Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

From Dana Perino's press briefing on Friday, Nov. 30, 2007:

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Sequoia Voting Systems should be very happy today. Palm Beach Co Florida signed a non-bid contract with the company for 1001 precinct based optical scan machines. The contract is worth $5.5M. One has to wonder what the vendor may be holding over the heads of the county commissioners to get them to not take bids and not bargain for the best price.

NJ State Senator Nia Gill will be on Voice of the Voter Radio again tomorrow night to discuss the NJ statistical audit bill, S.507, which was reported out of committee yesterday, as written and amended by Senator Gill....

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

In August, the U.S. government intelligence agencies sent word up the chain that Iran had suspended its nuclear weapons programs back in 2003. And yet, about two months later, on Oct. 17, 2007, George W. Bush issued a dire warning about Iran's nukes to the American people:

At Bush's news conference today, amid his tired, cringe-inducing towel-snaps at the White House press corps, he denied knowing the Iranian program was suspended in October when he suggested that the apocalypse was nigh:

And:

Normal U.S. presidents don't generally suggest, especially off-handedly, that the planet is on the brink of World War III. Is it really possible that Bush could have been so woefully uninformed about his own government's intelligence findings that he could make such a world-class blunder?

Blogged by Brad from the road...

In discussing WaPo's failure to properly describe Karl Rove's most recent indisputable lie (claiming it was Congress, not Bush, who rushed the resolution to authorize the use of military force in Iraq), Greg Sargent hits upon one of the most maddening --- and demonstrably destructive --- failings of the corporate mainstream media agenda-setters...

It's time the Washington Post, and scores of other such news outlets like it, start using actual words, like "lie", to report on what is actually going on in this country. No doubt they'll get around to it soon enough. Just in time for Hillary.

That, even as WaPo apparently has no problem reporting out and out rumors lies (long ago disproven ones at that) on their front page --- at least when they involve Democrats --- to the point that even a WaPo cartoonist had to take them to task for it.

And about this "balance" bullshit...oh, don't even get me started...

Guest Blogged by Michael Bryan

I am Michael Bryan, an attorney and blogger whose home is Tucson, Arizona. Starting today and continuing through Thursday, at BlogForArizona.com (my blog) and The BRAD BLOG, I will be covering the trial of Pima County Democratic Party v. Pima County. The proceedings will be live-blogged at BlogForArizona every day, with a daily summary posted each evening of the trial here at The BRAD BLOG.

The trial concerns the Pima County Democratic Party's demand for access to public records. Specifically, they seek access to database files that contain the raw tabulator vote data from a past local bond election. They seek to establish the public's right to inspect and analyze those records to search for any irregularities or manipulation by elections department insiders. Ideally, the Democrats want the judge to declare that all such files must be given to all political parties in Pima County in all future elections, so that public scrutiny can help ensure that the vote is honestly counted.

Why the concern that public officials, whose job it is to count the vote, may be instead manipulating the vote? Because the software Pima County (and many, many other jurisdictions around the country) is using to tabulate the vote is "fundamentally flawed" as to security according to an independent audit [PDF] commissioned by the Arizona Attorney General.

The "fundamentally flawed" software is made by Diebold and is called Global Election Management Software, or GEMS. Election integrity activists and researchers have long known that vote totals can be easily manipulated by insiders with access to the computers on which GEMS runs. The software is so fundamentally insecure that vote data can be changed by simply using the common database software Microsoft Access --- and the fraud can potentially be completely untraceable. With security conditions like that, it becomes imperative that the public have oversight of that data, just as the public has (or should have) oversight over the rest of the elections process.

For more background information about the software and the issues behind the trial, please see my post, Pima County Election Integrity Blues, or my introduction to the trial, both on BlogForArizona.com.

You may also wish to see Steve Rosenfeld's excellent report yesterday at Alternet, offering more specific details on what is at stake here.

If you would like to just listen to a discussion of the issues in the trial, please take a few minutes to listen to my recent interview with Action Point host Cynthia Black on Phoenix' Air America station...

For additional context here, I'll point you to a video (at right) of one of the men at the center of this controversy, Pima County's Election Director Brad Nelson. BRAD BLOG readers may remember this remarkable video referred to as "Election Director Gone Wild" as Nelson breaks into a tirade after being questioned by Pima County Election Integrity activist, John Brakey, about the Diebold DRE voting systems that Nelson was preparing, back then, in February of 2006, to bring into the county.

Please check my blog, BlogForArizona.com, for regular updates on the trial as it unfolds, and here at The BRAD BLOG for updates at the end of the days proceedings today through Thursday. Please use the comments on either blog to ask questions or make suggestions, we'll have someone monitoring the comments during the trial and will do our best to respond.

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Last month 108 voters went into the voting booth to vote on a school bond referendum and walked away without voting at all; or that’s what the county is questioning. The votes were cast on ES&S iVotronic DREs. The total undervotes was less than 2% of the 6,252 total ballots cast but about 8% in some precincts.

The Pima Co Arizona lawsuit goes to court tomorrow. That suit, if the results go our way, should provide a lot of information about elections and the voting machines being used across the country.

There is also a great review of “Margin of Error, Ballots of Straw”. We have a couple copies left which we would be happy to send out as a premium in exchange for a $50 donation. [Note: VotersUnite! is in affiliation with International Humanities Center, a nonprofit public charity exempt from federal income tax under Section 501[c](3) of the Internal Revenue Code.] ...

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

According to CNN's Bill Schneider, "Iraq is not a top issue to Republicans" in the coming election. Thus, Senator John McCain, who is seen as the GOP candidate "Best Able To Handle Iraq" does not gain much traction with voters whose interests have shifted to the economy and to other issues.

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

The White House is blocking efforts by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to present evidence he collected in the CIA Leak investigation to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, according to the committee's chairman, Henry Waxman (D-CA).

Prompted by Scott McClellan's statement last month asserting that top White House officials, including George Bush and Dick Cheney, were complicit in an effort to deceive the public about the leak, Rep. Waxman has written to Attorney General Michael Mukasey urging him to convince Bush to release the evidence.

In his letter, Rep. Waxman points to a precedent from the Clinton administration:

Of particular interest are Fitzgerald's notes from his interviews at the White House. If either Bush or Cheney gave statements that contradict McClellan's, a new investigation would likely be triggered. Lying to federal prosecutors is a felony.

Complete text of letter follows, via BuzzFlash.com:

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

In Bushworld, incompetence must be rewarded (in order to prevent the incompetent ex-employee from writing a tell-all book):

Right. What harm could he possibly do as head of this group:

The position was previously held by former lobbyist and U.S. senator, Fred Thompson, who is currently a Republican candidate for president.

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

This ought to drive a stake through the heart of the myth that Republicans are fiscally conservative.

According to the Associated Press, after seven years of mismanagement by George Bush and 12 years of Republican dominance of the Senate and control of the House, the national debt of the United States is now expanding by $1.4 billion per day and $1 million per minute:

By the time Bush is scheduled to leave office in January 2009, the debt will be $10 trillion, which is $10,000,000,000,000.00.

Guest Blogged by Stephen Heller

I am no longer a felon.

In brief, I became known to some as the "Diebold Whistleblower" when, in January of 2004, I stole and exposed legal documents [PDF] proving that Diebold Election Systems, Inc. was using and planned to continue using illegal, uncertified software in their California voting machines. (By the way, Diebold recently changed its name to Premier Election Solutions, but don't let that fool you; it's still the same bunch of idiots.) Details about my case can be found here and here [PDF].

The documents I stole were covered under attorney-client privilege, so my theft was a serious crime. In February of 2006 I was charged with three felonies. On November 20, 2006, I plead guilty to one felony count of unauthorized access to a computer, and in exchange for my guilty plea and a restitution payment of $10,000 to the law firm from which I stole the documents, the law firm promised they wouldn't bring a civil suit against me, and I was put on felony probation instead of being sent to jail. The term of probation was to be at least one year, and as much as three years.

Now, one year after my guilty plea, because I've stayed out of trouble and because I'm a first offender, the judge has reduced my felony to a misdemeanor. Sometime in 2008, my lawyers will petition the court to have my misdemeanor expunged.

The bad part is that the most troublesome aspect of my probation is still in force. Before I can accept a job at which I would use a computer networked to one or more other computers (basically any job for which I'd be qualified), any potential employer must write to the judge in my case, tell him that they know about my conviction and that they still want to hire me, and then we have to wait until the judge responds with a "yes" or a "no" before I can accept the job and start work (and then only if the judge says "yes"). So as you can see, employers will be falling all over themselves to hire me.

Yeah, right.

Meanwhile, my wife (an actor, filmmaker and writer) certainly hasn't lost her sense of humor. She had been calling me Felonious Punk, but now that I'm no longer a felon, she's switched to Mister Meanor. Ain't it great being married to a comedy writer?

To be clear, breaking attorney-client privilege is a very serious crime, and I accept responsibility for what I did. I'm still being punished for it, and so far the punishment has cost my wife and me over $210,000 - and counting. $210,000 is an enormous amount of money to us. My wife and I have paid and are continuing to pay a very high price for my crime.

But, as we're not Republicans, we might have expected that.

Which got me thinking about other crimes in America that have recently been committed or alleged, and what's happened to those involved. Among the first of many, Lewis "Scooter" Libby comes to mind...

By Brad, from Denver...

Damn bloggers. Following you around everywhere you go, with their nosy little cellphone cameras, writing down every little thing you do or say. Someone should make a law or something...bastards...

P.S. Thanks to the Coloradoans for Voting Integrity (who need a website!) and ProgressNow.org for inviting me to their Denver Roots Camp and for all the great grassroots work they are doing in their fights for truth, justice and the American way! Supermen (and women) all! Looking forward to coming back soon!

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Need a good book as a Christmas gift for someone? We still have a few copies of “Runoff” by noted novelist and mystery writer, Mark Coggins. We had the following to say in our review of the book; “What could be better than a fun fiction about the real dangers of electronic voting? Coggins shows us that elections can be hacked and the cover-up can be murder.” The book is gripping and laugh-out-loud funny in places. Read more about the book at VotersUnite.Org and help us out with a $50 or more donation and get a copy of the book as a premium. You help VotersUnite continue our valuable work and you get a great book. [Note: VotersUnite! is in affiliation with International Humanities Center, a nonprofit public charity exempt from federal income tax under Section 501[c](3) of the Internal Revenue Code.]

Links to today's voting news stories follow below as usual...