Hmm... I'm having problems with this video stopping when it starts talking about the Cheng family. Anyone else having this problem?

Me, too.

I have a link on the thread below this one,try that

Good presentation.

When will the paper plant manager who signed off on the quality of the ballot paper, when no other employees whose job it was to do so would, and who ordered the hiding and/or destruction of all plant evidence having to do with the Palm Beach ballots, be called to testify under oath? Hopefully before he dies. Hey Brad, you could always go knock on HIS front door while you're on your August vacation. How many seconds do you give him before the door gets slammed in your face?

Also, I finally learned how much each of these machines cost the taxpayer: a whopping $3,000. That is outrageous. When I was storing one of the machines in my home prior to the 2006 election, my husband and I speculated how much it cost to manufacture the thing (excluding software). My guess was no more than $50, inc shipping costs. His was $35. That is a completely unjustifiable profit margin.

The press will talk about Sequoia being owned by Venezuela, but in 2000, Sequoia was owned by Jefferson Smurfit Co. of Ireland, a big campaign donor of Jeb Bush, with a history of run ins with the Clinton EPA and favors from Jeb Bush's Florida state government. This is important, because it raises the possibility that management of Sequoia was biased in favor of Jeb Bush's brother in the 2000 election and that ballots for a Democratic strong hold were deliberately tampered with to deny Democratic citizens their vote.

Here is a link to more info at Democratic Underground:

http://www.democraticund...address=132×3452855

Thanks for posting this Brad!

When Bush, and others, came on TV during the 2000 recount, claiming we need computers, more than proof of collusion and shenanigans to come.

I still want to know about Ohio's 2004 election on the RNC site. Any chance of finding that out, and the 11th hour switch?

Wish CA's story had been in time for inclusion, or any discussion of manipulation. I know Rather didn't want this politicized.

Speaking of voting, go to http://video.google.com/...cid=-6379299100599444958 to rate this Dan Rather program!

I gave it 5 stars.

It would certainly be interesting to determine whether there was any political bias influencing which counties received the defective ballots.

Obviously Palm Beach is one heavily Democratic county that received defective ballots. Others?

the thing that surprised me was the information from the ex-employees of Sequoia ,I never realized that the actual paper of the ballots was "designed to fail" during 2000 .who was behind of this and was it for profit or party ?

Linda #4

You mentioned "the quality of the ballot paper" and I think that issue is important.

Some of the bills floating around in congress require "archival quality" and "permanent paper ballots" that can withstand multiple hand counts and hold their legibility thru all required counts, audit counts, or recounts (See S. 559 by Nelson of Florida or the original HR 811 by Holt of New Jersey).

I think a bi-partisan majority could go for the improved quality of paper provision in the bills I mentioned, but that is not so for some of the other provisions in those bills.

Such as open source code and the banning of the Ken Blackwell and Katherine Harris syndrome (conflict of interest due to managing a campaign while being an election official).

The republicans on the relevant committee are already on record as being against open source code.

Thanks for posting this. I discovered that HDNET and several others are an additional $5 at Time-Warner, over and above the HD service I'm paying plenty for.

Folks, we need to get to hand counts as soon as possible. There may be some bi-partisan support from decent Republicans, but the party itself will fight tooth and nail to retain their opportunities to steal any or all elections. There are no accidents here, the Republicans are stealing the elections and laughing in our faces. The only solutions are public hand counts. Scanners or any other machines are worse than useless because they are easier to hack than hand calculators. So it is hand counts, either in the precinct or a big open room with the public in attendance. Also, this is the prime issue, probably the only one that matters right now. So we have to educate, educate, educate.

mccamy, your link isn't working

Are the Democrats responsible for beginning a congressional investigation into this matter? We better get something done, or we'll have President Giuliani.

There is a transcript posted on the HDnet site, but it is hard to
read (all caps, mostly using "-" instead of other punctuation),
doesn't tell who said anything, is incomplete, and has errors
when compared to the video.

I made up a readable transcript; it is at:

http://election-reform.org/dan_rather.html

Big Dan #15

Yes, the dems have the chair of each committee (except the one Lieberman heads) and they have the majority vote on each committee. They got a watered down HR 811 out of committee. the Senate committees have not.

This Rather report in tandem with the Bowen report will sexy-up HR 811 and its Senate compliment S. 559, but I still think my prediction as to passage of the bills, as currently written, will not happen due to filibuster.

The dems only have 48 voters in the Senate now (Johnson stroke) and the repubs have 49. When the two indys (Franks, Lieberman) vote with dems it is 50D-49R, however, on those votes where Lieberman votes against the dems, it is 50R-49D.

And since the congress is bicameral, every bill must be passed by both House and Senate before The Vetoer In Chief even looks at it.

I do not think Holt HR 811 / Nelson S. 559 will make it past the filibuster mechanism the republicans have used about 50 times already this year, even if it does get to the floor.

I outline the show here:

http://allaboutvoting.co...ther-on-voting-machines/

I also found the information about Sequoia's punchcard ballots for 2000 to be the most interesting part of this video.

With this kind of exposure the electronic voting machines are obviously on their way out. As John Edwards said about Karl Rove, "Goodbye; good riddance."

There is also hope on the medical kind of cancer being reported from Cananda.

http://www.theglobeandma.../specialScienceandHealth

This has been going on for almost 8 years. Until our election process is respected and held to the highest level of accountability, 2008 will be no different. Whether paper or computer ballots, as Brad has said many times, it's not the voters but counters that determine an election. Ever so true! Now rove is free to make up new ways to hijack an election.

re: Dredd #17

Dredd says, "They got a watered down HR 811 out of committee."

Nothing could be further from the truth. The Holt bill isn't watered down. It's bulked up. A lot. It has picked up a whole lot of baggage over the years. And each time someone new gets the bill in their hot little hands, they manage to add something else that makes the bill just a bit more dangerous, just a bit less American.

Make no mistake. The election integrity movement does not oppose Holt simply because it doesn't go far enough. We oppose it because it goes quite far, but in the wrong direction. Passage of the bill would make matters worse. Look at the aftermath of HAVA and learn the lesson: reactionary legislation is not what we need.

Dredd also says, "I do not think Holt HR 811 / Nelson S. 559 will make it past the filibuster mechanism the republicans have used about 50 times already this year, even if it does get to the floor."

Let's hope you are right. After five years of HAVA-mayhem, We the People are setting things straight, and achieving real reform throughout the country. We aren't interested in spending a billion dollars on a bandaid made of toilet paper. If Democrats cannot give us a clean bill with meaningful reform, then we will have to ask Republicans to kill this monstrosity and let us continue our work with local government unmolested.

Any explanation why this video link and the original video at HD Net are not working?

""Any explanation why this video link and the original video at HD Net are not working? ""

Because even on HDnet website they link it to Google video which obviously is censoring it.
bout time to start boycotting GooCIAgle.

They last thing these bastards want is for the truth to be mainstream because it would implicate the entire mainstream media as being complicit in voter fraud and would probably also lead to all the lies they have spread about 9/11 and the cover up of the war crimes & false flag attack.

Brad, if you intend to follow up on the Sequoia story and possible motivations and motivatORS, I suggest you look to the sales team, starting with VP Howard Cramer, who by reputation some might think deserves at least tentative scrutiny. Follow the money.

Is anyone else having a problem running the video? I can't "activate" the black screen into playing it.

Yeah, Julie --- problems with the video. I can't get it to play at all, but THANKS to Jerry Berkman the transcript is available HERE!!

Can't think you enough Jerry! Going to read it now.

I think it's important to analyze whether Sequoia is succeeding in further manipulation of paper ballots - not punchcards, but the ballot design used for absentee / mail-in paper ballots. Sequoia demands from the counties an exclusive contract for printing all ballots. The Sequoia ballots differ from all traditional-styled ballots. Instead of using the familiar "fill in the bubble or square", Sequoia's ballot uses a broken arrow: The voter must mark his vote selection by connecting the broken arrow. I believe there is an overabundance of undervotes in election night scanning, because many people follow the arrow's point, thus circling or x'ing the candidate's name or "Yes or No", which leaves the marking area blank. A Canvass Board can readily see the voter's intent, but that scrutiny occurs many days after the election night results, and after many candidates have already conceded. I believe Sequoia's use of an eye-diverting arrow is intentionally designed to confuse unsophisticated or elderly voters.

I know you just announced a fix for the missing video but it is giving me an error.

https://bradblog.com/video/trouble.wmv

It launches the player and then fails with this message: Windows Media Player cannot perform the requested action at this time.

{Ed Note: Worked fine for me.... Maybe you need to update your player? --99}

Shoddy workmanship is not the only problem with touchscreens. I would think that the lack of 'control' would scare would be hackers as well as honest voters.

However, unreliability is an advantage if unreliable machines are specifically targeted to specific areas. The result of which would be to nullify votes from an area known to lean a particular way politically. That is explosive information and should be investigated fully.

Bob Bancroft #21

So you are calling me a liar? What a crock of shit.

When anyone who has read the original HR 811 introduced this year, and also then read the watered down (meaning weaker from the EI perspective) version that came out of committee, they will see that two good provisions of the bill were in fact watered down.

One is the quality of the paper to be used for "paper ballots" and the other is who can see the software source code.

In the original the paper had to be "archival quality" but that is no longer required in the watered down version. Cheaper paper will do.

In the original the source code could be viewed by any citizen, now only "qualified people" can see it.

If you don't get that then I can't help you.

I have to defend our optical scan voting in OK. We have had this type of machines for decades and elections go on without a hitch. I am a poll worker, our precinct is over 2000 and during the heavy traffic of the 2004 presidential voting, our lines moved so quickly that we rarely had more than a 5-10 minute wait. Each person signs by his name in the roll book and is given a ballot which he marks himself, then inserts it into the scanner which shows a running talley of each vote counted. The ballot drops into the base and at closing, the base is opened and all ballots are taken out and placed in boxes and sealed by the 4 poll workers. The ballots and all equipment except the scanner are taken to the County Election Office the same night. A printout of the voting is posted on a door for any public viewing. There have been only a couple of recounted elections (local) and the ballots are kept for that purpose. So simple--I can't understand why every state cannot do this. Of course, these machines were made years ago when all our manufacturing wasn't outsourced to the Phillipines or China and there wasn't a Karl Rove to decide there was more than one way to win an election.

Dredd #30

The changes you point out are accurate. The problem is that you misunderstand and misconstrue, intentionally I think.

For the benefit of others:

HAVA was sold as a bill to increase the accessibility of our voting systems. Yet we have recently learned that, to our collective disgust, these new touchscreen systems are perhaps among the least handicap-accessible voting systems available.

So we ask ourselves: was helping the handicapped really what HAVA was intended to do?

Holt is being sold as a bill to restore integrity to our elections, now by spending $1 billion on thermal reel printers that compromise the anonimity of voters and have been demonstrated, through any test or field usage they have ever seen, to be complete and utter garbage. Superficial and largely meaningless audits are thrown in for kicks.

So we ask ourselves: is restoring integrity to our elections really what the New Holt is intended to do?

You call Holt "watered down" because you believe it is designed to fix real problems. It isn't. It's designed to fix a P/R problem - namely, voter confidence in the process. A thermal reel printer can't make our elections any better (it can make them a lot worse, though). But it can give the general public, which is not well-educated about this subject, a nice placebo.

Once they swallow that pill, perhaps folks such as yourself won't notice all the baggage that Holt has accumulated along its way; this is a bill that began its life at 1418 words and is now approaching 10,000.

You're wise to focus on the matter of trade secrets and source code disclosure. But you'll notice that, with regards to this topic, what we see throughout the life of the Holt bill is a steady adding of things, not subtracting, and those things that are added are always to strengthen the protection of business interest at the expense of election integrity.

A bill that mandates transparency would be a good thing.

A bill that mandates secrecy is not simply a "watered down" version of the former. It's an entirely different animal.

Brad, do you or anyone have a downloadable (rather than streaming) version of this program, even if it is lo-res?

Yes, David. Here it is on Google Video:

http://video.google.com/...9100599444958&hl=en

99 are you "The 99" aka ?

Whadahya mean "The 99"? I have never gone by "The 99". Is someone impersonating me? Or are they talking about my theme song? It is widely supposed that Toto was singing it to me, but that isn't true, so maybe they're talking about that 99, or... Barbara Feldon.... Anyway, I don't know what you're talking about.

Oh, very funny... THE 99... hardeeharharhar....

"... Elisabeth Ham, Tulsa, Ok. said on 8/17/2007 @ 12:07 pm PT...

I have to defend our optical scan voting in OK. We have had this type of machines for decades and elections go on without a hitch. I am a poll worker, our precinct is over 2000 and during the heavy traffic of the 2004 presidential voting, our lines moved so quickly that we rarely had more than a 5-10 minute wait. "

You really should see the HBO report "Hacking Democracy". It is mostly about touch-screens, but has bad news about optical scan systems.
We also have optical scan machines, so I was shocked to see how easy it is for someone working with the main computer to rig the election without being detected. One poll worker cried when she saw the demonstration. That report should be manditory viewing for all election workers.

" so I was shocked to see how easy it is for someone working with the main computer to rig the election without being detected."

I looked at the report again and the person was not working with the main computer, but only had access to a memory card used by poll workers to activate the optical scan machine. He did not touch any other equipment. The demonstration was conducted by an election supervisor at the main computer site.