups continue to ignore the concerns of the EI community, who know this issue best.

The fact that even Florida's new Republican (and surprisingly progressive) Governor and new Secretary of State are ahead of the Democrats on this one, and are calling for DREs to be replaced by optical-scan systems (for the most part, if not during early voting or for disabled voters) should be a clear sign that something is terribly wrong here.

While everyone seems to finally understand the need for Election Reform (well, that took long enough!), the notion that any bill is better than a bill which will actually be effective is extraordinarily short-sighted. Passing a bill likely to institutionalize dysfunction and continue our Electoral Meltdowns for years to come should be the last thing that Democrats and their supporters wish to do.

Why they seem to be tripping over themselves to do it continues to be far beyond me.

If you haven't already done so, please sign the Paper Ballot Campaign's Open Letter to Congress demanding a paper ballot --- which is actually tabulated --- and a ban of DREs once and for all.

(DISCLOSURE: I was allowed by Holt's office to participate during the drafting process of HR811 and was able to succeed in adding some improvements to some of the language, as well as encourage the addition of several important new provisions in the bill. Nonetheless, the bill, as written, still contains many dangerous loopholes as alluded to above. Next week, once home, I hope to offer a more complete and specific analysis of both the good and bad points in the legislation, which seems to be continuing to fast-track though Congress. Unfortunately.)

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

Two major items from the trial on perjury and obstruction charges of I. Lewis Libby, former Chief of Staff for Vice President Cheney, yesterday, as I heard in the courtroom: one was that Libby would not be taking the stand in his own defense, and Cheney would not testify on his behalf, “after all.” The other was that one defense attorney used a substantial chunk of testimony to plug war with Iran.

Predictably, the first item got more media attention. But the second one is more dangerous.

Sitting in on the trial every other day, I have never thought Libby likely to testify in his own defense...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

The groups and individuals endorsing this statement commend Congressman Rush Holt for all that is excellent in HR 811, the "Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2007" --- such as the ban on wireless communications, requirements for disclosed source code and hand audits, and the mandate that testing labs be contractually independent from vendors. However, we cannot, with good conscience, give our endorsement to HR 811. We believe we have a duty to call attention to the bill's unacceptable shortcomings and to call for the needed amendments.

In a press release to respond to the Princeton statements about Sequoia’s lack of security mechanisms in their voting machines Sequoia says, “Election security encompasses people, processes and voting technology. And all of Sequoia's voting systems have numerous safeguards to detect any attempt to tamper with a machine or election results --- as true security demands a combination of features.” It’s funny that Princeton Professor Appel found none of the security safeguards present in the machines he has inspected....

Guest Blogged By Michael Richardson

The more we peel away the layers of the onion, the more we find that it seems to stink to to high heaven. The latest chapter in our continuing series on the hidden world exposed by the recent failures of voting machine test lab CIBER to receive "interim accreditation" from the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission (EAC), is no exception.

The EAC's current Chair, Donetta Davidson, seems to have a long, storied and increasingly well-documented history of silence concerning electronic voting machine test laboratory problems and has been an active partner with EAC Executive Director Tom Wilkey --- whose roll in this mess we've examined in detail in previous articles (here, here and here to link to just a few of our reports in this continuing series) --- in keeping the public uninformed about failures in the secret test labs.

Wilkey is at the center of the controversy surrounding a failure to disclose to both the public and election officials around the nation that CIBER, Inc.,, the country's largest so-called “Independent Test Authority” (ITA), was banned last summer from further testing of voting machines. As previously reported by The BRAD BLOG, Wilkey kept test lab problems hidden from public scrutiny for years in his earlier duties at the National Association of State Election Directors (NASED) where he was in charge of monitoring and qualifying the labs.

Davidson is now Wilkey’s boss at the EAC where she landed after serving as Colorado’s Secretary of State since 1999 where she was later tied to significant failures by that state in properly certifying electronic voting systems. A judge last year condemned the state's practices and ordered the state, effectively, to start over from scratch after the debacle. Over the years, the paths of Davidson and Wilkey have crossed many times because of their mutual roles in the hidden world of voting machine testing.

Davidson and Wilkey both have served together on the board of The Election Center, a non-profit group of mysterious background headed by R. Doug Lewis, which provided technical assistance, training, and lobbying support to NASED members. Lewis, a key player in test lab secrecy, mentored Davidson and Wilkey as they gained control of the ITA testing infrastructure.

Davidson has also served on NASED’s Voting Standards Board, as chaired by Tom Wilkey, which qualified the test labs. The two kept in touch, Davidson in Colorado, Wilkey in New York, at conferences, via email, and over the phone. The conferences, often held in tourist destinations, were a special time for the two to get together...

Yes, there are Democrats in Orange County, California, apparently. At least they've invited me to speak to them tonight.

If you're one of them, or otherwise interested, please stop by tonight. Dinner is at 6pm, I start yackin' at 7pm. At El Adobe de Capistrano Restaurant, 31891 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano, CA. More details...

And now, the obligatory mention that I'd be equally delighted (if not more so) to speak to the Orange County, CA, Republicans if they ever feel like taking a break from voter registration fraud and switching voter registrations from Dem to Rep in order to invite me to speak to them.

The mini-road tour continues as we've finally returned from Arizona to the Golden State, even if we won't be back at The BRAD BLOG World News Headquarters until later this week/weekend. Thanks to all of the Guest Bloggers who have been carrying on so smartly in our stead as we've unable to man the front desk 24/7 as usual.

We'll be back at full strength soon. Until then, an Open Thread is likely in order. Consider this one of them. Comment away!

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

The Orlando Sentinel opines, “Such controversies [Jennings-Buchanan] have added impetus to calls nationwide to require paper trails for electronic voting. But printers on a touch-screen machine wouldn't prevent software problems or tampering that could taint the results. Florida's experience with touch-screen voting has shown that operating the machines properly has been beyond the technical abilities of some poll workers. Printers could introduce a new set of mechanical problems. What happens if the paper jams, or the toner runs out? Meanwhile, optical-scan is a low-tech system that produces ballots that can be recounted by hand to verify election results. Rather than require states with electronic-voting machines to add a paper trail, Congress should be encouraging them to follow Florida, and cut their losses.” We agree.

A Portland [Maine] Press-Herald columnist says, “Legislation to this effect was introduced in the House of Representatives this past week, and companion legislation is being prepared in the Senate. The proposed Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act does not, however, solve the problems of confusion, intimidation and machine malfunction generated by touch-screen technology. Ultimately, the best overall solution may be a semi-automated one that combines traditional paper ballots with comparatively inexpensive optical scanners; it's the system already used successfully in Canada for national elections, as well as by all or part of 28 states in the United States. And it provides a reliable paper trail for those inevitable recounts. Obviously, Diebold won't like it. Too bad; it's our democracy.”...

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer
If it sounds like fascism and looks like fascism, it probably is fascism. This harrowing six plus minute clip is cut from a recent Chris Hedges talk for American Fascists, his newly released book about the totalitarian Christian Nationalist Movement. Hedges believes that the movement has grown to the stage whereby comparisons to Germany in the early 1930s are not unjust. And he reminds Americans that even with the Nazis, the process was a "slow, gradual, almost imperceptible" erosion of society which went unnoticed until it was too late.

Particularly worrisome is that very few leaders, especially within the Democratic party, are "standing up and ringing the alarm bells." One leader who "gets it" is newly elected Senator Jim Webb, who understands the threat that economic dislocation and the creation of an American oligarchy pose to our democracy. It is hardly a new idea, Hedges points out, that the "disparity between the rich and the poor is the worst ailment that can beset any republic."

Another truism dating back to Athenian Democracy is "that the tyranny we impose on others we will one day impose on ourselves." And today we are a country only capable of speaking in the language of violence. That this violence has already begun to show up locally, whether in our prison system or Blackwater mercenaries patrolling the streets of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, should scare everyone.

Finally, Hedges worries that in the event of a crisis we will not have the organized power to stand up against them. In an unrelated story, the New York Times and most news outlets are printing bogus articles about Iran in what former administration officials believe is an attempt to spark a conflict.

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Ex-New Mexico SoS Rebecca Vigil-Giron was term-limited out of office in Nov. The Governor then named her to a new position as the head of the state’s new film museum. Now that job has been put on hold by the Governor until a $3Million shortfall in the SoS office can be explained.

It appears that the state of New Jersey may have violated its state laws when it certified the Sequoia AVC Advantage machines they have been using for years. There is no documentation to show that the system was ever inspected. Also a team at Princeton purchased five of the machines from an on-line government clearance house for $86. The same machines cost one New Jersey county $8000 per machine. The Princeton team put them to good use as they picked the locks within 7 seconds. They quickly learned how to manipulate the software to switch votes....

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

As the congressional report released in 2004 (referenced in previous blog) makes clear, if U.S. intelligence agencies were unable to connect Iraq to weapons of mass destruction before the war, it was not for lack of trying.

From May 2002 to September 2002, five documents were produced by the intelligence community pertaining to Iraq WMDs. A CIA briefing book prepared on May 10, a Department of Energy (DOE) intelligence report on July 22, and a Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) intelligence assessment in September all mentioned the Niger uranium issue, although the DOE report included caveats. The US embassy in Niger cabled on June 24, 2002, about an IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) agreement safeguarding Niger uranium. A CIA paper was published on August 1, 2002, titled ‘Iraq’s Reemerging Nuclear Program,’ but did not mention Niger uranium. (48)

As noted in the previous blog on this topic, investigation had ruled out any threat from Niger uranium in regard to Iraq. Evidently these efforts were not good enough. In September and October 2002, according to the Senate Select Intelligence Committee report, the White House contacted the intelligence community at least five times to clear language regarding alleged Iraqi efforts to purchase uranium. On September 11, 2002 – the first anniversary of 9/11 --- the NSC asked the CIA to clear uranium language for inclusion in a possible statement by Bush...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon, with additional reporting by Brad Friedman

"We can take a version of Sequoia's software program and modify it to do something different --- like appear to count votes, but really move them from one candidate to another. And it can be programmed to do that only on Tuesdays in November, and at any other time. You can't detect it," Princeton's Professor of Computer Science Andrew Appel explains in New Jersey's Star-Ledger today.

Like Diebold's touch-screen machines before them, Sequoia's voting machines have now been found to be hackable in seconds by a Princeton University professor who says the systems could be "easily...rigged to throw an election." Someone may wish to let the folks in Riverside County, CA, know since County Supervisors there recently issued a "thousand to one" bet that their Sequoia voting systems couldn't be manipulated.

In the same report, it was revealed that an attorney has filed suit, claiming the Sequoia AVC Advantage Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines used in 18 of New Jersey's 21 counties were never reviewed by the state before they were improperly certified for use and that Princeton's Appel was able to acquire five Sequoia voting machines for only $86. The same machines were recently purchased by the state for $8,000 apiece.

According to the Star-Ledger...

Venetis argues that the state certification is in violation of NJ state law which says such systems must "correctly register and accurately count all votes cast," be "of durable construction" to be used "safely, efficiently, and accurately."

The lack of documentation and testing, however, is hardly the only problem, as reported by the paper today. "Had the machines been tested," Election Integrity advocates have found, "they would have proved to be a hacker's dream."

Princeton Computer Science Professor Andrew Appel revealed that he bought 5 of the Advantage voting machines from an on-line government equipment clearinghouse for a total of $86. Virtually identical machines were bought in 2005 by Essex County New Jersey for $8,000 per machine.

"Appel had to submit only minimal personal information and a cashier's check to close the deal," the Star-Ledger reports. He and his team then put the 5 machines to good use...

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

When the full history of bogus WMD propaganda is written, a few individuals and agencies in our government will stand out for having tried to be rational voices during the administration’s juggernaut PR campaign to invade Iraq. Among these is the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) in the State Department.

The whole Niger story, that Iraq tried to buy tons of unenriched uranium, called yellowcake, from the African nation of Niger, displays the chasm between genuine analysts on one side and weird administration war boosters on the other. This story, which birthed the famous 16 words in a State of the Union speech, led to former ambassador Joseph Wilson’s trip to Niger, his subsequent criticisms of the administration, pundit Robert Novak’s outing Wilson’s wife as a CIA operative, at least two investigations into the leak --- with Novak and George W. Bush among those hiring attorneys – and the current trial of Lewis Libby, Vice President’s former Chief of Staff.

The Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq is 521 pages online (http://intelligence.senate.gov/iraqreport2.pdf; link down). Part II, on Niger, is pages 36-83. Numbers in parentheses, below, are the pages cited.

“Reporting on a possible yellowcake sales agreement between Niger and Iraq first came to the attention of the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) on October 15, 2001,” when the CIA Directorate of Operations (DO) passed along a report from a “foreign government service indicating that Niger planned to ship several tons of uranium to Iraq.” At the time, all IC analysts regarded this forwarded cable to be limited and lacking in detail. The CIA, DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency), and Department of Energy (DOE) called it “possible.” The State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) regarded it as “highly suspect.” (36) The INR turned out to be right...