Patty Sharaf's explosive, new election integrity film, Murder, Spies & Voting Lies: The Clint Curtis Story, has been named "Best Documentary" at this year's New Jersey Film Festival! Congrats to Patty and crew!

That's the second such award for an election integrity documentary (both featuring yours truly, so clearly, we'd expect no less!) recently, as the San Diego Film Festival's "Best Doc" award went to David Earnhardt's Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections in late September.

MSVL has received some great press of late, even as I haven't had time to cover it. Most recently, Epoch Times called it "a great entertaining thriller," and said it was "alarming" and "outrageous." And Meet the Bloggers reviewed the film as "truly one of the scariest movies I've seen in a very long time" and called it "gripping." (Other recent reviews here and here.)

[UPDATE: The following promotion may no longer be available! Email us to find out if there are any DVDs left!]

So...grip this...If you'd like your very own DVD of MSVL, signed by myself and the filmmaker, please donate $50 or more to The BRAD BLOG here.

If you'd like both MSVL and Uncounted (also signed by the filmmaker) please donate $75 or more to The BRAD BLOG here!

Snail mail works as well. If you can help, please make checks payable to: Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594, Los Angeles, CA 90028.

It's been a very rough season around here, and we'd greatly appreciate the support if you're able. For those who have contributed over the last week or so, and are waiting for your DVDs, they're coming soon! I've gotten a bit backed up over here of late for some reason or another. Thanks for your patience...and for your support! It means the world...

The Democrats, as usual, have only themselves to blame. But we're still happy to help both them and the Republicans if it means the voters might see their votes counted and counted accurately, no matter who will ultimately be declared the winner of any election. You're welcome, Republicans (and Democrats).

After years of Democrats refusing to use the f-word (fraud) or discussing concerns about the s-word (stolen) for elections, for fear of being declared conspiracy theorists and sore-losers by the Republicans, we'll note that Republicans have no such fears. They never did. And they are happy to don enormous and shiny tin-foil hats any time to claim any conspiracy they need to, regardless of the actual evidence (or lack thereof) to support their theory.

They will claim --- even at the highest official levels of their party --- that "Democrats are stealing the election," "stuff[ing] new ballots into the ballot box" and all other manner of unsubstantiated allegations, if they believe it might help their candidate "win." The voters be damned.

To that end, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) has now gone so far as to set up a "Minnesota Recount" conspiracy theory blog. The site is devoted to the advancement of making and reposting unsubstantiated claims from around the wingnut 'sphere --- and that would include liar John Fund's Wall Street Journal --- that Al Franken and the Democrats are in the process of "stealing" the U.S. Senate race in Minnesota...

"Source code is almost irrelevant to us," says MD's State Election Director Linda Lamone a few minutes before she removes her mic and walks off the interview. "That's not what we use to run this voting system. It's the executable code."

Lamone, responsible for bringing Diebold's 100% unverifiable voting machines to the entire state of MD in 2002, is wrong and/or lies about so much in the course of this interview --- taped by a major broadcast news network, but never aired, in 2006 --- that we don't even have time to dissect it all. So, for the moment, I'll leave it to all of the good denizens of The BRAD BLOG who are now very well-versed in just how full of it Lamone is during the entirety of this interview.

"I think you're in Fantasy Land, so I'm gonna end this," Lamone says, ironically enough from the bowels of her own Fantasy Land, in support of her 100% faith-based voting system, before she rips off her mic, walks off camera, and ends the interview. We guess she's not used to being interviewed by a reporter who knows what she's talking about.

The remarkable, never-before-seen video follows (appx 6:45 mins)...

As I haven't had much (if any) time to focus on it since last Tuesday's election, I just wanted to toss in for now, here on Veterans Day, that I find it hard to believe that many of those vets, to whom we ought a great debt, would have risked their lives to fight to remove individual freedom, personal liberties, and hard fought rights for any American.

Thus, what may have happened in this state last Tuesday, when voters apparently voted in favor of Prop 8 to remove the right to marriage equality for same-sex couples, is an embarrassment and a reminder of why rights should never be put up for popular vote. The U.S. Constitution --- and presumably the CA Constitution, which will be amended by this proposition, if it's allowed to stand --- is meant to protect and guarantee the rights of the minority from the tyranny of the majority.

Had it been placed on the ballot for a popular vote in the 1800's, slavery would likely have been approved by the electorate as well. That wouldn't have made the right to live free of enslavement in these United States any more correct than removing the right for same-sex couples to share all of the benefits (whatever they may be) of marriage that every other couple in America has the right to enjoy.

What a shameful disgrace. It will not stand. But it remains an extraordinary embarrassment that so many still have to go to such lengths in order to guarantee their individual rights and freedoms in 2008...particularly after all that we've been through in this nation.

Happy Veterans Day to all. And thank you to all of those who have served. Your sacrifice will not have been in vain.

UPDATE: Protest rallies against Prop 8 are planned all over the country this Saturday. Please help keep America free by joining one of them in your town, if you can. More details here...

Guest blogged by Shannyn Moore

ANCHORAGE - It doesn't bother me to have fundamental differences with people. If it did, I'd never get out of bed. The person I most respected growing up, my Pop, was and is a conservative ideologue. I'm crazy about him. Disagreeing with facts is fair and healthy. Arguing from a place lacking intellectual curiosity is quite another as nothing is learned nor gained.

Since my first post questioning the voter turnout and other anomalies in Alaska's election, I've been accused of all sorts of things. I have been misquoted in the Anchorage Daily News. They claimed I wrote the election was "stolen." I wrote "Stolen Election in Alaska?" It wasn't the word, it was the punctuation.

But there is good reason to be concerned. A lawsuit filed in 2006 in State Superior Court to release the Diebold GEMS Software from 2004 revealed the database had been tampered with. Unfortunately, the user log-in and password were set to the default settings so it was impossible to tell who had edited the software numerous times post election, since all entries were made by "administrator" with password: "password". So it's not too outrageous for anybody to believe it's important, this time, to pay very close attention to the results of last Tuesday's election...

This just in from Alaska, where thousands of new ballots continue to be found each day, since it was first reported that turnout in 2008 was 11% lower than in 2004. Thousands of ballots, nearly a third of them, remain uncounted nearly a week after the election. Their numbers could explain the strange results so far in races --- such as those of the felonious Sen. Ted Stevens (R) and the under-investigation Rep. Don Young (R) --- for which pollsters had predicted decisive losses for the Republicans.

Even with the newly acknowledged ballots and even with Alaska's once-popular Gov. Sarah Palin and popular Sen. Barack Obama both on the Presidential ballot this year, turnout numbers still remain slightly below those from 2004. The Anchorage Daily News, with numbers somewhat out of date from those now posted below, called it all "puzzling" over the weekend, and pointed out much of what we've detailed here in previous posts.

The following updated numbers come from the DNC's Alaska Communications Director, Kay Brown late this afternoon [emphasis in the original]...

The election results being reported in Alaska still stink from top to bottom. While it may be true that fewer voters turned out to vote for Gov. Sarah Palin and Sen. Barack Obama on this year's Presidential tickets than turned out to vote for Bush and Kerry in 2004 --- even with Alaska's record increases in voter registration and voter participation during their primaries and unprecedented turnout during early voting --- it does strain credulity, as noted by Anchorage's Shannyn Moore, by poll analysist/expert Nate Silver and others.

There could be some reasonable explanation for poll-shattering upset victories by Republicans in Alaska's U.S. House and Senate contests, despite pre-election polls predicting near-certain defeat for convicted 7-time felon Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young, who is currently under FBI investigation on corruption charges.

The state senator I spoke with --- who can't understand how it could be that polls predicted Democrats would gain 4 to 6 U.S. House seats in Alaska, but instead, according to Diebold and state election officials, currently seem to have lost 2 seats instead --- could simply be wrong in his belief that something strange is going on up there.

But, as always, rather than speculating on any of it, I suggest another way: Find out for certain who won and who lost, in such a way that no party or citizen would have reason to question the final results, by, among other things, counting the ballots --- all of them.

I've come to learn that's a nutty idea that only crazy people would advocate, but for all of you crazy people out there, here's what can be done to try and find out who really won or lost any particular race...

I was happy, if exhausted, to check in with my friend Cenk Uyger on Brave New Media's Meet the Bloggers once again last week. Last time I was in studio, this time, I was at home on fuzzy video cam, on the morning after last week's election (so it wasn't just the cam that was fuzzy that day.)

You can watch the entire episode over at the MTB site. It also features Newsweek's Jonathan Alter and the great Marcy Wheeler of Emptywheel. My four and a half minutes or so, on "how it went", emerging concerns that morning, and a message for Al Franken, follows...

-- Brad Friedman, The BRAD BLOG

"DavidNYC" at DailyKos files a well-meaning diary today headlined "How I Became a Vote-by-Mail Convert" in which he offers some reasons, after years of opposing it, that he now supports VBM based on his experience as a poll watcher last Tuesday.

I've previously offered just a few of the most noteworthy reasons that I believe VBM is a terrible idea for democracy, even as I realize that many hard partisans --- from both sides of the political aisle --- love the idea of VBM as it tends to increase turnout and allows them to target their voters quite directly. Lists of who already voted are routinely made available to the major political parties in the days leading up to the election, allowing them to more specifically target their expensive Get Out the Vote (GOTV) efforts on, and before, Election Day.

That's swell for partisans, but not so good for many of us who are more concerned that voters be allowed to vote freely, and that their votes be counted accurately and transparently. And some of "DavidNYC's" thoughtful arguments are misleading at best...

Rightwing, partisan, conspiracy theorists* and bloggers (and, perhaps, sore-losers*) such as Powerline's John Hinderaker have suddenly found religion when it come to the integrity of elections. At least now that it looks like MN's Sen. Norm Coleman (R) may be in trouble in his razor-thin re-election contest against challenger Al Franken (D).

At last check, there were just 221 votes between the two candidates, with automatic hand recount triggered and scheduled to begin November 19th.

The only thing that's particularly clear from Hinderaker's desperate and ill-composed screed over at his Republicanist blog, is that he has no clue what he's talking about. Being the generous fellow that I am, however, and more interested in helping to assure the person who actually received the most votes gets to be the winner of the election than I am in any particular candidate "winning" it, allow me to help him with a few of his misconceptions about the U.S. Senate race in MN, and about elections in general...

Today we have reports that ES&S software actually flipped votes in three races at one polling place in Crawford Co., Kansas. We also have reports that ES&S software incorrectly reported results in one race in Polk Co., North Carolina.

The long count of votes in Hillsborough Co., Florida, seems to be over with the blame for problems being put, where else, on “human error.” It seems that Premier/Diebold had warned Florida users of their high-speed OSX voting machines that those machines could not take a high-volume of ballots without bogging down and causing problems. Hillsborough ignored that warning. However, why would a vendor put out a system for use in elections that cannot be used in a high-volume of ballots. King Co., Washington, wanted badly to use that system. If they had it would have been a disaster....

In case you haven't been able to keep up with the barrage of reporting here over the last 48 hours --- concerning serious election irregularities in various races around the country --- allow me to connect at least the dots that may well add up to a filibuster-proof Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate.

Now that challenger Jeff Merkley (D) has been declared the winner (at least by the media) over incumbent Sen. Gordon Smith (R) in Oregon, the Democrats have currently been named the winners in enough elections U.S. Senate races that they will have at least 57 seats when President-elect Barack Obama takes office next January.

There remain, however, three U.S. Senate races still in serious contention, all of which, there is very good reason to believe, may end up going to the Democratic candidates if serious attention is given to issues of election integrity in each of those races. Setting aside whether or not a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate is a good or bad thing, the undecided races at this hour --- in Alaska, Minnesota, and Georgia --- are quickly summarized below, along with links to more detailed coverage, for your convenience...

Guest blogged by Shannyn Moore

[Ed Note: Now updated. See details at end of article.]

ANCHORAGE - Something stinks. Not just an ordinary low tide smell. Not like something you’d blame on the dog. It smells like an infection. For me to plug my nose, I’d have to overlook some curious facts.

In Alaska, more people voted for George W. Bush in 2004 than for Sarah Palin on Tuesday despite an identical 61-36 margin of victory. Yes. Only four years ago 54,304 Alaskans got off their sofas and voted for Bush, but decided to sit home and not vote for Palin in 2008.

In turn, I have to ignore the 30,520 Alaskans who felt progressive enough in 2004 to vote for John Kerry, but weren’t inspired enough to get out and vote for Barack Obama.

I would have to glance past the 1,700% increase in the Democratic caucus in February, the 20,991 newly registered voters, and the three largest political rallies in Alaska’s history.

I would also have to forget the people I stood in a long line with to early vote. It would be helpful not to know every other presidential election since Alaska began keeping records has had a larger turn out than the one we just had with our own Governor on the ticket. Try not to remember 12.4% more Alaskans showed up for the August primary as compared to four years ago, before the Palin nomination. Don’t think about the Lower 49’s record voter turn out this year either. Try to delete the memory file, though difficult, that 80% of us approved of Sarah Palin just two months ago.

And as if all of that doesn't stink enough, we still don't know who won the Ted Stevens U.S. Senate race, the Don Young U.S. House, or even the race for Mayor of Anchorage and most curiously, why turnout this year was down 11% from 2004, even with Alaska's own previously-popular Governor on the ticket, and passions for Obama here and everywhere else, extraordinarily high...

All 185 of the completely unverifiable Diebold touch-screen voting machines used in Northumberland County, PA's election were ordered impounded by a judge Tuesday night after complaints from both the Republican and Democratic parties. Officials from both parties had filed requested action following reports from voters that straight-party ticket votes were not showing voters the names of their selection for President on the summary screen near the end of the 100% faith-based touch-screen voting process.

Problems with straight-party voting, particularly on touch-screen voting systems, were reported in a number of states that allow the practice, during the early voting period in the days leading up to Election Day.

While one Diebold AccuVote touch-screen machine was impounded by an official in Colorado following reports of votes flipping on the screen from Democratic to Republican candidates in early voting --- and even with hundreds of similar startling problems reported directly to the Obama campaign as The BRAD BLOG reported exclusively on Monday --- no other action was taken on or before Election Day to remove these wholly unverifiable systems from use until Tuesday night's court-ordered quarantine of the Northumberland County machines.

The same unverifiable machines made by Diebold were used in a number of states, including the entirety of Georgia where a run-off has been scheduled following a tight race for the U.S. Senate there. The same models were also found, by a landmark Princeton study in 2006, to be easily susceptible to malicious viruses that could result in a flipped election which would be difficult, if not impossible, to discover...

I'm exhausted, so forgive me if I make this quicker than it deserves. And if I haven't yet been able to jump into a myriad of other elections of serious concern around the country still today.

But just a few quick facts on the Al Franken (D) / Norm Coleman (R) U.S. Senate race in Minnesota, which we noted last night (with some updates today) stands at some 700 votes currently between them. More hopefully after I've figured out how to sneak in some rest.

Here are three quick, bullet-point facts that Franken may want to know, since his was the only show on Air America which never had me on as a guest, as he simply refused to discuss serious issues concerning Election Integrity, now-ironically enough.

(And see below these for some quick skinny on serious concerns about the outstanding Senate races in AK, OR and GA...)