Scantegrity, a registered non-profit organization, has announced a collaborative effort with Takoma Park Maryland to hold a primary and general election on an open-source voting system with both conventional paper and cryptographic audit trails. I’m sure there will be a lot more on this later....

Speaking on wingnut radio Friday, MN's former Republican Senator Norm Coleman announced: "God wants me to serve."

No explanation was offered, however, for why God seems to have given more votes to his challenger, the apparent winner of the U.S. Senate race there, Democrat Al Franken.

Guest Blogged by Ellen Theisen of VotersUnite.org

[Updated: The bill has been defeated! See bottom of article for details.]

Even though reports from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), and dozens of computer security experts who strongly and unanimously warn of insurmountable threats to the privacy and security of ballots cast over the Internet, the Washington State legislature is proposing --- and fast-tracking --- a bill to allow Internet voting for its military and overseas voters (S.B.5522 in the Senate, and its identical companion H.B.1624 in the House).

Even though the U.S. Department of Defense canceled its Internet voting project (SERVE) in 2004 citing security concerns, and even though the DoD has still been unable to establish the secure and private Internet voting demonstration project that Congress mandated in 2002, the Washington State legislature is seriously considering a bill that would authorize the Washington Secretary of State to create an Internet voting scheme and declare it secure and private --- without any oversight or review by the legislature or the people...

Via Media Matters...During Fox "News'" Happening Now show this morning, host Jon Scott claimed "the Senate is expected to pass the $838 billion stimulus plan --- its version of it, anyway. We thought we'd take a look back at the bill, how it was born, and how it grew, and grew, and grew..."

Trouble is, the "we" Scott mentions wasn't Fox. It was the Senate Republican Communications Center (SRCC), and the resultant "news" analysis, was virtually an exact repetition of a news release the SRCC issued earlier today.
In addition to turning the exact quotes from the press releases into graphics, Fox even replicated a typo from one of them, on the final graphic, as referring to a Wall Street Journal report from "12/9/09." (That's almost a year from now, for those not paying too close attention.)

Video of the Fox "News" "report" is at right, and you may compare it to the SRCC's press release --- including the typo --- here. (We've taken the liberty of archiving the original version here, just in case they decide to change it.)

Other than that, the outfit is completely legitimate, like totally fair and balanced, and not associated with the Republican Party in any way.

UPDATE 2/11/09: After a day of getting pounded by the media for the above, Fox News issues an apology...for the typo.

Premier/Diebold has filed a lawsuit against SysTest Labs. The voting machine vendor claims that SysTest’s loss of EAC accreditation in the middle of testing on the newest Premier voting system has wreaked havoc on Premier’s business. This should be an interesting suit.

“Even though reports from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), and dozens of computer security experts strongly and unanimously warn of insurmountable threats to the privacy and security of ballots cast over the Internet, the Washington State legislature is proposing – and fast-tracking – a bill to allow Internet voting for its military and overseas voters.” “VotersUnite does not believe in using military and overseas voters as guinea pigs in a voting scheme that has already been determined by experts to be an “essentially impossible” task given the current architecture of the Internet.” ...

An official state investigation is now underway into multiple voter fraud charges against Rightwing author and one-time attorney Ann Coulter in Connecticut. The investigation began after a complaint was filed with the state's Elections Enforcement Commission on January 29, 2009.

The BRAD BLOG has exclusively obtained a copy of that one-page complaint which is posted in full, as filed with Joan M. Andrews, Director of Legal Affairs and Enforcement for the commission, at the end of this article.

The complaint was filed by Daniel Borchers, a conservative Christian critic of Coulter's following allegations in the New York Daily News in January that she had illegally voted by absentee ballot in CT, using her parents address there, in 2002 and 2004, despite being a resident of New York City at the time.

Previously allegations by Borchers against Coulter have been the subject of a number of articles over the years here at The BRAD BLOG, and he has, on occasion, even guest blogged a number of times here for us himself.

Though the allegations of Coulter having committed voter fraud in CT in 2002 and 2004 would be her first known instances of casting ballots illegally, they are not the first allegations of such crimes against Coulter. In 2005, after she moved from NY to Palm Beach, FL, she knowingly falsified her Voter Registration Form (a 3rd degree felony), knowingly voted at the wrong precinct (a 1st degree misdemeanor), as well as gave a false address for her drivers license (another 3rd degree felony).

Despite an inaccurate report from AP in May of 2007, subsequently picked up by other media, Coulter was never "cleared" of the voter fraud charges in FL.

The BRAD BLOG has posted indisputable evidence of her FL crimes, including her actual fraudulent Voter Registration Form on which she lied when filling out her own address, official testimony from a Palm Beach pollworker (and the county's former Supervisor of Elections) detailing her knowingly having voted in the wrong precinct, as well as a report from the Palm Beach Township Chief of Police, verifying the crimes.

Coulter, however, was able to escape accountability for the illegalities in FL, due to an inappropriate (and likely illegal) intervention from a former boyfriend of hers in the FBI, and gaming of the legal system, such that the crimes were eventually nullified by the statute of limitations there.

The most recent complaint from Borchers follows articles by the New York Daily News and Lee Stranahan at Huffington Post last month, detailing her apparently-illegal CT absentee voting. But it would not be the first time he would play a roll in this continuing saga...

Guest Blogged by Steve Heller of VelvetRevolution.us

The Mississippi State Senate has made an unusual move; they've pulled legislation that they passed on January 15 requiring that voters show a photo ID before being allowed to vote, stripped all amendments out of it, and passed the new legislation.

The previous version had an amendment that allowed voters age 65 and older to vote without showing a photo ID. Mississippi's Republican Governor Haley Barbour had pressed for the removal of that exemption. He got his wish...

Not much in the news this weekend. Of course more from Minnesota and the Senate recount/court case. That will be going on for awhile more I’m afraid. ...

We'll call it the Sunday Funnies. Geraldo did a segment on his Fox "News" Saturday freak show, in response to the California "Octo-Momma Drama", featuring an interview with a Florida family who recently had sextuplets. The attempted interview just gets funnier and funnier as it goes along, and as the babies get more and more upset.

My favorite, however, is the oldest child, five year-old Zoey in the middle of the shot. She's the one to keep your eyes on as the madness unfolds...

(Note: While there's nothing particularly political in this clip, for those who insist on politics, okay: The babies are the Congressional GOP and "that little sweetie in the middle," Zoey, is Obama, ignoring the madness, and taking her case straight to the American people.)

To quote myself from coverage earlier this week, in case you hadn't read it all the way to the end: "Had Democrats ever fought as hard for every single vote as Republicans always do in any election that even approximates being close, President Gore or President Kerry would likely have ensured a very different judicial balance on [the U.S. Supreme Court] by now."

Thanks to the tremendous work by TheUptake.org, I've been hypnotized for hours at a time this week by live video coverage from the Coleman/Franken U.S. Senate election contest in MN, via their live feed from the courtroom, attorney pressers and "post game" analysis each day. Their coverage, as citizen journalists, has been exceptional each day, and MN, as well as the nation, owes them a big thanks. The work of the TheUptake.org is the very prototype of "what's to come" in news coverage as we move forward into the brave new century.

[Disclosure: VelvetRevolution.us, an organization co-founded by The BRAD BLOG, has contributed in the past to TheUptake.org. Also: TheUptake.org needs funding to continue what they're doing! Please help them here if you can!]

Watching their coverage, and the various findings from the 3-judge panel in St. Paul this week, has both made my brain hurt, and made clear again what I've quoted myself noting above: Republicans will say anything, do anything, make any legal arguments --- no matter how much in wild contradiction with their very own previous statements and positions --- that they need, in order to fight for every vote they think they earned (and even many they know they didn't. In the bargain, nobody has called them cry-baby, tin-foil hat wearing sore losers or conspiracy theorists, and their strategy has already resulted in political gains (Al Franken, the apparent winner of the election by 225 votes, has not been able to offer his Democratic vote in the U.S. Senate while the trial continues), and could, if miracles and/or SCOTUS happens, result in an overturned election. Though that much remains very much a long shot.

While many of the GOP tactics here have been reprehensible, their strategy, of fighting for every single vote, is to be commended. The Democrats should --- but probably won't --- learn from it.

With all of that in mind, and in hopes again of not going too far into weeds, which is tough not to do (see our recent previous coverage, here, here and here, for example), what follows is my best stab at a very quick summary of the most notable events and rulings, etc. out of Minnesota this week.

Also, my audio interview with TheUptake's Senior Political Correspondent, Noah Kunin, from Minneapolis, as taped during my weekly Friday appearance on last night's Peter B. Collins Show, is also posted below...

And Gallup has still more difficult news for old Rush...

“…he didn't see anything wrong with asking to work for Premier Elections Solutions, despite still managing a public office that owed the company $2.2 million.” So claimed Buddy Johnson the former Supervisor of Elections of Hillsborough Co. Florida and often mentioned in this space. Also being reported, “Johnson spent about $2.5 million in federal grants on "voter education," including TV spots, radio ads, mass mailings and print pieces that featured his name and image prominently in the heat of a tight campaign.” As I recall Johnson ended-up spending just a fraction of his campaign funds as compared to the newly elected SOE Phyllis Busansky....

From Washington Post:

The corrupt Feeney, as regular readers of The BRAD BLOG likely know, is currently under federal investigation due to his association with jailed Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff. In 2003 Feeney went on a junket with Abramoff to play golf at St. Andrews in Scotland. He would later claim he had no idea that the trip was illegally paid for by lobbyists.

For more details on the appellate court ruling --- or rather, hints, given what little is available on it for the moment --- please see WaPo's coverage today to hunt for clues.

One other very interesting point we hadn't noticed previously...

Last December, following the passage of Prop 8 in California, Ken Starr (yes, that Ken Starr) filed a legal brief with the CA Supreme Court, on behalf of the so-called "Prop 8 Legal Defense Fund", seeking to nullify the legal marriages of 18,000 same-sex couples in the state.

Arguments will be heard beginning on March 5th, and the Courage Campaign is asking for you to send your opinion to the Supremes (deadline: Valentine's Day), in hopes that they will invalidate the civil rights abomination that is Prop 8, on Constitutional (if not moral) grounds.

When the Courage Campaign launched their "Don't Divorce..." campaign, they asked members to "send pictures with a simple message for Starr and the Prop 8 Legal Defense Fund." Here's the resulting, and moving, 4-minute video...

Today’s news finds articles from Minnesota where the recount trial continues on. Now the justices are trying to decide whether they can allow Franken to take the Senate seat on an interim basis. It looks like there will be no final decision this week or maybe even this month.

Also we have articles from Georgia, Minnesota, Mississippi and Oklahoma where Voter ID is being pushed by state legislatures under the false idea that voter fraud is rampant or that illegal aliens are streaming over the borders just to vote in our elections. In Georgia they actually want to expand what is already a restrictive law to make it more restrictive. Now they want voters to have to prove their citizenship. Not a problem? It is for voters like Arthur Remillard who was born by a mid-wife and was the placed for adoption. He has no birth certificate. No way to prove his citizenship even though he had never had a problem in his 75 years. ...