The little blog that did
For four years, Bradblog.com has reported on voting machine problems

April 14, 2008
By Dan Campana dcampana@scn1.com

(Originally published by Illinois' Beacon News, now in $ archives.)

If the mass media ever did its job, Brad Friedman could go back to his former life, the one before 2004 when election scandals became his full-time vocation.

Friedman, 41, who lives in Los Angeles, used to be a computer programmer.

Today, he operates the widely known --- in certain circles --- bradblog.com Web site that first publicized William Singer's complaints against eSlate manufacturer Hart Intercivic.

While the Associated Press offered a scant few paragraphs to describe the recent unsealing of Singer's whistleblower lawsuit filed against Hart Intercivic in federal court in Colorado, Friedman wrote and extensively analyzed the case.

"The depth and the detail, I was blown away," Friedman said of the lawsuit against Hart Intercivic, which has supplied voting machines to Kane County.

Four years ago, bradblog had a few pictures of Friedman's cat and some Doonesbury cartoons. But the site transformed after a vice presidential debate where Dick Cheney talked about information later "scrubbed" from the White House Web site, Friedman said. After John Kerry's loss in the 2004 presidential election --- where voting concerns in Ohio raised questions --- the site and Friedman took on a new persona with a mission to expose election fraud.

"I just said 'What the heck happened?' ... and essentially haven't stopped," Friedman explained, noting he didn't vote for Kerry.

As part of the cyber-journalist revolution, Friedman pointedly says Singer's story and the larger electronic voting mess were ignored by the national media and politicians alike. Why? Because Singer was dismissed as a conspiracy nut making complicated technical complaints, Friedman contends.

"William Singer was jumping up and down with his hair on fire as early as July 2004," Friedman said, referring to Singer's letters sent to top officials in Ohio and Texas that were published some time ago on bradblog.

"The media didn't pay attention to it. The election officials didn't want to pay attention to it."