Death of a thousand cuts...That's what seems to be in store either for American democracy, or what will be required to finally take bring down the entire anti-democratic Electronic Voting cabal in this country, as aided and abetted in their crimes against American Democratic Values by the Corporate Mainstream Media.

We take heart that there is more and more coverage of these matters these days, even if there are more and more unfortunate reasons to have such coverage in the first place. VotersUnite.org's "Daily Voting News", now posted each day on BRAD BLOG, gives one some sense of how much is going on --- both good and bad --- in regards to Election-related issues in this country, and just how much of it does make it into the news somewhere, if only (and too often) on just the local level.

At least the public's and the media's awareness continues to grow --- slowly, but surely --- even as the incidents of democracy in disrepair increase exponentially along with that awareness (and along with the obscene outpouring of virtually unchecked HAVA money to States and Counties in the bargain).

Nonetheless, we always look for reasons to be optimistic, and our usual coterie of Election Reform Media All-Stars continues to both grow and produce stellar work. In addition to the recent Free Press exposé by Fitrakis and Wasserman on the inexplicable in Ohio's election last week, which we mentioned previously here (as well as at HuffPo), there are a few other notable heroic voices of late that you should know about.

Debra LoGuercio, the editor of the Winters Express and syndicated columnist for a number of smaller West Coast papers, continues to take both her democracy and her role of media watchdog seriously. Her latest column this week, "Where in the World is Democracy?" [link fixed] picks up on my previous calls (both at BRAD BLOG and later at HuffPo) for Mainstream Corporate Media coverage --- hell, even a single sentence would do! --- of the recent landmark report from the non-partisan Governmental Accountability Office (GAO). That report, which confirms so many of the problems with Electronic Voting that we've been reporting on here for more than a year, is apparently less important to the corporate media braintrust, according to LoGuercio, than figuring out where in the world Matt Lauer is.

We're happy as well to welcome one Kathy Gill into the still-all-too-exclusive club of journalists who give a damn about democracy. She's posted an article on that GAO report yesterday at About.com. Welcome to the small, but still-growing club, Kathy! Glad you're on board and please keep up the good --- and important --- work!

And as Election Day unravelled last week, our friend Robert Koehler of Tribune Media Services once again opines on the MIA MSM in regard to Election Fraud in America's once-great democracy in his latest piece, "A Crime Without a Name - 'Concern' about election fraud is useless without guts and anger". He speaks, amongst other things, about John Kerry's failure to stand up for what is right here, and the unwillingness of the mainstream media to investigate and report without that kick in the pants.

The always sharp Dave Astor of Editor & Publisher has added some visibility by picking up on Bob's column in a quick article about it yesterday. For this, we are pleased, since so many of Bob's Tribune Media clients have shown neither the guts nor the anger required to save our democracy, and have chosen instead to avoid running many of his important articles on Election Reform issues altogether. It'll be interesting as usual, to see how many of them don't pick up Koehler's latest, despite --- once again --- the elegant way in which he is able to express the nightmare of our crumbling democracy.

To poorly paraphrase a famous movie tagline; In the corporate-conglomerated media world of the 21st century no one can hear you scream. But some have heard, and will continue to yell even louder...And we'll keep at the rest of them until they realize what's at stake...no matter how many cuts it takes.

Guest blogged by David Edwards

The Daily Show's Rob Corddry reports on the President's Veterans Day speech. Bush attacked Democrats for "re-writing" history and sending "mixed messages" to the troops. The Democrats and others have been critical of the Administration for misusing intelligence and misleading the country into the Iraq war.

Corddry reports that "getting us out of Iraq is going to require tremendous misleadership..." He continues by saying:

Video in Windows Media format...
Video in QuickTime format...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

It was a relatively slow news day today. There are a few races, across the nation, that have still not been decided and at least one may end up being re-voted. In Louisiana it has been recommended that any New Orleans election be delayed for awhile. ...

"Torture" is not really torture. It is now officially: "enhanced interrogation techniques".

That, according to National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley yesterday whose latest job, it seems, is to clarify that when Bush said last week "We do not torture," what he really meant to say was "We do torture, but we just refer to it as 'enhanced interrogation techniques' so we can trick ourselves into being able to sleep at night."

With so much going on, we haven't had much time to report here on the extraordinary outcome of last Tuesday's election in Ohio where the crooked state that brung you --- by hook and by crook --- a second term for George W. Bush may have turned in results so staggeringly impossible, that perhaps even the Ohio Mainstream Corporate Media will have no choice but to look into it. And that's a good thing.

As usual, the Free Press' heroic Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman are on the case. Their article on what happened on ballot issues 1 through 5 last week is A MUST READ for anybody who still gives the slightest damn about whatever democracy might be left in America.

We'll try to summarize here briefly. There were five initiatives on the ballot last week. Issue 1 was a controversial proposition for $2 billion in new state spending. The Christian Right was opposed (because some of the new funds might go to stem cell research), but otherwise, the Republican Governor Taft's Administration (he recently pleaded guilty to several counts of corruption) was pushing it hard alongside progressives in the state.

The Columbus Dispatch's pre-election polling, which Fritrakis and Wasserman describe as "uncannily accurate for decades", called the race correctly within 1% of the final result. The margin of error for the poll was +/- 2.5% with a 95% confidence interval. On Issue 1, the Dispatch poll was right on the money. They predicted 53% in favor, the final result was 54% in favor.

But then came Issues 2 through 5 put forward by ReformOhioNow.org --- a bi-partisan coalition pushing these four initiatives for Electoral Reform in the Buckeye State largely in response to their shameful '04 Election performance led by the extremely partisan Secretary of State (and Bush/Cheney '04 Co-Chair) J. Kenneth Blackwell.

On those four issues, which Blackwell and the Christian Right were against, the final results were impossibly different --- and we mean impossibly! --- from both the Dispatch's final polling before the election and all reasoned common-sense. Take a look:

Now, you tell us...What could possibly explain such unheard of differences between the Dispatch's poll and the final results?

Now, we'll tell you...This was the year that Ohio, under the encouragement and mandates of Blackwell, rolled out new Electronic Touch-Screen Voting Machines in 44 of its 88 counties...41 of them employing the same Diebold Touch-Screen Machines that California's Republican Sec. of State decertified in this state when 20% of them failed this summer in the largest test of its kind ever held.

Those would be the very same Electronic Voting Machines which a recent GAO Report (still unmentioned by a single wire-service or mainstream American newspaper) confirmed to be easily hackable.

Will the absurdly skewed results from last Tuesday's Ohio Election finally light a fire under the media --- either nationally or just in Ohio alone --- to look into what the hell is going on here?! We remain hopeful...if not optimistic.

The Free Press article is a must read, as mentioned, but we'll share their closing thoughts here on the possible reasons for the wildly unexplained discrepancy between the final polling and the final results which, as they posit, are due to either a completely inexplicable breakdown of the Dispatch's historically accurate polling methods wildly beyond the margin-of-error for all initiatives except Issue 1...or...somebody hacked that vote count:

Anybody in the Mainstream Media ready to give a damn yet?

Cross-Posted at Huffington Post.

UPDATE: Further information, updated news, etc. on this issue now available in this new post.

Guest blogged by David Edwards

On Friday, George W. Bush departed from traditional Veteran's Day Presidential speeches by using his speech as a platform to attack Democrats and others who have criticized the misuse of intelligence to justify the Iraq war.

Today, the White House continues its efforts to rewrite history and deny charges that intelligence was cherry-picked to sell an unpopular war to the American public.

Senator Levin was interviewed on CNN this morning where he attempted to correct the record and counter the White House spin.

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Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Today gives us a good article on the GAO report and great editorials from New York and Ohio. The man who sold Mobile, AL their Shouptronic machines opines and misinforms in the Mobile Register. And from Arizona we have more on the state senate hearings scheduled for early next year....

Guest blogged by David Edwards

From today's edition of NBC's Meet the Press: Video in Windows Media format... Video in QuickTime format...

Guest blogged by David Edwards

From today's edition of Fox News Sunday: Video in Windows Media format... Video in QuickTime format...

Guess blogged by Winter Patriot

From Lectric Law Library

And from the Wikipedia:

Everybody clear on this? Good!

Now here's a call to action from hilzoy of Obsidian Wings, sent to us by a friend at Ohio University, via BRAD BLOG commentor Jazzolog (everyone clear on that, too? Good!!)...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Beside the articles discussing the failures in last week's election we also still have lawsuits playing out in some states. In Arizona the SoS has spoken out about the suit she is fighting. Her opinion, as printed in the Arizona Republic, she is less than factual and completely ignores the reason for the lawsuit; op-scan tabulation problems. In New Mexico the counties are doing all they can to keep the plaintiffs in a lawsuit from looking at the voting machines in question. We also hear complaints from Texas and Ohio regarding DRE voting machines not allowing voters to vote in private....

We've failed to report too terribly much on it to date, but there is a very important lawsuit quietly proceeding in New Mexico which is challenging the results of the 2004 Presidential Election there. The final result of that election was very close, and Election Reform advocates --- and indeed a great deal of evidence --- suggest that something was amiss there. Michael Collins wrote a good article about the suit a couple of weeks ago for New Zealand's SCOOP.

Yesterday, VoterAction.org sent out an email about some roadblocks that the plaintiffs are suddenly facing in the discovery phase of the trial. They were supposed to have been allowed to have experts inspect --- for the first time --- the Electronic Voting Machines that were used in the '04 Election, along with the actual results that they gave.

All of a sudden, Voter Action says, the county clerks have flat-out refused to permit the inspections by the plaintiffs' experts. That, after some interesting evidence has already been found by the experts during discovery, like tests where they were able to see votes for one candidate being registered for their opponent (as has been so widely reported as happening in so many elections of late!) and ballots being confirmed with NO choice for President at all, which wasn't supposed to have been possible on at least one of the machine types being looked at.

Voter Action didn't post the article from their email on their website, so we'll post it here in its entirety. Check it out...

From LA Times...

Josh Marshall has been doing some excellent reporting on this case as it's developed over the last year or so. This link should get you caught up.

Of note here, keep in mind that a) Tobin was working for the national Republican Party, he wasn't some loose-cannon, bad apple, lone agent, b) The phone-jamming scandal was in the '02 election, yet the RNC hired Tobin to head their '04 Northeastern Regional Campaign even after they knew he was in trouble for the '02 shenanigans and c) The RNC, as of August, had so far covered his $700k legal bills, that much before the trial had even begun.

Next time a wingnut tosses you the canard about some tires slashed in Milwaukee by a couple of kids, remind them of this guy, still on the RNC's payroll.

While I was up recently to speak at the "National Summit to Save Our Elections" in Portland, OR, I was asked to sit down for a few minutes with Clint Curtis to do a quick interview for "SourceCode" on Free Speech TV. Apparently their episode devoted to Election Fraud has been airing all week to folks who have satellite TV (which I don't).

I haven't yet had time to watch the entire episode, but here's the specific segment in which I interview Curtis. It's a quickie (about 4 minutes), so we don't get into too much detail for folks who already know the story, but hopefully the interview is worthwhile nonetheless.

The longer audio and text transcript of the interview I did with him onstage at the conference (as noted previously) is available here.

ALSO...I've just been informed --- at the very last minute, sorry --- that Curtis will be speaking at an E.R. event near Orlando today and tomorrow. Info follows...

What: "Achieving Election Reform: A Florida Statewide Conference"
Where: SeraLago Hotel & Suites, Kissimmee (just south of Orlando)
When: Saturday and Sunday, November 12-13, 2005
Time: 10 a.m. Saturday until 1 p.m. Sunday
Hosted by: Florida Fair Elections Coalition (FFEC)
Cost: Free (donations accepted)

Clint will be speaking at 4pm ET Saturday the 12th (that's today!) and will be available to meet with conference goers from 9a to Noon on Sunday the 13th. Go say hello if your read this in time and happen to be in the 'hood!

In today's Veterans' Day speech, Bush attempted to send the latest Talking Points out to his troops. Not the ones that fight, the ones that talk. Judging from Carol Platt Liebau's latest at HuffPo, the message was received from Dear Leader and is even now being delivered to whoever is left to buy it.

Here was "the message":

In other words, after years of questioning the patriotism of those who criticized his decision or the conduct of the war, he'll give up on that battle as long as we all stay away from the one point that is likely to bring the entire house of cards crumbling down, namely; How the war began. Or more aptly, how he began it.

It is, of course, the latest last-ditch effort (and there have been plenty of late) to save his Presidency. And of course, the way to do that...is to blame everybody else.

So who is actually the one rewriting history today? Bush (and Liebau and the other dead-enders) mislead yet again by claiming "More than 100 Democrats in the House and Senate who had access to the same intelligence voted to remove Saddam Hussein from power."

Setting aside that those Democrats didn't have "access to the same intelligence" that Bush did, Atrios helpfully points up Bush's condensed re-written history on that "vote to remove Saddam Hussein from power." We condense Atrios' work still further...

Got that? Good. Now let the next last-ditch Talking Point commence...bring it on.

UPDATE: Josh Marshall drops an elegantly concise case on Bush's latest "Rewritten History" gambit and his now-lost causes gone astray. It begins this way:

...And ends this way:

Go read the middle.