On Monday night, Lou Dobbs and his correspondent, Kitty Pilgrim, again did a segment on “Democracy At Risk” on CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight.
Tonight’s report (text transcript at bottom of this article) featured a discussion of the certification standards used (or, more accurately, not used) for the certification of voting machines by the US Government. Featured in tonight’s segment were Michael Waldman of the Brennan Center For Justice, John Washburn of VoteTrustUSA, and Rev. DeForest Soaries who resigned from his post as the first chairman of the federal Election Assistance Commission (EAC).
Soaries was also recently interviewed by Rolling Stone’s Tim Dickinson.
Video in Streaming Flash format…
Video in Windows Media format…
The complete text transcript follows…
Airdate: July 10, 2006
Tonight, the federal government is failing to protect our democracy from an imminent threat. Electronic voting machines are open to fraud and can be compromised by hackers. But the federal government cannot enforce security standards for electronic voting machines. It hasn’t set specific standards yet. Kitty Pilgrim reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): More than half of all American voters will vote on electronic voting machines in upcoming elections. And watchdog groups want the federal government to be more aggressive to prevent fraud.
MICHAEL WALDMAN, BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE: The federal government, through the election assistance commission, should be training local officials in how to do the right kind of audits of these voting systems. That can happen right away. That doesn’t need new legislation. It should be the job of the federal government to do the kind of threat analysis that private groups and computer scientists have done.
PILGRIM: Federal guidelines for designing and testing electronic voting machines were drafted by a federal advisory board in 2005. But those standards are voluntary and won’t be officially into effect until December 2007.
DeForest Soaries was the first chair of the Federal Election Assistance Commission set up after the hanging chad controversy of 2000 to oversee election reform. Soaries resigned April of last year.
DEFOREST SOARIES, FORMER CHMN, ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMM.: Well what’s wrong with the standards is they are not standards, they are recommendations at best. I’m worried about electronic voting because we’ve done such inadequate research that we don’t know what we don’t know.
PILGRIM: Computer engineers say the guidelines are not enough to actually check the machine that is in place at the polling station.
JOHN WASHBURN, VOTETRUSTUSA: We don’t know enough about the system in front of you to know if it is or is not the same as the one that was tested. So any statement about the tested system may or may not apply to your system.
PILGRIM: Also watchdog groups say guidelines allow for an acceptable failure rate for electronic voting machines that is too high.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PILGRIM: The Federal Election Assistance Commission says voting guidelines have always been voluntary and left up to the states. Now the Help America Vote Act sets minimum guidelines, but doesn’t say what kind of technology should be used or require how it should be verified. That decision, Lou, is local.
DOBBS: It may be local, but this is a national issue for certain. The idea that we can be a matter of months away from the upcoming midterm elections and not have any assurance whatsoever that these machines work, can’t be tampered with or that fraud will occur is just mind boggling.
PILGRIM: No, the people that we talk to who watch this are absolutely in shock over this. And they’re very upset that local officials aren’t taking the energy to check and connect with people.
DOBBS: Well what in the world is the federal government doing?
PILGRIM: The federal government has basically dropped the ball on this, Lou.
DOBBS: Dropped the ball. Minor thing with our Democratic republic at stake. Not that we don’t have enough issues to deal with, the fact that we can’t even rely upon a vote. We’ll continue with your excellent reporting on this issue, very important issue. Thank you, Kitty Pilgrim.
Good job, Lou. Good catch, John. Thanks to both of you for your persistent hard work on this topic.
Lou Dobbs is our greatest ally right now. He is doing more to expose e-vote fraud in the MSM than anyone else, because he has the vehicle to do so. Don’t forget, he had Brad on there, too.
THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, LOU DOBBS!!!!!!!!
Bush’s confidence on future election outcomes expressed to Larry King indicate to me this Nazi branch of the Republican party expects us to keep goose stepping right up to these machines, validate their fascism by playing along and pretending to vote. This may ultimately come down to us, as a people, for the people, by the people; we need to reject any election on any level of government that does not hand count. This hand count must be appropriately supervised, including video tapping. Election fraud should be prosecuted as a form of treason. In fact, lets make that last idea retroactive, and begin the official investigation and prosecution of who have been involved in the systematic disenfranchisement of voters and fraud in any election in the past 10 years, starting w/Jeb Bush.
Music for a Crumbling Empire
Its sounding pretty good, I wonder how Lou is getting away with it, whos running the store after Bill Headline left ? (Is that an Orwellian name or what ?)
I like Jack Cafferty too, he’s nice and cynical
Heres the link, scroll down to Bill Headline
Link
Next for Lou Dobbs:
GET CLINT CURTIS ON YOUR SHOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Floridiot #4
Get to this link and give me some help please:
https://bradblog.com/?p=3052
John, it has to do with the EAC link to Ciber, Inc. in Alabama where Shawn Southworth is shown to have certified every voting machine for every company … and I link it to the republican operatives …
Calling Floridiot, calling Floridiot …
Kitty Pilgrim: “The federal government has basically dropped the ball.”
Me: Dropped it? You’ve got to be kidding me! They intentionally threw it in the sewer! Then they shoveled more sewage on top of it to try to hide it!
I have a few questions:
1) Are there any attempts to educate and warn voters in areas where the hack-able voting machines exist, and is it possible for voters to use fill-out voting forms instead of the e-machines?
2) Can’t we just sue the SOB elections officials who still promote these worthless pieces of electronic junk for outright fraud?
Welfl #7 –
Exactly!
I had the very same criticism last evening when I watched the show. Pointing out problems without discussing motives for those very problems is well and good – up to a point – but it misses the bigger, more ominous picture. Lou Dobbs is dogged but also surprisingly naive at times.
Paul Wartenberg
At least in California, they use these same companies’ machines to count the paper ballots. Damned if you do; damned if you don’t.
In case anyone missed it, John Dean was on Olberman recently, and he has studied what’s gone wrong with the Republican Party.
You can watch the video here.
Looks as if we’ve got plenty of SoS’s and RoV’s who fall into this authoritarian personality problem of which he speaks. Serious stuff. So thank you Lou and Kitty, and maybe with your help enough people will wake up in time!
Peg C #9 –
How much can be attributed to naiveté, and how much is a simple desire not to push too far, lest they upset their conservative masters at CNN, Inc.? Also, some of it might even be an unwillingness to admit the horrible truth to themselves. Their heroes, republican lawmakers, are actually evil (ie. dirty, crooked, dictatorial), instead of being the wonderful “saviors” they’ve been promoting for decades.
Like you, I also watched her say that on the live broadcast yesterday, and I said almost exactly what I wrote earlier: “Dropped it?!” I shouted at the TV screen. “They intentionally threw it down!”
By the way, if you haven’t already seen of it or heard of it, I strongly urge everyone here to watch the following amazingly inspiring (yet scary) segment in which Keith Olbermann interviews John Dean. It took place last night and covers his new book, Conservatives Without Conscience.
All media is MISSING THE BIG PICTURE by just talking about what happened. We all know the elections are being rigged and we can talk about it til the end of time while “they” keep winning. Everyone is missing the point and the big picture – what is going to be done about it before there is no more democracy in America? They already have their foot in the door and control everything from the machines/poll workers to the President. With each passing election, they will get ever more entrenched into the system gaining total control and power. It’s already too late for the November 2006 elections. Anyone who is still talking about what happened in the past instead of discussing how to prevent these sham elections in the future has DROPPED THE BALL. It’s nice to be informed, but if all you’re doing is gathering and sharing info to top each other for shock value, then you are part of the problem too. This is why the Democrats, as a party, are crippled and our freedom is disappearing.
Our timing regarding Keith Olbermann and John Dean was fairly well synchronized, Agent99. 😉 Your comment was posted while I was in no-man’s land editing and re-editing my similar comment.
Welfl
Oh, excellent! “Great minds…” you know…. 😛
Dixiecrat
While I do agree with a lot of what you say here, November 2006 is still in the future and we MIGHT be able to get something done about it, at least enough to be able to expose and undo the fraud in time to get the right people in office. Pessimism isn’t any healthier than being all over the place on an issue.
People can be calling their County Governments, suing, hassling the press to cover the issue, putting up huge signs in their yards, all kinds of stuff. 2006 is NOT already lost unless we don’t move on it. Printing the ballots, or using different colored paper for different candidates, doesn’t take very long, and with enough people insisting, it very well could happen.
With respect from a complete outsider who is not pessimistic: The comments are engaging in Monday Morning Quarter-backing over the last game your favorite team just lost. And so predictable too with most entries congratulating each other over finding some obscure bit of info to reinforce your point of view and then cheering on your team in dire HOPES that it will all get better. Your entries are quite formulaic 1. Everyone gets involved over a recent revealing of info. 2. Everyone tries to out-do each other with either how much more they know than everyone else does or out-do each other with coming up with the most shocking bit of info. 3. The B.S. opinions get tossed around for awhile. 4. Everyone feels powerless. 5. Toward the conclusion of the thread, someone then invariable writes that they HOPE things will turn out better in the future (which is useless) or someone concludes in so many words that maybe “the people” will finally wake-up and do something (which is really creepy cuz everyone on this BLOG are the people who are the most “awake”, but they do not consider themselves actual members of “the people” who should be doing something about it. How utterly boring and wasteful of your time unless you take the knowledge you have and truly analize it for the deeper meaning and then take action.
Dixiecrat
I think you’re overstating any one-upmanship going on around here. I think you are suffering from the same feeling of the futility of just writing or talking about something that needs to get HANDLED that I feel, and have felt for long. Personally, I get some relief from being a reliance for Brad while he’s off getting things done. Some of the rest of us get some relief from working all day to get to the roots of this affront to our Constitution, helping us KNOW the problem well enough to combat it where it lives… sort of like the way a surgeon would want to go about removing a tumor. Some of the stuff is just giving moral support, or blowing off steam, or finding ways to relax in the tensions of so much depending on this.
But, I don’t think you can really say how much the people on this blog are doing toward solving the problem. How do you know how much analysis of the problem is getting done? We don’t always comment on it. Many of us use the links for our investigations before we come up with something new to contribute. I’m absolutely with you that flapping lips (or fingers on the keyboard) is useless, but I must say your attitude is coming off as if you think we’re all a bunch of hot-dogging flakes, and that’s a little harsh. Maybe you’d like to make an example of yourself for us?
Since this is my first blogging experience, I have nothing to compare it to, however, I was expecting more of the sharing of ideas from a variety of perspectives rather than just the sharing of information. I respect you and everyone on this blog for the fine work everyone is doing here to keep the public informed regarding current events. I wish you and all associated with this blog much success.
Dixie
Don’t get demoralized so quickly.
I think you will find the sharing of ideas a lot thicker here than most other blogs, at least on this topic. Information is as important as ideas. People pop in with ideas all the time. People pop up with ideas all the time. Sometimes they’re gonzo; sometimes they’re good. Usually the ideas lead people into more investigation. What is your idea today for keeping election fraud out of it this November? Or, what avenues of inquiry do you think we might we follow to come up with the definitive course of action toward this same deadline? And, do you realize that a lot of stuff IS being done, behind the scenes to help restore reliable election results? Do you get it that reporting on these things often has to wait? Don’t chicken out on us. If you think we need help, help. Or, try other blogs before you give up entirely.
And, don’t let some of the guys’ thing about being slow to trust get to you. We have had to put up with mountains of misdirection, disinformation and other “adorable” tricks here, and some of us are SO tired of it that it takes us a while to make sure new people haven’t just dropped in to keep us off the subject. Floridiot used to be a construction boss, and he probably hasn’t been in the mood to trust newbies for decades! One thing you can rely on here: the regulars CARE more than can be expressed. That, also, no matter how snarky, means they care more about people than most of those you find walking around out there, or even in here, in Blogotopia.
Does anyone see this coming?
IF the Democrats win a majority, the republicans are going to cry “voting machine fraud” and “they cheated”. 2004 Presidential election scam long forgotten.
This is going to be ugly.
jpentz
Yep. Let’s hope they’re as ineffective at it as they’ve made us be up to now. How do you make a snarly face on this software? 🙁
I see Dix is having newcomers disease, I had it too Dix
Once you figure out where everybody is coming from, you’ll be ok, you will get to know everyone better the more you read their posts
Me, I’m just trying to get ahead of the evil bastards is all, and I don’t even know yet if I’m making any headway, but I’m sure going to try like hell
I’m a horseshit typer so if it looks like I’m cutting corners…I am 😀
jpentz, yup I see it even posted my cynical observation on it…somewhere ? :shrug:
I gotta go for a couple of hours, I can’t believe I’m saying this but, “House” is on, my wife talked me into watching it one time, saying it reminded her of me
I like it, laugh my ass off
I love you guys and gals – so I found it easy to completely trust all of you from day one. I don’t care if you trust me – that’s not the hot issue – it’s not about me. I just think we’re not spending enough time on what is GOING to happen in the future and trying to head “them” off at the pass. I firmly believe there’s going to be a shitstorm in November that’s going to dumbfound the Dems again and last until the next Republican President is sworn-in in January ’09. Does anyone honestly believe they are going to relinquish control of either house and the presidency? Trying to correct the wrongs of the past, especially via conventional methods is keeping the Dems from formulating a true plan of action. Election fraud is as common as toilet paper and you don’t see media coverage or public outrage – why rehash? Ever since the Repubs got caught with their hands in the cookie jar, they’ve moved on. I believe that “they” have already moved beyond the EVM issue and have found a better way as everyone will be looking for EVM hacking. And, as I said before, Florida has already passed legislation making recounts of paper ballots invalid so we can’t go back to simple paper/absentee ballots to save us. Florida is very close to being 50-50. Its electoral votes will go to the party who already controls the technology. The nation can’t count on the people waking-up in time for November or wanting to do anything unless conditions become unbearable at a personal level. Psychologyically, “they” know what the average unconscious American would be willing to pay for a gallon of gas and are careful to not go over that amount and risk rousing the masses from their slumber. I would love to see more processing of the vast information that all of you possess to be able to predict what their next moves will be so we won’t get blindsided in November and possibly come up with answers to solve this mess instead of playing catch-up. Coulda, woulda, shoulda.
Dixiecrat #26
How did you like the movie The Matrix, the first one, where Smith visited Mr. Anderson, and erased his mouth?
Floridiot … are you wastin time on this thread … or are you still on the case … ? … 😉 …
Dixiecrat: These guys really do get onto some great information, which helps inform Brad, which gets on the radio, which also gets into the hands of activists, including lawyers filing suits, etc. So, in a real sense, Dredd and Floridiot, especially, but all of us, come up with bits of the puzzle, usable bits, that could well be what stops the trainwreck in November. Maybe I’m being too optimistic, but I really feel like real progress toward the goal is being made here, and there is cause for hope that it will be in time. If it isn’t, we’re not going to stop, but I feel it growing, finally, the exponential growth is finally getting to the point where it is recognizable, palpable, which means quickly it will be HUGE, and with the right amount of bad guys nailed every which way from Sunday by these guys, we could see something wonderful in November. We could! We have to go with that in mind, or it certainly won’t happen. That was a sweet thing to say up there. I’m glad you came back.
DREDD #27, The fact is, you can research and litigate all you want. The Repubicans have already moved on to winning the next round of elections and they are looking back and laughing at us. What will all of this lead to? 1. You will prove elections were stolen – so what? – everyone already knows and no one’s gonna resign any of their positions and switch with the new winners. 2. You’ll put Diebold and the like out of business – So what? – They’ll change their name and start selling genetically engineered food products. Did you like movie “Three Days of the Condor” where Cliff Robertson asks Robert Redford, “Are you sure they’re going to print the story?”
DREDD, P.S. Doesn’t solve the problem of how we’re going to be casting and counting ballots in November -Now, there’s a worthy problem to tackle!
Lou: Replace “Federal Government” with “The Republicans”…they control everything.
Dixiecrat: It’s hard sometimes to imagine a shitstorm in the future, but I think I can imagine this one.
The rest of the country won’t see it coming, except if you read Brad Blog, blackboxvoting.org, or watch Lou Dobbs. Thanks again, Lou, the only major network covering the destruction of our democracy: Lou Dobbs on CNN. Is the rest of CNN’s news covering this? Don’t give CNN a pass, if it’s confined to only Lou Dobbs.
NO THANK YOU to ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX news. You are helping destroy our democracy.
Why???
ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX: Is or isn’t electronic voting machine fraud an important story??? Yes or No???
The difference between us and reichwingers, is that we care about democracy. They say, “liberals hate our country” when they mean “liberals hate US”… And who says we’re liberals? I’ve always contended, that those who disagree with reichwingers call everyone else “liberals”. “Conservatives” now are “liberals”. Since Bushco stole their way into office, anyone who disagree’s with Bushco & rightwing radio (an extreme minority, btw) is a “liberal”…so there’s a helluva lot of liberals!!!!!