Guest blogged by DES

Obstruction of Justice, whether in political appointments or in elections, was the recurring theme this week, again.

Thankfully, "Elections have consequences." Those words from Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) continued to reverberate throughout the halls and offices on The Hill this week, as Kyle Sampson, the former Chief of Staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, was tasked with the unenviable role of "Next Fall Guy" (Lying Liars Division) in the Oversight and Accountability portion of our new Congressional program.

We also welcomed BRAD BLOG's newest Guest Blogger, Arlen Parsa, this week, with his explosive article connecting electoral dots, past and future, in the political perversion of justice at the Department of Justice.

And speaking of perversion, our D.C. Correspondent Margie Burns caught WaPo in what seems to be another act of swift-boating by media-abetted anonymous White House slur.

"Elections have consequences"... Do all roads lead to Rove on the Turdblossom Express?

In the meantime, get the popcorn ready and set your televisions to C-Span this next week --- The Waxman cometh...

For a look back at all of the above and much more that you may have missed last week, read on...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

The rise of electronic voting has created new ways to disenfranchise African-American voters—through high-tech ethnic profiling, inequitable allocation of equipment, and discrimination against non-computer-users and the elderly.

The solution? Prohibit the use of electronic voting systems, and replace them with voter-marked paper ballots, optical scanners, and stringent audits — a combination that provides the most secure safeguards available today and in the foreseeable future.

The opportunity to ban electronic voting is before Congress now. HR 811, the “Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2007,” does not prohibit electronic voting but must be amended to do so, in order to protect the voting rights of African-Americans.

“Many national organizations are pushing electronic voting machines, in spite of evidence that the machines are disenfranchising African-Americans and other minorities. Everyone must take a closer look at this — and soon.”
Velmanette Montgomery, New York State Senator...

Matthew Dowd, chief strategist for Bush's 2004 Presidential Campaign, says he was wrong, according to the New York Times...

The article also points out that the expected deployment of Dowd's son to Iraq was an "important factor" in his change of heart. Funny how that sort of thing strikes home when it's your family who is finally asked to make a sacrifice. Go figure.

Dowd also mentions that Bush's refusal to meet with Cindy Sheehan in Crawford in 2005 also added to his doubts about Bush.

On both of those points, we'd point you to this live performance of Sons & Daughters by Jesse Dyen [MP3], from one of the 50 or so hours of BRAD SHOW broadcasts from on the ground in Camp Casey during the summer of '05. The clip linked above was from one of our last days there...Katrina had already rolled in. Another one of the reasons for Dowd's defections. If you haven't heard it, Dyen's song is well worth a quick listen....

(Hat-tip RAW STORY for the Dowd story.)

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Recent reports that Voting Technologies International has gone out of business have apparently been premature but now the company is being sued by past employees, vendors, and Wisconsin labor regulators, all of whom say the company did not pay them for accrued time off, services rendered and reimbursable expenses. How much longer can it be for VTI?

Meanwhile a congressional task force will meet April 17, for the first time, to begin discussions of the election in Florida CD-13. The GOP has, so far, chosen to not have any members on this task force. The group will meet with or without a GOP representative.

And speaking of Florida, the Governor and Senate seem to be in agreement that DRE voting must go. The state House seems to be holding out. The Speaker of the House is concerned that state funds are going to be used by the counties to correct their bad decisions. And then late this afternoon the GOP majority in one House committee voted to axe any funds for the state to purchase new machines to replace their DREs.

Also today, true to its seemingly partisan position the EAC has decided to disown a commissioned study on VoterID and do it again in an attempt to get the result that they want.

All those stories and more linked below...

After recent Congressional oversight questioning by Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission's Bush-appointed chairwoman, Donetta Davidson, has finally relented and agreed to release the commission's bi-partisan report on "Voter ID" issues which has been held back for months. That report, and another not yet released on claims of "Voter Fraud" have been withheld by the EAC, as we reported here and here and in a guest blog by Tova Andrea Wang, one of the two original lead researchers of the still-withheld "Voter Fraud" report.

Hinchey's statement on today's release, including a call for the release of the other related reports, is posted here.

Finally having released the June 28, 2006, report [PDF] today, in the wake of Congressional pressure, and shamefully titling it as a "Draft Voter ID Report" (since it didn't show what they had wanted it to show), the EAC today announced the following:

In other words, they'll get the "facts" they want, no matter how many reports they need to commission!

The report details how voter participation in minority areas had, in fact, declined after restrictive "Photo ID" laws were enacted at the polls.

"It appears that politics remains the EAC's main priority," said Michael Slater, Deputy Director of Project Vote who claims the commission responsible for overseeing elections systems in the U.S. continues to "play politics." In a statement posted after the report was released today he said, "It's disappointing that the Commission is building a reputation for ignoring or suppressing research findings that don’t satisfy everyone’s ideological position."

He added that the commission's disassociation from the report is another example of their string of continuing failures. "The EAC should be embarrassed by its attempt to impeach the report's findings by insinuating its methodology is unsound."

Are supporters of Rep. Rush Holt's Election Reform Bill paying attention?! His bill, HR811, as currently drafted, would reward the EAC by making them a permanent body, despite their notable and repeated failures...

HOLLYWOOD - While on the phone, during yet another exasperating conversation with a Congressional office, I noticed the sky above BRAD BLOG World News Headquarters begin turning oddly orange. It turns out a large brush fire, just over the hill near the Universal and Warner Bros. Studios, was burning out of control. In a potential disaster for the entire nation, indeed the world, the "Hollywood Sign" itself sits nearby.

With our photography staff (Desi) away on assignment (lunch in Santa Monica), we'll have to rely on photos from the media....

(Courtesy NBC11.com)

(Courtesy TMZ.com)

As the wind seems to have changed directions moments ago, the orange sky over our corporate headquarters has begun to turn blue again. So it seems that all staff members will likely be spared, this afternoon at least, from an horribly tragic apocalyptic ending. We'll let you know if the situation changes.

LIVE VIDEO COVERAGE here...

Congrats to Democratic Rep. Jerry McNerney's (CA-11) team of Election Integrity advocates, who did a great job with their election protection analysis and report from his election last November. His Election Protection Task Force has just released their report [PDF] on how it all went, including 36 specific and detailed recommendations for improving the election system used in the four counties (Alameda, Contra Costa, San Joaquin, and Santa Clara) that make up California's 11th Congressional district.

"The McNerney Election Protection Task Force Report" illustrates, among other things, that DRE touch-screen systems made by Diebold, specifically as used in San Joaquin County under the oversight (or lack thereof) of Registrar of Voters Debbie Hench, did not fare well in the election. Broken-down machines caused long lines, there were not enough paper ballots for backup, plus various problems with chain of custody and lousy post-election audit and reporting systems were all accompanied by an embarrassing lack of transparency for the entire system.

The report's overall conclusion: "The current electoral system is not acceptable."

And before you electronic voting apologists haul out your tired old "sore loser" lines, McNerney won his race over the Republican long-time incumbent, Richard Pombo!

Congrats and thank you to all who helped create the very enlightening report, and specifically to McNerney for having the foresight and responsibility to create and work on such an important project. If every candidate did the same, we'd have this mess cleaned up in no time.

*** Special to The BRAD BLOG
*** by D.C. Correspondent Margie Burns

Has the Washington Post been fooled (again) by high-level ‘leakers’? It sure looks that way.

On Tuesday, March 20, the Post ran a front-page article on the DOJ-U.S. Attorneys scandal that led off:

The item was sourced to unnamed “administration officials” who gave it to two WaPo reporters “yesterday.”

This juicy lede graf was followed up:

The major problem with this story? It’s not true. The Department of Justice never 'ranked' U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald negatively or as 'undistinguished.' According to sworn testimony by D. Kyle Sampson, today in the Senate Judiciary Committee, Fitzgerald was rated 'very strong' internally in the DOJ.

So who fed the Post that story? And why did they run it without pinning it down first?...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Just why is the New Jersey State Commission of Investigation (SCI) asking counties for all paperwork that applies to their dealing with Sequoia Voting Systems? They want “all bids, contracts, licenses, canceled checks and warranties relating to the purchase of voting machines from Sequoia.” Of course no one at SCI is saying anything while the investigation is under way.

And in more vendor news St Joseph Co, Indiana is paying an ES&S bill under protest and they may follow their check with a notice of a lawsuit. It seems the company may have made software updates contrary to county instructions and then when ES&S corrected the mistake they decided to charge for that correction.

Those stories, and many more, all linked below...

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

The Bush administration is hell bent on opening up US highways to Mexican truck drivers without much regard for safety, terrorism, drug smuggling or jobs. In fact, the program seems to be uniting a wide range of groups on the left and the right against the administration which claims it will be good for the economy. Lou Dobbs gives his opinion at the 2:45 mark:

From attorneys Michael Waldman and Justin Levitt of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law in today's WaPo...

And three more notable money quotes from the piece worth running here...

(Hat-tip to the eagle-eyed Pokey Anderson!)

And then there was this joke from Bush's speech:

For the record, funniest moment of the evening, hands down, at the 63rd Radio and TV Correspondents' Association Dinner, was during Brian Williams' "performance" doing sound FX for an improv segment last night. C-Span has the entire evening on video. The Williams segment begins at appx the :41 minute mark and was wet your pants funny, IMO, and well worth the watch.

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Since October of last year, The Coalition for Voting Integrity has been producing a radio show, “Voice of the Voters” - available on WNJC1360 AM and the Internet - devoted to the exploration not only of the impact of electronic voting but also the nature of Democracy and our role in it as American citizens.

The list of guests has been nothing short of astounding. From a Pulitzer-Prize winning historian to national experts on the issues and science behind electronic voting, every week has brought a wealth of information to the public. Mary Ann Gould has interviewed internationally known computer scientists and electronic voting experts, Dr. Avi Rubin, Dr. Dan Lopresti and Dr. Rebecca Mercuri. She’s talked to polling expert Dr. Steven Freeman of UPENN. She got the latest news about pending electronic voting litigation, including some in Pennsylvania, from attorneys and voting experts John Bonifaz, Marian K. Schneider and Lowell Finley. She’s talked to Congressmen Rush Holt (NJ-12) and Ron Paul (TX-14).

I highly recommend this weekly one-hour radio program. It airs on WNJC and on the Internet every Wednesday from 8PM to 9PM EST. Go to Coalition for Voting Integrity for more information on each week’s program and to find the archives of previous programs.

Aside from that, notable voting stories from today are linked below as usual...

Harri Hursti is coming to Riverside County, home of County Supervisor Jeff "1000 to 1" Stone, he of the now infamous, if ill-conceived, "Riverside Hack Challenge".

Hursti, the Finnish computer security expert and hacker of Diebold voting machines past (see HBO's Hacking Democracy for but one example), will be testifying to and answering the questions of the "Blue Ribbon" commission empaneled by the county to investigate complaints about the administration of the 2006 election, as well as the the many expressed security and accuracy concerns about their Sequoia Edge touch-screen DRE voting systems.

Riverside is, proudly, the first county in the U.S. of A. to have made the mistake of moving to electronic balloting systems, but if they hurry, they won't be the last to dump 'em entirely.

The Sequoia voting systems in question would be the ones involved when Stone challenged Election Integrity advocates, on video tape, back in December, to bring in a programmer and "set up an appointment with one of our machines" in order to "verify that they can manipulate that machine."

"I'm gonna bet a thousand to one that they cannot do it...I'll make that challenge," Stone blurted out to the continuing dismay of his fellow Supervisors and County Registrar Barbara Dunmore.

And then, Hursti stepped in to accept the challenge. Stone has been wafflin', duckin', and dodgin' ever since (see this page for our complete hilarious special coverage of the "Riverside Challenge").

Hursti will testify at the commission's March 30th panel at 9am in Palm Desert, CA, at the Palm Desert City Hall, 73-510 Fred Waring Drive.

The hearing and testimony is open to both the public and the media, and --- as we are both --- we might like to drive down there ourselves if the gods are with us. But, despite Hursti's travels all the way from Finland, the gods haven't been with us much of late, and so we may or may not be able to make the few hours' drive. But we hope you will, if you're in the 'hood. And if so, let us know how it went!

Either way, we hope to have some video of the whole affair to post here afterwards at The BRAD BLOG if those pesky gods are even partly with us this time around.

UPDATE: VelvetRevolution.us --- (Disclosure: The BRAD BLOG is a co-founder of VR)-- is helping to raise funds to cover the expenses of DFA/Temecula Valley & SAVE-R-VOTE in covering expenses for Hursti's visit, and other costs related to their Election Integrity advocacy. Please click here to donate, and specify funds be earmarked for "Riverside Hack Challenge".

More details on Hursti's appearance in Riverside follow in a press release which we early-obtained from the good folks of the SAVE-R-VOTE project of DFA/Temecula Valley, and we're all too pleased to share it with you in full below...