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BARCODED BALLOTS AND BALLOT MARKING DEVICES
BMDs pose a new threat to democracy in all 50 states...
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VIDEO: 'Rise of the Tea Bags'
Brad interviews American patriots...
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'Democracy's Gold Standard'
Hand-marked, hand-counted ballots...
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GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal 2012...
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The Secret Koch Brothers Tapes...
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![]() | MORE BRAD BLOG 'SPECIAL COVERAGE' PAGES... |
"It's already over. The election's over. We won...It's all over but the counting. And we'll take care of the counting."
-- Congressman Peter King (R-NY) at the White House, Summer BBQ, 2003. From Alexandra Pelosi's Diary of a Political Tourist HBO documentary.
(Thanks reader "jf" for the reminder.)
Why is it only in heavy Democratic counties that votes just seem to disappear? But in Republican counties, votes just seem to get added? This time, "something zapped it" in a heavily Democratic country in Indiana:
At about 7 p.m. Tuesday, it was noticed that the first two or three printouts from individual precinct reports all listed an identical number of voters. Each precinct was listed as having 300 registered voters.
That means the total number of voters for the county would be 22,200, although there are actually more than 79,000 registered voters.
...
Spevak said workers at the clerk's office thought a computer correction could be done once they received a software patch from Election Systems and Software, the Chicago company that provided the tabulation software. However, the patch did not work.
"We thought we could get a copy of it e-mailed file to us and start all over, but once the program was downloaded from Chicago, it still didn't work right," Spevak said.
Dots connecting yet for ya? If not, read on. Otherwise, I'm working on trying to organize some "action items" now. Hope to have news on that in the next day or two...
How many of these is it gonna take before the "Grownups" in the Media and the DNC realize what seems to be going on here?
Deputy Sarpy County Election Commissioner Ed Gilbert says, "It affected 32 of the 80 precincts. And I suppose as many as 10,000 votes."
Sarpy County borrowed the election equipment from Omaha-based Election Systems & Software. Its employees operated the machines that are now double-checking the ballots.
No one is sure exactly what went wrong.
Uh...perhaps it's the fact that ES&S employees are operating these machines?? Instead of Election Officials?! Isn't that the law in these matters?
For many of us, it took the destruction of the World Trade Towers and the deaths of 3,000 Americans before we paid any attention at all to the warning signs we'd been receiving about Terrorism.
And now, I feel the same way in regards to the warnings I'd been hearing about Electronic Voting machines and the Deibold company, etc. prior to the 11/2 Election.
I, frankly, was an idiot for not paying close enough attention to Bev Harris and the warnings she had been issuing about about Black Box Voting for the past year or more.
Guess what? I'm paying attention now.
I just finished watching the 30-minute "Presidential Election" version of VOTERGATE, a full-length documentary film being prepared for release on DVD, and the lump I'm now feeling now in the pit of my stomach is...to say the least...unsettling.
Unforutnately, the 30-minute version of VOTERGATE, previously available at VoterGate.tv was hacked a few days ago, according to their site, and their available versions were destroyed from the server. They claim to be attempting to repair the server, and upload replacements soon.
I don't doubt their claims, as this Blog also came under attack a couple of weeks ago while we were reporting on the White House Website Scrubbing scandal. And, frankly, that issue was nothing compared to what we may be looking at now.
In the meantime, I was able to watch a version here, but after I'd finished, and hoped to go back and get some screenshots for this article, I'd found that version also unavailable. I don't know if it's been hacked, or is just exceedingly busy at this point. If I find alternate versions for you to look at, I will update this item. (UPDATE: Found another version right here that seems to still be available! Go watch it! NOW!)
I CAN'T RECOMMEND THIS FILM ENOUGH at this point! It's absolutely horrifying.
In this special edition of the film, we follow Bev Harris as she demonstrates how --- in about 90 seconds --- she was able to change the results of an election on the central vote tabulating computer. It was something that anybody reading this could have done as easily.
We also see Mark Radke, the Marketing Director from Deibold Inc. (one of two private companies that count 80% of the nation's votes) explain how sorry they were that their CEO, Wallace O'Dell, sent out a Fundraising Letter to Republicans in August of 2003, telling them he was "committed to delivering the electoral vote in Ohio to George W. Bush next year".
That was the same month that O'Dell also met Bush, along with a bunch of benefactors, down at the ranch in Crawford! (Click here for some more on Diebold's $411,320 Republican political contributions.)
The Marketing Director, Radke, also assures us in the film that Diebold machines are "safe and reliable". Not long before Bev Harris demonstrates otherwise. Big time.
Among the documented evidence in this version of the film, is a candidate in an election (I believe it was in Georgia) who brought a video camera to the warehouse where the machines were stored after her 2002 election. She documents repeatedly how selecting her name on the touch-screen voting machine continually counted the vote as a vote for her opponent!. The proof is documented and shown on camera.
Furthermore, she interviews a San Diego poll worker who was asked to take home a dozen or so E-Voting Machines the night before the primary election. She was simply a volunteer and was required to pass no security checks to have access to these machines in her house all night long. The only security: An adhesive seal (a sticker actually) on each machine with a black and white graphic that was easily removed and restored without even tearing the seal.
As far as I'm concerned, 11/2 is becoming the 9/11 for democracy in this country, folks. And while I made the mistake of not paying close enough attention before, I will not be repeating that profoundly naïve error.
I'll update this item if I find additional versions of the film for you to watch...Developing...HARD...
From 2001 to 2003, Diebold gave $411,320 to Republican candidates and causes.
Their CEO promised, in an August 2003 Fundraising Letter to Republicans, to "deliver the Ohio electoral vote to President Bush" - Just days before he met with Bush and other bigwig supporters down at the ranch in Crawford, TX!
Along with ES&S, founded by the same founder as Diebold, those two companies alone count 80% of our nations ballots.
Click here to see the contributions they've made to the Republican party...
Like everyone else honest enough with themselves to see our country --- and our world with it --- being torn apart by George W. Bush, Andrew Veal, a 25 year-old employee at the University of Georgia recognized the disaster afoot in Iraq (where as of last night, they've officially declared Martial Law in the country --- more evidence of "catastrophic success", I guess).
Veal was an ardent John Kerry supporter and became despondent after Tuesday's results were announced.
He travelled to New York City on Friday --- home of the world's worst-ever terrorist attack and a city that voted overwhelmingly in favor of John Kerry to keep them safer in the future --- went downtown to the site of 9/11's "Ground Zero" and shot himself in the head with a .12-gauge shotgun.
Newsday reported yesterday that "Ground Zero remains a top tourist attraction" and that opinions of sight-seers later in the day varied about the latest tragedy to occur there.
One visitor was quoted as saying "Maybe he felt ineffective...You feel ineffective if you tried and it all failed" speaking of "many New Yorkers who are depressed over this."
An East Village artist and registered Democrat suggested the suicide was symbolic, "Obviously, this person was devastated. I can see why he would come here".
And from the Right, Bobbie Jensen, a 54 year-old "Republican from Pheonix" was compassionate enough to understand that Bush's victory must have been troubling to those who dislike him.
But, Ms. Jensen explained, "You can be upset about the war, about Bush, but this is a sacred place."
Apparently, for the compassionately conservative Ms. Jensen, Ground Zero is just an inappropriate place to blow ones brains out.
A must read article entitled "Evidence Mounts That The Vote Was Hacked" from Thom Hartmann at CommonDreams.org. Hartmann explains precisely how this election could easily have been hacked and claims that a U.S. House candidate in Florida has the evidence to prove it.
No doubt, the issues disclosed in this piece, are exactly what Bev Harris and BlackBoxVoting.org are basing their recent pronouncements of "fraud" upon. Teasing the first graf...
It's a very clear and convincing read. As I say, it's a must read! Please give it a look.
As Raw Story originally reported on Wednesday, the Exit Polling on the day of the Election showed Kerry ahead by robust margins in many states. By the time the day had ended Kerry's margin had been eclipsed by Bush's. But, notably, that only happened in states that do not have fully voter-verifiable paper trails (e.g. E-Voting machines that don't offer printed/verifiable paper receipts for the voter to confirm that their vote was recorded correctly).
Here are a couple of rudimentary graphics now to show the difference.
In the 10 states polled where there were voter-verifiable paper trails, the Final Results barely differed from the Exit Polls (which, until this year, have been widely regarded as highly accurate since they are taken as folks actually leave the polling place). The average change from Exit Poll to Final Results in these states was a tiny .8% gain for Bush. (Exit Numbers displayed in BLUE, Final Numbers in RED):
And now look at the data from states where there are no paper trails. Note the huge difference in Final Results that changed radically from the Exit Polling results. The average gain for Bush --- in these states only --- was 6.25% over the Exit Polling numbers!
What could possibly account for the huge differences there between the Exit Polls and the Final Results? And only in the Non-Paper Ballot States?
The numbers shown in these graphs seem to be taken from the "4pm Exit Polls" as shown on this chart. That chart is not particular user-friendly, but with a bit of close study, it makes sense.
Those "4pm Exit Poll" numbers however, match up with the "Final 6pm Exit Polls" as reported by Raw Story on the day of. So I'm not sure if the person who compiled the chart and the above graphics was in a different time-zone to account for the 4pm/6pm discrepancy. It doesn't really matter to be frank, as long as the numbers were correctly reported. Which they seem to have been.
It's my understanding that a major news organization is investigating this part of the story now. So we'll see what can be learned in the days ahead.
UPDATE: 11/9/04 Raw Story asked a former MIT "Associate Professor of Mathmatics" to look at these results, and his conclusion was that the probabilities of the Exit Polls all closing for Bush the way they did was approximately "1 in 50,000 or .002 percent". Nonetheless, that same Professor has looked closely at the available Exit Polling data and has "ruled out any significance of a variance between electronic balloting and paper ballot states" in the matter. That story is here.
I have spoken to Raw Story editor, John Byrne about this, and he stands by the report though he adds that to get any conclusive information on the matter we'd have to now take a look at the Exit Polling data on a county-by-county level. At this time, that information has not been released to the public, though apparently it is for sale somewhere. Not sure at this time how much it would cost to purchase for further analysis (and not sure why, at this point, it isn't simply made available to the public given all the troubling reports about this election!)
{NOTE: This page has been reformatted and updated in our new blogging software. Please visit the updated page here.}
NOTE: The link for this BRAD BLOG stay-on-top index of most notable News & Action items is:
https://bradblog.com/archives/00000905.htm
Please feel free to link, or pass the link on, as you see fit.
What follows are links to the latest and most alarming information concerning the questionable results of the Presidential Election. I am updating the list with the most notable items as soon as I can verify the info. Newest items will be added to the top of the lists.
Not all BRAD BLOG items are listed here! Just the most notable, verified, newsworthy and/or troubling! Please scroll past this item to read all of the latest BRAD BLOG articles.
Thanks to those who have sent tips to investigate! I am attempting to look at them all. Also, thanks to those who have hit the "Support the BRAD BLOG" button to donate to the effort and help allow me to stay focused on this now, while time is of the essence!
Latest Notable NEWS ITEMS: (Most Recent at Top)
Latest Notable ACTION ITEMS: (Most Recent at Top)
The BRAD BLOG has been under DDoS hack-attack at various times since we've begun reporting this story. If you have trouble getting in or the site is slow in loading, that is why. Please keep trying.
PLEASE NOTE: I am not, for now, focusing here on alleged Dirty Tricks and/or reports of Voter Suppression/Disenfranchisement on Election Day though there were plenty of them (a database of such reports can be found here, and further info here). I am largely for now looking at emerging hard evidence documenting potential fraud and/or mistabulation of actual votes cast by Americans on 11/2/04, with a focus on disturbing trends related to Ohio and Florida.
For the record, I voted for neither Bush nor Kerry, but have been a long-time opponent of both Bush and the corruption in the two-party system. My interest in this story now is due to concerns about ensuring an accurate vote count that reflects the will of the people in the world's most important democracy!
Keep checking back for more items as they emerge! MEDIA INQUIRIES HERE...
ATTN: Mathematicians and Statisticians - Please see this item posted at eRiposte concerning how some of the reported voting numbers just don't seem to be adding up to the reported Final Results. I'd love if some of you could double-check those figures and let us know in comments if you find that their math holds up.
In the previous article, I outlined a report from July 2003 that described how to steal an election in America in 2004. Virtually everything in that list was "done" in time for the 2004 election.
The items concerning the corporate privatization of the vast majority of our "public" balloting and counting systems by companies who are very closely tied to the Republican party are described in this new article yesterday by Thom Hartmann in the Baltimore Chronicle & Sentinel. Read the whole thing if you can. Here's just a few of the troubling highlights:
In another, later article I wrote at the request of MoveOn.org and which they mailed to their millions of members, I noted that in --another state that went all-electronic-- "USA Today reported on Nov. 3, 2002, 'In Georgia, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll shows Democratic Sen. Max Cleland with a 49%-to-44% lead over Republican Rep. Saxby Chambliss.' Cox News Service, based in Atlanta, reported just after the election (Nov. 7) that, "Pollsters may have goofed" because 'Republican Rep. Saxby Chambliss defeated incumbent Democratic Sen. Max Cleland by a margin of 53 to 46 percent. The Hotline, a political news service, recalled a series of polls Wednesday showing that Chambliss had been ahead in none of them.'" Nearly every vote in the state was on an electronic machine with no audit trail.
...
In the years since those first articles appeared, Bev Harris has published her book on the subject (Black Box Voting), including the revelation of her finding the notorious "Rob Georgia" folder on Diebold's FTP site just after Cleland's loss there...
...
Congressman Rush Holt introduced a bill into Congress requiring a voter-verified paper ballot be produced by all electronic voting machines, and it's been co-sponsored by a majority of the members of the House of Representatives. The two-year battle fought by Dennis Hastert and Tom DeLay to keep it from coming to a vote, [insured] that there will be no possible audit of the votes of about a third of the 2004 electorate.
The more I read this report/warning from July 2003 titled "Bigger Than Watergate!" - the more I feel like I did after 9/11. I'd heard all the warnings about bin Laden and Terrorism, etc., but I didn't take it all very seriously until after it was already too late.
The mindset is true for what I'd been hearing from BlackBoxVoting.org and others for years about the concerns about Electronic Voting machines. I was interested, but never took their dire warnings with much more than a grain of salt.
I was wrong.
Looking again at the story from July 2003, you'll find a chilling description of precisely what seems more and more to have happened in last Tuesday's election. For example, look at this passage explaining how one might steal an election in modern day America:
Imagine for example if you could:
- secure control of the companies that make the voting machines and vote counting software;
- centralise vote counting systems, and politicise their supervision;
- legislate for the adoption of such systems throughout your domain, and provide large amounts of money for the purchase of these systems;
- establish systems of vote counting that effectively prevent anybody on the ground in the election at a booth or precinct level - from seeing what is happening at a micro-level;
- get all the major media to sign up to a single exit-polling system that you also control removing the risk of exit-polling showing up your shenanigans.
This is a precise description of what has happened in our country leading up to Tuesday's vote as foretold more than a year ago!
The onlyl place where reality varies from the scenario above is in the last step, "removing the risk of exit-polling showing up your shenanigans". It was, in fact, that apparent slip-up --- the reporting of exit-polling, and the way that final results ended up varying wildly from normally very precise exit-polling, but only in swing states where they have E-Voting that doesn't supply voter-verified paper trails --- that gave us all our first clue that something was amiss here. In all other states, the exit-polls were exceedingly accurate. And where the "errors" described occured, the final results always ended up swing in Bush's favor. Why wouldn't at least some of those errors show declines in Bush's support in some states?
Since the results of the Exit Polls tipped us off, we've been able to track down more and more evidence that begins to add up to an election stinking to high heaven. The BRAD BLOG will continue to stay on this story until the matter is appropriately resolved one way or the other.
Please check back frequently as this story unfolds, as it's important that action is taken quickly on this matter. Please see BlackBoxVoting.org for more information on how you can help, and make everyone you know aware of these problems ASAP in the meantime! It's important that this story begin to emerge to the American public as quickly as possible!
More soon...
This is the way dividers such as Sean Hannity, O'Reilly, Scarborough, Wall Street Journal etc. have been telling you that America looks today in hopes of continuing their hateful wedge of the American people for political gain:
This, however --- according to reality-based data --- is what America really looks like today:
Don't let the dividers and haters tell you otherwise!
And please see this previously posted map of what America really looks like as well.
Folks are beginning to pay attention, guys!
Wired Magazine is now reporting that three Members of the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee are now calling for an investigation of the troubling incidents that we've been reporting concerning irregularities in Tuesday's vote counting!:
The congressmen, Democratic members of the House of Representatives from Florida, New York and Michigan, cited a number of incidents that came to light in the days after the election. One was a glitch in Ohio that caused a memory card reader made by Danaher Controls to give George W. Bush 3,893 more votes than he should have received. Another was a problem with memory cards in North Carolina that caused machines made by UniLect to lose 4,500 votes cast on e-voting machines. The votes were lost when the number of votes cast on the machines exceeded the capacity of the memory cards.
There were also problems with machines that counted absentee ballots in Florida. Software made by Election Systems & Software began subtracting votes when totals surpassed 32,000. Officials said the problem affected only certain countywide races on one of the last pages of the ballot. Elections officials knew about the problem two years ago, but the company failed to fix the software before the election this year.
Reports from voters in Florida and Ohio also indicated that some of them had problems voting for the candidate of their choice. When they tried to vote for John Kerry, they said, the machine either wouldn't register the vote at all or would indicate on the review page that the vote was cast for Bush instead.
Keep up the noise, guys! They're starting to listen! I've had other unconfirmed reports about both Dems and the Kerry campaign beginning to take notice of all of this as well!
UPDATE: House Judiciary Committee Letter to GAO, as mentioned above, available here in PDF format. (Hat tip "Shari H-D" for the link!)