Guest Blogged by John Gideon

Election Science Institute (ESI) of San Francisco California was hired to investigate and report on problems with the May primary election in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. The 240-page report was just released this month (August), and some in the elections community have ignored a large majority of the report and zeroed in on a single aspect that supports their thesis that voters don't need any paper, even when voting on a Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machine.

Daniel Tokaji is an Assistant Professor of Law at the Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law and the Associate Director of Election Law at Moritz. He has testified against a voter verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) to a US House committee and the Election Assistance Commission..

In his paper on the ESI report, Tokaji ignores many significant findings of the report and distorts the overall findings by highlighting only the compromised VVPAT. As pointed out by VotersUnite.Org in their analysis of the ESI report, there was much more substance from ESI than just VVPAT printer problems:

Guest Blogged by Winter Patriot

An enormous investigation continues in Great Britain, where eight people were charged with conspiracy to murder on Monday and lesser charges were laid against three others. All eleven of the suspects who were charged Monday appeared in court on Tuesday.

From Monday's account in the Mirror: 11 Charged Over Airline Bomb Plot, police described the alleged evidence as follows (with my emphasis):

As for the charges...

Guest blogged by Joseph Cannon

Is someone murdering people who know too much about NSA wiretapping overseas?

Two whistleblowers --- one in Italy, one in Greece --- uncovered a secret bugging system installed in cell phones around the world. Both met with untimely ends. The resultant scandals have received little press in the United States, despite the profound implications for American critics of the Bush administration.

Last month, Italian telecommunications security expert Adamo Bove either leapt or was pushed from a freeway overpass; he left no note and had no history of depression. Last year (March, 2005), Greek telecommunications expert Costas Tsalikidis met with a similarly enigmatic end. Both had uncovered American attempts to eavesdrop on government officials, anti-war activists, and private businessmen.

The Bove case relates to the long-standing controversy over the CIA's kidnapping of cleric Abu Omar, who was flown to Egypt and tortured. The post-Berlusconi government of Italy is attempting to arrest and try all of the CIA personnel involved. Bove used mobile phone records to trace more than two dozen American agents.

Guest Blogged by John Gideon

Tonight Kitty Pilgrim reports that Pinellas Co.'s voting machines passed Logic and Accuracy (L&A) Tests until a Sequoia Voting Systems technician changed some software. A subsequent test failed so the county changed the software back and re-did the test successfully. There was no report as to what caused the problem or why Sequoia tried to install software that was, very apparently, unnecessary; or was it?

The text-transcript of tonight's segment on Lou Dobbs Tonight follows in full...

Guest Blogged by Winter Patriot

Thus writes Michael Collins in his most recent article, a masterful presentation of the study and its results.

The graphic you see at the top right corner of this post shows how overwhelmingly Americans insist on seeing how their votes are counted; click on it to see a full-sized version. Respondents were asked to choose one of the following:

A: Citizens have the right to view and obtain information about how election officials count votes.

B: Citizens do not have the right to view and obtain information about how elections officials count votes.

The blue area represents respondents who chose option "A", the red represents those who chose "B", and the grey area represents those who were not sure. As you can easily see, the blue position was extremely popular for the survey overall. Below we have extensive charts and numerous graphs which show beyond any reasonable doubt that the blue position was extremely popular for every segment of the survey group!

But first things first; here's Michael Collins:

Guest Blogged by John Gideon

Tonight, Dobbs reporter and stand-in Kitty Pilgrim interviews Professor Avi Rubin about his new book and about the dangers of Direct Recording Electronic voting machines.

Video in Streaming Flash format...

The video is also available on Rubin's new blog.

The text-transcript of tonight's segment on Lou Dobbs Tonight follows in full...

Guest Blogged by Winter Patriot

Your cold and humble blogger presents an assortment of clips from the war in Lebanon --- and on the home front --- since last weekend.

(And NO, I don't expect you to remember this, because some of it happened before they arrested what's-his-name? ... you know ... the guy who claims he ... um ... well ... you know what I mean, don't you?)

Saturday, August 12, 2006

BBC: Bush links Hezbollah and 'plot'

Guest Blogged by Winter Patriot

Still breathless after my appearance on the Peter B. Collins show
I might not be able to write much over the next day or two
The most recent open thread is a few days old
And it's not getting any younger
So ... here you go:

It's Open Thread Blogging At Its Best

Down By The BRAD BLOG
Down by the sea
On the green and yellow blog, baby
That's where I'll be ...

Oops! I almost forgot: I've got something musical for you to read. It's from the New York Times and the headline is kind of preposterous, but it's worth reading anyway. You can find it here ... or if that doesn't work, click here.

PS: I've got one more cold photo for you, here.

Guest bloged by Winter Patriot

If you've never heard a nearly frozen voice coming out of your radio --- or better yet, coming out of a series of tubes --- your chance is coming soon.

Your humble and very cold blogger will be speaking with Peter B. Collins this afternoon, beginning at 5pm Pacific time (that's 8 Eastern, 7 Central, 6 Mountain, and so on). I'll be filling in for Brad (who usually visits with Peter on Friday afternoons) and talking about "the thwarted alleged British-Pakistani simultaneous airline bombing plot".

I've written four articles for The BRAD BLOG about this alleged plot since last Thursday; here are the links in case you missed them the first time:

If you're in (or near) Monterey, Sacramento, Eureka or Phoenix, you can listen via broadcast radio. Otherwise you'll have to tune in to a streaming "tube-cast". Either way, click here for more details.

Peter's shows are archived, so if you can't catch us live you will be able to do so later. I'll keep you posted on that. But if you can join us live, we'd love to hear from you. Give us a call at 888-5PeterB ... that's 888-573-8372. And have a good question ready!

UPDATE: An audio record of my talk with Peter is now available online. In consideration of those readers with slow connections, I've broken the segment up into three files. Each is about 6 megabytes and plays for about 6 minutes. I hope you'll be able to download them without difficulty; I'll check the comments thread in case anyone has trouble.

Here you go:

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Regular BRAD BLOG readers will remember reading about Election Science Institute (ESI) and the report they prepared on the May 2 primary in Cuyahoga (Cleveland) County, because John Gideon blogged about it on Wednesday.

Also on Wednesday, at the Columbus Dispatch, Public Affairs reporter Mark Niquette and Senior editor Joe Hallett wrote about it too: Cleveland study questions accuracy of Diebold voting machines.

We have a few excerpts below the fold. We also have another piece, written by Mr. Niquette, which appeared on the front page of the Dispatch on Thursday, and in which the Dispatch asked for comments from readers.

I think Mr. Niquette and Mr. Hallett and their colleagues should hear from 6 or 7 green-and-yellow bloggers.

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

I did quite a bit of reading yesterday (British time) and I want to share some of the highlights (and lowlights) with you.

On the British news scene, everyone seemed to have new and different revelations, all from unnamed sources, and all presented in a manner which (if you'll pardon my French) exuded an aroma reminiscent of a seafood market.

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Jill Lawrence, writing in USA TODAY, looks at some hotly-contested races for positions that were once largely ignored: Top vote counter becomes prize job...

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Today (Thursday), in Detroit, a federal judge ruled that the illegal covert spying program put in place by the Bush administration is unconstitutional and ordered the administration to stop it immediately. But the administration has given every possible indication of its unwillingness to comply.

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

The next Ned Lamont is just across the Connecticut border in Massachusetts, where voting rights leader John Bonifaz is similarly taking on the Democratic Party establishment in his grassroots campaign for Secretary of State. Bonifaz, a Democrat who sued George Bush on the eve of the Iraq war on behalf of soldiers, families of soldiers and members of Congress trying to prevent the illegal invasion, squares off against the incumbent, Bill Galvin, on September 19.

But the Lamont connection runs even deeper. Bill Hillsman, the media guru who produced the winning ads for Lamont and Paul Wellstone, is eager to jump into the race on the Bonifaz campaign, which could be the final ingredient that puts John over the top. What John needs now is the financial support to make the Hillsman addition a reality --- and if he can raise $25,000 by August 23, it will happen.

Meeting this goal would lead to Hillsman joining the campaign through the primary and the production of ads that would be used on the air, on the web and as tools for further fundraising success. Please go to John’s web site today to help make this winning combination possible. Your contribution is vital. We must support Democrats who stand up against entrenched interests and stand up for our rights as voters.

Guest Blogged by John Gideon

Tonight Lou revisits the world of electronic voting in Ohio, where the evidence points to voting machine problems, but the vendors, especially Diebold, and the state want everyone to believe that the poll and election workers are just too dumb to do the work and all of the problems are their fault. For more on this story see the recent BRAD BLOG article regarding the Cuyahoga County investigation.

Here's a quick sample from the text transcript:

Video in Streaming Flash format...
Video in Windows Media format...

The text-transcript of tonight's segment on Lou Dobbs Tonight follows in full...