I have not kept up with recent posts to BradBlog. However has anyone seen this recent investigative piece by Daniel Hopsicker about Smartmatic machines and Sequoia software? Hopsicker says there is a guy named Chavez lurking behind the software, but his name is Manny and he's from Austin, TX:

http://www.madcowprod.com/11012006a.html

VoteHere - Bellevue WA - Contact Name = Jennifer Curley (Reichert). She used to use the Curley-Reichert hypenation in her college bio. She is married to tobacco lawyer Paul R. Reichert (shills for RJR). Of note...Dave Reichert is the Repug Congressman in WA-8. Have not found the connection yet. Need help!

Above link,... on the right hand side,.. a nice trailer to the video,.. "The Big Fix 2000".

Craig,.. Comment # 2

Don't know if this fits as a piece in your puzzle ?

Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Wash.: Nephew Todd Reichert was paid $3,000 in 2004, plus several hundred dollars for mileage, for serving as driver.

ANyone still pushin ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINES

is a enemy.

CIA NSA whatever. ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY ENEMY

You BREAK your fucking OATH.

YOU DO JAILTIME!!!

I went on a pollwatching sleepover 44 miles from home last Monday because I thought it might be easier to catch something going on in a smaller town that has had some very close elections between the Republicans and Democrats in the past.

I went with the knowledge that someone locally had claimed to have voted a straight Democratic ticket, but had watched the machine print a straight Republican ticket. The candidate running against Orrin Hatch, (Pete Ashdown), here in Utah posted this incident on his website and said he thought it might have been user error, but found a story on a Texas TV webpage telling of the same problem.

I went for some pollwatching training the night before the election and came out with the knowledge that you can't really do much but observe and take notes.

I made sure the judges knew I was there just to keep an eye on the machines for any irregularities and got along fine for most of the day, but was greatly bothered by the fact that nobody would be able to verify whether the paper printout matched what was listed on the screen because all 8 Diebold TSx machines were fitted, not only with the optically useless magnifying lens, but also had black doors completely covering the magnifying lens and printer.

Congressman Chris Cannon had been on television, saying the great thing about the machines was the fact that you could look at the printout and verify it with your selections, so I asked if I could at least open the doors, which should have been taken off, but instead sat there waiting to be broken off by someone's elbow trying to insert their voting card. One of the judges told me it would be OK, so I opened them.

A guy that was working there tersely asked if he could see my authorization to be there and told me there was no way to remove the doors and said they had to be closed so they wouldn't be damaged.

What amazed me the most, is that only about one or two percent of the people who voted even lifted the door to try to look at the printout and a lot of them exclaimed that they had heard they were supposed to look at or get a receipt, but by that time, it was too late, because it was loaded into the spool already. They were all told not to worry because their vote was safely recorded and protected in the machine. Not one person was told beforehand to look at the receipt, LET ALONE, OPEN THE DOOR TO THE PRINTER AND USE THEIR FINGERNAILS OR A TOOL TO LIFT THE MAGNIFIER LENS OUT OF THE HOLDER ONE STEP BEFORE CASTING THEIR VOTE!

Many frustrating hours went by, until a guy walked in and gave his name which was on my list of Democratic voters. When he went to the machine, he turned around and loudly asked how to vote straight Democrat. The Judge went over and told him what to do, but again, neglected to tell him to verify his vote and told him when he was done, his vote would be stored safely in three different places.

When he got to the verification page, I couldn't stand it anymore and went over and opened the door and told the voter to look and see if the printout matched. The worker who had closed the doors before ran over and demanded that for his safety and mine, I was not to interact with the voter. About 5 minutes later, one of the other judges asked me if I was allowed to write about what had happened. I said yes and she said "well, we can only do what we're told!"

No blind people came in to vote at this location, but another location I was assigned to had two blind people who gave up trying to vote in private, and decided to verbally relay their votes to a judge.

I'm sure glad Diebold gave us these marvels of 21st century design, so that blind people could exercise their precious rights as Americans! Aren't you?

I don't know if these people were just poorly trained or not, but I DO believe Diebold designed these $3,000 pieces of junk to commit fraud, and I hope they get sued into the afterlife!

Science News just had a cover story on ballot fraud. Here

The story also mentioned VoteHere regrading what they say is a effort to make ballots verifiable over the Internet by voters and people wishing to verify the vote count. Security is provided by VoteHere's cryptography.

I don't trust anyone associated with the CIA and Republicans to actually be working to protect the peoples interests. Its not in their blood.

Larry - thank you so much for devoting so much time and energy to preserving (restoring?) our most sacred right! Great report, with much food for thought - after all, isn't it clearly up to us to make an abysmal situation better, better, better, better...?

I've been listening to the radio this morning. I sometimes listen to the Diane Rheme (sp) show. This morning, as you might expect, they were talking about the election. One thing they steadfastly ignored was voting irregularities. Even when a couple of people called to ask about it they just pooh-poohed it and moved on to 'real' issues. They just don't see how serious all this is.

Apparently we're 'conspiracy theorists' and out here on our own. Big surprise huh?

6 or 7 against the world...

The FL-13 Congressional race is going to be a chance to open the book on some of the crap that happened on Tuesday. Link here

The Pennsylvania SoS is getting serious about the crap that went down in PA. link here

Mary Jo Kilroy may be a killjoy for the Republicans with her recount in the OH-15. link here.

Check out the battlefields above --- that's where the battle for 2008 will begin.

SO, what else is happening besides the MSM saying that the electronic machines did "a hellova job."

Brad, how about some threads?

Larry Bergan #6 - Thank you for taking your investigation on the road & your report.

I hope we can get rid of the machines altogether. Jimmy Carter says our country doesn't measure up to the requirements for democratic, free and fair elections his group sets up for 3rd World countries trying to get out of Dictatorships.

Onyx, I didn't realize the VoteHere cryptography system actually went forward. Yuk.

Craig #2 - Ralph Munro is one of the signers of the docs you're looking at re: Bev Harris' research. Just curious, what's the reason you've chosen Jennifer Curley to investigate?

From freepress.org:

Carter Gets It – But Will His Electoral Commission? April 24, 2005

The Carter-Baker Commission is offering some hope, but that hope is being undermined by the make-up of the Commission and the way it is being administered. On the Commission is Ralph Munro the former Secretary of State of Washington. Unfortunately, Mr. Munro is currently the Chairman of the Board of VoteHere. VoterHere has invested over a million dollars in trying to capture the new “voter verification market” created by paperless e-voting. Rather than trust-inspiring voter verified paper ballots, VoteHere is marketing a cryptographic verification method – one that voters and even computer security experts will not be able to understand and that has not been tested in real elections.

Mr. Munro's company has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying against voter verified paper ballots. In New York, Roberto Ramirez, a longtime adviser and aide to Fernando Ferrer, the former Bronx borough president, is a partner in Mirram Global that is being paid $10,000 a month by VoteHere to “prevent a new law that requires paper ballots,” according to a contract on file with the New York Temporary State Commission on Lobbying. New York is just one of many states where VoteHere is lobbying against voter verified paper ballots.

By the way, that whole article [linked above] is a good re-read.

In reference to Bev's VoteHere research:

Rhoads ... lots of info out there about Barry D. Rhoads connected companies/firms. Wish I had time to post them all here. At the present I don't have time to post the links. Maybe this will help some.

The Rhoads Group webpage

There's this tidbit as well:

Lobbygate
Rhoads-Weber-Shandwick Government Relations (an affiliate of BSMG Worldwide)

Barry Rhoades, and then defense Secretary Angelo Reyes, according to published reports - $240,000 a year, according to O'Dwyer's PR Daily database on lobbyists

Craig - I missed your point in #2 - you're trying to connect Paul R. Reichert to Sen. David George Reichert (Republican) - is that right?

They were born in different states - you'd have to do further research to see if it's the same family but I don't see the immediate family connection.

Paul R. Reichert, (Counsel) born Lackawanna, New York; admitted to bar, 1993, Pennsylvania; 1997, District of Columbia. Education: Hamilton College (A.B., 1990); George Washington University (J.D., 1993).

David George Reichert, 55, was born in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, the oldest of seven children and grandson of the town marshal. His family moved to Washington state in 1951 living first in Renton and later in Kent where Reichert attended Kent Meridian High School. He graduated from Concordia Lutheran College in Portland, Oregon.

Thanks for the compliments czaragorn and Kira. I sure hope the media doesn't drop this story until during the election of 2008.

After all we've been through, we deserve a PERFECT voting system by then, whether it uses a machine or not!