AP reports that the Sec. of State in New Hampshire has given the go ahead for the first look at the Diebold "accuvote" machine totals in several counties. It will begin on Thursday, and Nader will then have the right to ask for recounts in more counties as needed.

A series of investigative stories (here, here, and here) by WISHTV.com in Indianapolis from April of this year, have just come to my attention (sent by several different readers).

They concern yet more troubling reports about the Election Systems & Software (ES&S) company, who's software and tabulating machines, along with Diebold's, are responsible for tabulating about 80% of the votes in America. Both companies were founded by the same man, who just happens, along with the rest of their Boards of Directors to be big donor/supporters of the Republican Party.

The series of reports from WISH-TV earlier this year tell of ES&S employees surreptitiously installing illegal, uncertified software, into the voting and tabulating machines in Marion County, Indiana. They then ordered their regional ES&S project manager to lie about it to county officials. She refused. As had her husband in a previous ES&S incident, where he was also a project manager, in a different Indiana county. He was fired for his refusal.

In one of the reports, the Marion County Clerk Doris Anne Sadler is quoted as saying that ES&S "has willfully and purposely deceived me and the Marion County election board...[W]ith complete disregard for business ethics and with intent to deceive, [ES&S] deliberately worked to keep their actions from the Marion County election board and its employees."

The county's election board vice chair added, "Throughout the process, there have been missteps and outright fabrications and mistruths given to us by the vendor implementing the election process."

The assiduous BRAD BLOG readers will note that ES&S has popped up time and time again in so many of these stories of "irregularities" related to electronic voting and tabulating machines. Amongst the many troubling incidents so far reported here:

• ES&S Employee found on Auglaize County, OH Computer! Just weeks before election! County had 4th highest Bush vote percentage in the state!
• 10,000 Extra Votes Added in Nebraska County! Another ES&S computer "failure".
• 50,000 Votes LOST in LaPorte County, IN County! Yet another ES&S computer "failure". This one in a heavily Democratic county.

Additionally, DailyKos reported late last night on yet another Indiana county where the U.S. Congressional results are now in doubt and a recount may be coming shortly due to revelations from nearby Franklin County where a recount was already held after it was discovered that the optical-scan tabulating machine was counting straight Democratic ticket votes as Libertarian votes!

I've been hearing more and more drumbeating lately for either an entire national audit of all the votes in this year's election, or even more drastically, a re-vote of the whole damn thing. The more I learn about what an ungodly mess we have on our hands, the more I am beginning to think such ideas may not be crazy after all.

And along with all of these continuing reports I'm still left to ask, where the hell is the mainstream media who should be all over these stories that rock the very core of our democracy?! This is about our voting system for christsake! Clearly we can't count --- for now --- on the Republican cronies at the Justice Department to look into these matters. This time, it's up to the citizenry it seems, and we sure as hell could use an assist from that supposedly "Liberal" Media right about now!

An attorney for John Kerry and associate dean at Yale Law School asks in a Nashua Telegraph editorial, "Did lawyer-observers on Election Day miss fraud incidents?". A few highlights...

Hear, hear!

(Thanks tipster Mazelle for the link!)

A good Presidential Library represents both the man and his Presidency. The new Clinton Library seems even more fitting than I might have thought. Tell me...is it just me?

Sure, there's a bloodbath purge going on in the Administration. From cabinet positions ("See ya, Colin! And thanks for nothin'!") being populated with hardline Bush sycophants like Alberto "Torture's Fine With Me, thanks!" Gonzales and Condoleezza "See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil, Lie me a River" Rice to the incidiously overt KGB-like politicalization of the previously and historically nonpartisan CIA. (By the way, all of America's failures in the last four years? They weren't the CIA's fault, no matter what your political leaders / radio talk show hosts are selling you.)

While American Moderates/Undecideds had hoped for about two minutes that "we might all come together now", I have a feeling that it won't be long before even those ostriches will soon begin to see that Bush 43 v2.0 will do little but solidify his aptly-deserved legacy of "Worst President Ever".

Which is just one reason to make sure he actually won this time.

In any case, my hope is that it won't take a full four more years, incurring irreconcilable international damage to our country, or increase the already scandalously-under-reported body count and human carnage to record proportions before the American sheeple finally "get it" and demand better for themselves and their country which deserves so much more. But this morning, I'm not particularly optimistic.

In the meantime however, now that Condi's moving to State and the position of NSA is therefore currently wide open, I'd just like to toss the idea out there that I'm available.

Don't make me beg, people. You have my number. Just get it out of my FBI file.

I'll be happy to speak with you any time.

Though I fully realize I'll probably be overlooked yet again. Bastards.

The Green and Libertarian party efforts to raise funds for their jointly requested recount demands in Ohio have been successful! They've raised the initial $150,000 in just four days from over 3,000 American citizens!

Now, they are raising funds to mobilize for the effort, with a goal of $100,000 by November 22nd. If you can help, click here to donate.

Additionally, they are also seeking folks in Ohio to act as "witnesses" to the recount. If you can help them out, be sure to click here to volunteer!

In the meantime, it seems to me that the Mainstream Media is once again taking a nap. I'm not sure that it's yet hit them that a complete recount of Ohio's 11,306 precincts in 88 counties will soon be taking place. Some 70% of those counties, as I understand it, are punch-card ballots, which means we'll soon be counting hanging chads again. Oh, well, they'll figure it out eventually.

For the record, unlike Florida in 2000, there is a specific statewide standard in Ohio for determining the eligibility of a vote on a punch-card ballot. If two corners are detached, it counts as a vote, so the ridiculous argument of "equal protection" that Bush was able to argue to the Supremes in 2000 shouldn't work here. Though I'm sure they'll be coming up with something...Stay tuned...

UPDATE: Looks like someone's finally waking up to what the Greens and Libertarians are up to! The graphic above appears broken as of this update because there is either incredibly high traffic over at the Green Fundraising website (where the graphic comes from) or someone is attempting to hack the site. Either way, looks like their little Cooperative 3rd Party "coup" is finally getting some attention!

According to the Nashua, NH Telegraph it appears that Ralph Nader's demand for a recount in New Hampshire will in fact occur:

While Rush Limbaugh told his listeners this morning about the "really great news" in Fallujah, some folks may see it differently.

In case you haven't been paying attention (and the media, as usual, hasn't much helped), we've now lost 1189 1194 U.S. troops in Iraq since the who charade began. 68 died in the 11 days following the election alone at the rate of nearly 7 dead U.S. troops per day.

So far this month, troops are dying at a higher rate than any since the invasion of Iraq in March of 2003.

As to the "really great news" in Fallujah, Bilal Hussein, a photographer from AP didn't see it quite that way. The story of his harrowing escape from Fallujah is recounted in this AP report. Here's a highlight of some of the "really great news" from that report, like the incident where U.S. forces shot a family of five as they tried to escape the onslaught:

Yes..."Liberty is spreading". And it's all "really great news", isn't it?

Windows Media Player Version · QuickTime Version · Other Versions...

May not be safe for work...though it depends where you work.

(Via Oliver Willis)

According to an article in the Columbus Free Press, perhaps thousands of valid provisional ballots in the Buckeye State are now being rejected due to a "new ruling" in Cuyahoga County, Ohio.

The margin separating Bush and Kerry in Ohio was approximately 136,000 with some 155,000 provisional ballots still to be counted, along with absentee and U.S. overseas votes as well.

The article also gives an excellent description of rules involved in any potential recount procedures in Ohio. Given the Green/Libertarian Party's efforts to demand a recount there (latest reports show that as of Sunday morning, they have so far raised $121k of the $150k they are now seeking to fund the effort) that information may be useful in understanding how such a recount may unfold.

As well, the article also gives some interesting information on anomaly related to the late-reported vote totals in Miami County, OH. It refers to a report earlier in the week pointing out some 19,000 votes added to the totals after "100% of the precincts" had reported in:

Whether those 19,000 additional votes were absentee ballots added later to the Election Night totals --- as had been the reason given for a similar case of more votes than voters in Cuyahoga County --- I'm not able to determine. The identical percentages of those votes to the earlier tallies, however, is notable to say the least. One would think that percentages would change by at least a few hundreths or tenths with the addition of a full 19,000 votes to the tally!

UPDATE: An item in yesterday's Cincinnati Enquirer speaks to the matter of the provisional ballots rejected for missing date-of-birth:

Let's hope that's the definitive word on that particular matter!

BlackBoxVoting.org has issued the following items on their website today:

See their website for more info, explanations, and if you are able to help in either Georgia or Nevada as requested.

According to The Albuquerque Tribune, in one Bernalillo County, New Mexico precinct, the judge assigned to determine the validity of provisional ballots, has determined that all the Democratic ballots cast in that precinct are invalid, while declaring that all of the Republican provisionals cast there may indeed be counted!

From what I am reading, the "standards" for determining acceptance/rejection of provisional ballots across the countries, seems haphazard at best. If anyone wishes to provide more info in comments on how validity is determined in various areas, it would be most welcome.

The current difference in the popular vote for President in New Mexico, according to AP, has George W. Bush leading John Kerry by just 6,061 votes. The total number of rejected provisional ballots in Bernalillo County now stands at 6,600.

(Thanks again to tipster Ryan for this one!)

As I've previously mentioned, I'm currently a bit snowed-under working on some background stuff related to all of this mess. So my ability to report the latest here is somewhat hobbled for the (hopefully) very short term. I hope it'll soon prove to have been worthwhile however.

I am still keeping an eye on everything however, and will report the most notable stuff as it comes up.

That said, lemme just throw out a raw link to this Democratic Underground posting which presents a potentially very troubling analysis of the results data in regards to the North Carolina Presidential and Senatorial races there.

I highly recommend you give it a look. It's a detailed post and analysis, demonstrating some disturbing results. I have gotten into the habit of waiting to report such analysis until all the "debunkers" have had there go at things, just to make sure the analysis is solid, and then have attempted to summarize the key pieces.

For now though, since the story is holding up for the moment, and I'm pulled over to related work, I'm just giving you the link to look at without my own analysis for now. I hope to have some, along with a summary, later for you.