Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Staff Writer Leslie Wolf Branscomb of the San Diego Union-Tribune actually gets some of the story right in her July 19th piece: Reliability of voting machines questioned.

Brad mentioned this story yesterday, noting that it was among "the worst" of the most recent local coverage of the Busby/Bilbray election, which, as all regular readers know, happened over a month ago and is still under a cloud of doubt.

Just before he left for his "vacation", Brad mentioned that "the reporters continue to allow Haas to pass on his knowing obfuscations, and the media is usually too lazy or ill-informed to bother to call him on it. So that's your job now!" and he also said: "Please help such media out by giving them the facts to counter Haas' ass-covering spin, misleads, red-herrings and bald-faced lies."

And so, without further ado ... after the fold you will find extended excerpts and some commentary from your lowly and nearly frozen guest-blogger.

And please also read Brad's post on the subject, if you haven't done so already.

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

A timely reminder from our friend Jay:

I'm getting ready to go out of town for a bit, and will need to rely on 6 or 7 of you to help keep San Diego County Registrar Mikel Haas' misleading statements and out-and-out lies from making their way into "conventional wisdom".

He's working hard to cover his ass right now in regard to his horrendous administration of the June 6th U.S. House special election between Francine Busby and Brian Bilbray, in which he allowed programmed, hackable, election-ready Diebold electronic voting machines to become effectively decertified (at both the state and federal level) when he sent them home with poll workers for days and weeks prior to the election. As he well knows, that means he allowed illegal votes to be cast on those decertified voting machines used across the entire California 50th congressional district.

There are loads of articles on all of this today in the San Diego papers and on the local television news websites. That's all good, in general, even though the reporters continue to allow Haas to pass on his knowing obfuscations, and the media is usually too lazy or ill-informed to bother to call him on it. So that's your job now! Especially while I'm otherwise on and off the grid over the next several weeks trying to sneak in some much needed R&R.

(On that note, I'm leaving ASAP, but am scheduled to appear live tomorrow night on Catherine Crier's CourtTV show at 5pm ET. Probably will have to do it from Vegas, where I'll be nearby. Currently RFK Jr. is booked along with me on tomorrow's show.)

So, very quickly before I scram, here are are Mikel Haas' top three spins, lies and misleads of late that he's shoveling out to media, as witnessed in coverage over just the past 24 hours on San Diego's Channel 8, Channel 10, the North County Times and the San Diego Union-Tribune, just to name a few. (Channel 10 and the U-T story had the worst of them)

Please help such media out by giving them the facts to counter Haas' ass-covering spin, misleads, red-herrings and bald-faced lies. Here are his latest Top Three most dangerous, disingenuous and misleading whoppers...

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

The Atlanta Progressive News has published a long article about a situation we were very interested in yesterday, which otherwise seems poised to fall off the map. How curious!

The APN piece is called Machine Vote-Flipping Claimed in McKinney Primary and I have found it on the net in a very few places. But I can't find any other news about this story on at all. Anywhere. Even the "McKinney for Congress" website is quiet --- it hasn't been updated since yesterday afternoon as far as I can tell.

In the interests of getting this story a bit more exposure, we provide not only a link to it (above) but we will also post generous excerpts below the fold.

By the way, according to the "official" results of the election, McKinney got more votes than any of the other candidates, but not a majority, and she will have to go through a run-off against her most successful opponent, Hank Johnson, to whom votes were being flipped yesterday according to the reports we have received.

Just off the air from the Mike Malloy show. And yes, before I came on he did comment that when touched the screen of the Diebold voting machine he used to vote in today's Georgia primary, it was touching the ass of Satan. If you missed it, his interview with me follows. It was a lively one. We discussed trouble at the Georgia primaries, the Busby/Bilbray sleepover mess, Diebold skullduggery in the California Secretary of State's office, and all manners of democracy crumbling.

He asked me to stay over for an additional segment after the top of the hour, when we had a....skeptic call in from Sacramento who believes I'm "a phony." Which is always fun, of course. Glad to meet the critics. Enjoy...

-- Brad on Mike Malloy Show, 7/18/06 [MP3, appx 40 mins]

Also, I had meant to post this a couple of weeks ago, so will take the opportunity to do so now before I hit the road for the next bunch of weeks and may become scarcer than I'd like (but I really need a break. Big time. So please forgive me) This is audio from the Ed Schultz when NBC/HBO sports anchor Jim Lampley was sitting in for Schultz show a day or two after our Emergency Busby/Bilbray Townhall in San Diego. I'm on with him for just a quick few minutes, but he gave one of the kindest and most generous introductions I've ever received. Lampley is a terrific hero himself, and was kind enough to show up to support us at the San Diego event with his wife Bree Walker (whose new show in Los Angeles, I hope to be doing soon as well. Like Lamps, she's aces!)

-- Brad on Ed Schultz Show, Guest Host Jim Lampley, 6/30/06 [MP3, appx 5 mins]

Guest Blogged by John Gideon...

Just reported by VoterAction.org, the great group led by attorney Lowell Finley, is that a US District Court Judge has sent the lawsuit, Holder v. McPherson et. al. back to state court. This is a victory for the voters of the state of California and is the first giant step in stopping the use of Diebold touch-screen voting machines in the state. VoterAction's press release follows in full...

The local media, in this case the North County Times looks to finally be getting the story right, and is attempting to hold San Diego County Registrar Mikel Haas accountable for his prevarications concerning the Diebold voting machine "sleepovers" that violated new state and federal laws and security requirements during the now-disputed June 6th U.S. House special election between Francine Busby and Brian Bilbray in California's 50th congressional district.

San Diego County's Democratic Party Chair, Jess Durfee is joining the growing calls for accountability in the matter, according to this morning's Times by calling for hearings on the matter and new legislation to ban the procedure known as "Sleepovers" where poll workers are given programmed, election-ready, hackable voting machines to store in their homes, cars and garages for days and weeks prior to the election. It's been shown that these machines, both Diebold's optical-scan and touch-screen voting systems, are exceedingly vulnerable to tampering and can be hacked within a few minutes time with no password necessary.

Previously, dozens of organizations and thousands of individuals have declared "No Confidence" in the results of the "bellwether" election and had demanded hand counts of all ballots after Haas' security breaches resulted in the use of decertified voting machines, and thus, illegal votes were cast on them across the entire county. Last Friday, the national Democratic Party joined the call in demanding accountability and a full manual count of all ballots in the race.

See the Times report for more details, a statement from state Senator Debra Bowen, and attempted obfuscations from Haas, but here's the opening grafs and one misdirect that Haas was allowed to get away with...

That's from Miriam Raftery's RAW STORY coverage of the Saturday Night events in San Diego at the DemocracyFest. But I was there, and that's what Dean said --- echoing, in part, the DNC Voting Rights Institute statement on the Busby/Bilbray election fiasco issued the day before --- to the appreciative acclaim of thousands at the open air theater concert/event Saturday night. Audience members spotted with "No Sleepovers" signs were picked up on the big video screens next to the stage.

I was just happy the night had cooled and, for me anyway, things had finally calmed down a bit after a non-stop day of speechifying, meeting, educating, rabble-rousing and other exhilirations as the sunshine at San Diego State University must have pushed the mercury towards the 100 mark.

Raftery's got a photo of yours truly at our press conference (more photos of all below) in her article, along with other details that I'm relieved she covered, because I'm still too exhausted and running behind (checking the clock, it's 4:04am right now) and playing catch up to hit everything by myself. I'm hoping we'll be able to get some of the local TV News coverage of the press conference from the local stations posted here, but I've gotta hit the road (I hope!) tomorrow and then do Mike Malloy's show from lord only knows where...I need a break. I'm gonna get one. If it kills me.

Anyway, let's play catch-up a bit. Some notes on the weekend --- that I wasn't able to log on and cover here for BRAD BLOG while I was in the very middle of it all --- including comments from Sen. Debra Bowen, Francine Busby, and other photos and personal thoughts on the last 24 to 72...

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

According to sources in the Cynthia McKinney camp, Georgia voters attempting to vote for her in today's Democratic Primary are seeing their votes flipped to her opponent, Hank Johnson.

McKinney has a well-deserved reputation for speaking truth to power, asking tough questions, and not backing down (see this video, or read this transcript).

Diebold, on the other hand, has a history of touch-screen machines flipping votes from one candidate to another --- commonly called "vote-switching" or "vote-flipping" --- and otherwise failing altogether.

An Exclusive Interview for The BRAD BLOG as Guest Blogged by Joy and Tom Williams...

"The Republican Party, the Republican National Committee, has been using old-fashioned, Jim Crow, apartheid-type maneuvers to steal the last two national elections."
-- Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Recently, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., (bio) , wrote the article: "Was the 2004 Election Stolen" where he examined the election fraud in Ohio that took place during the last Presidential Election. He also has written a book "Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush & His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking our Democracy". Mr. Kennedy, along with Mike Papantonio have filed a "qui tam" lawsuit against some of the voting machines companies, in an effort to save our Democracy.

I've long had a deep respect for Robert F. Kennedy for his dedicated work as an environmental advocate. Tom and I enjoyed interviewing him and were moved by his passion and dedication to our country and our Democracy. We spoke to him via phone at his office at Pace University's Environmental Litigation Clinic in White Plains, New York, which he founded, about the election of 2004. This was an experience to remember...

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Steve Viele has sent me a nice email containing his account of Saturday morning at DemocracyFest and a few pics of Brad there. Way cool.

The following is from Steve...

(NOTE: RAW STORY is now running an article on Howard Dean's comments at DemFest and our Press Conference there, both on Saturday.)

Have finally made it out of San Diego, back to Los Angeles, where hopefully, I'll be leaving again soon to take whatever form of occassionally working, occassionally vacating vacation that I am able to pull off over the next month while all of these things are going on....

It's been a whirlwind past 48 hours or so, and I've hardly been able to catch my breath, much less log onto the net at all for the most part since 7am on Saturday. So I've got a lot of catchup to do. More notably, I've got a lot to catch you up on from news of a late and last-minute press conference on the latest Busby/Bilbray CA50 stuff that we held Saturday evening at DemocracyFest just prior to the big open air concert event (featuring Al Franken, Howard Dean, Marc Maron, Paul Hackett, Maxine Waters and many others) to various bits and pieces that I hope to share from meetings and conversations and such from the last several days of DemFest and beyond.

I'll share some news and comments from Sen. Debra Bowen (with whom I sat on a panel discussion Saturday in the big room at DemFest) and Francine Busby (with whom I was able to have a number of private conversations) and Howard Dean who spoke about the Busby/Bilbray CA50 voting machine "sleepovers" during that big Saturday night event. And probably more.

Need some time to get caught up over the next few hours, and hope to have comments here soon.

The hastily compiled media advisory, sent out in the hectic and heated hours before Saturday's Press Conference is below. Portions of it were, I'm told, carried by San Diego's Channel 9 and 10 --- one of them the local ABC affiliate --- including (I think) some one-on-one comments from yours truly. The local Air America Affiliate, KLSD 1360am also played portions of the conference on Sunday morning. Anyway...pardon my exhaustion, and my inability to communicate much at all until now, and stand by for more when I can get caught up a bit...somehow...

Wherein we see actual video footage of the elusive and legendary Freeway Blogger at work!

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Israel attacks. Lebanon burns (left).

Hezbollah attacks. Haifa burns (right).

On and on it goes.

If this goes on for long enough, people might begin to ask who stands to benefit from endless war.

Meanwhile...

A very disturbing report today from The Scotsman has the Lebanese Information Minister accusing Israel of "using internationally prohibited weapons against civilians".

Is this something the Lebanese Information Minister would say even if it weren't true?

Is this something Israel would do?

How can we ever know the truth about such claims?

Meanwhile...

"We feel the entire world has left us alone to be slaughtered," said Ali al-Amin ...

To me, stuff like this transcends politics. It's either enough to knock you down and make you weep in fury, regardless of the nationality of the source, or else you need a heart transplant. IMVHO.

It's too bad we don't get much coverage like this in the USA. But oh well. No big surprise there. It's not the first time our news media have let us down, and it won't be the last.

My thoughts on the matter run like this:

May God protect the peaceful people of the Middle East, peaceful people of all countries. And may He smite the warmongers with a terrible swift sword.

Can I get an "amen"?

Thank you. Now please consider this an open thread.

Filed by Brad Friedman from San Diego...

In a harshly worded statement, the DNC's Voting Rights Institute has issued a statement condemning the administration of the recent U.S. House race between Democrat Francine Busby and Republican Brian Bilbray, joining a growing national outcry in calling for "a swift and verifiable 'manual count' of all 150,000 ballots cast in California's 50th District's 'bellwether' June 6th special election."

"This is no longer about whether or not Busby or Bilbray won the election on June 6th," the just-issued statement reads. "This is about the importance of verifying the facts related to election and voting machine irregularities in this race and the need to ensure an accurate count of all votes cast in this election so that the electorate may have confidence in the announced results in future elections."

The long-awaited announcement of a position on the matter by the DNC comes at the end of more than a month of outrage from both national and state election integrity organizations, many of whom have declared "No Confidence" in the reported results of the race held to replace jailed Republican Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham. Bilbray declared himself the winner on election night, and was sworn into office several days later, before all votes had been counted, and nearly three weeks prior to the election being certified by either state or county officials.

Massive security breaches were reported the day after the election, in regard to the deployment of the county's Diebold optical-scan and touch-screen voting machines as directed by San Diego County Registrar of Voters, Mikel Haas. The progammed, election-ready voting machines, poll workers have informed The BRAD BLOG, were stored unsecurely in home garages and cars, which Haas has admitted to us would "not be considered secure" in an earlier interview. Due to the presumed-contamination of the extremely hackable voting systems used in the race --- as allowed via the lengthy, unsupervised "sleepovers" in the days and weeks prior to the election --- nobody, even the Registrar's office, has been able to prove the accuracy of the results as announced by Haas.

CNN's Lou Dobbs, CourtTV's Catherine Crier, Tribune Media's Robert Koehler and the far-right conservative Rush Limbaugh fill-in host, Bilbray supporter and San Diego radio personality Rodger Hedgecock have been amongst the mainstream media figures to report on the debacle, decrying the security breaches in the election.

Hedgecock recently excoriated the way in which the electronic voting machines were used in the election, exclaiming on-air: "We now have allowed a system of counting our votes to be presented to us as a system that does it accurately, when it has manifestly been proven that it can be monkeyed with…and the results tampered!"

Today's statement, posted by Greg Moore, Director of the DNC's Voting Rights Institute --- citing "election irregularities" and several points of "new and disturbing information" concerning the mis-administration of the election --- was issued this morning as DNC Chairman Howard Dean heads down to speak at DemocracyFest!, a grassroots activist gathering being held this weekend in San Diego.

'Very Deep Concerns' About Security and the Administration of the Election...

"Very deep concerns" are enumerated in the announcement, describing several of the problems found so far in the special election on which The BRAD BLOG has been reporting almost exclusively since June 6th, when we first revealed that the programmed, election-ready Diebold optical-scan and touch-screen voting systems used in the race were inappropriately sent home with poll workers before the election. The security breaches that occurred during those so-called "sleepovers" were in violation of new state and federal rules, laws and provisions issued in the last few months after recent discoveries confirmed dozens of extreme security flaws in the Diebold voting systems, confirming them to be exceptionally vulnerable to tampering.

Upon violation of the new federal and California state emergency security mitigation requirements, as issued in February and March of this year, the voting machines were effectively and immediately decertified and illegal for use in the election, according to provisions spelled out by both authorities.

The vulnerabilities in the particular Diebold systems used in the election, as referenced in the DNC statement, include: on the touch-screen systems, the ability to completely replace the election and operating system software, as well as the computer firmware in less than two minutes time with no password required or authentication by the system; on the optical-scan systems, the ability to hack the memory cards used to store vote tabulation which may result in a complete reversal of election results, as demonstrated by hackers during a mock-election test held at the end of last year in Leon County, Florida. Such a hack on the optical-scan systems could be accomplished without a trace being left behind, save for a manual count of the paper ballots used in the race.

Indeed, in the recent Iowa primary elections, held on the same day as the California CA-50 election, as many as nine Republican races had their results reversed after a manual hand count of optically-scanned ballots revealed that the original machine count had declared the actual winners to have been losers in their races. Only a hand count would have revealed the erroneous totals.

San Diego County Registrar Haas has stymied the effort by citizen election integrity advocates in San Diego to have the ballots in the Busby/Bilbray race counted by hand.

The election was the first federal race to have been run in the country since the new security mitigation requirements were mandated by the National Association of State Election Directors (NASED), the body tasked the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission as the federal voting machine certification body.

'A Single Person Can Reverse the Results of An Election'

Further underscoring the dangers of allowing unsupervised physical access to the systems is a landmark report released just weeks ago by NYU's Brennan Center for Justice, detailing more than 120 security threats to e-voting systems. That study, widely reported by mainstream media outlets, led to a recent Washington Post article headlined "Single Person Could Swing an Election." The Brennan Center study picked up, in turn, on another recent study by computer scientist Harri Hursti and Security Innovation in March, revealing vulnerabilities that have been described by several experts as a "major national security risk" and "the most severe security flaw ever discovered in a voting system." Those discoveries occurred during another landmark analysis of Diebold systems conducted by BlackBoxVoting.org in Emery County, Utah just two months prior to the election.

After the results of that examination were released, one of the leading computer scientists on the California Secretary of State's own voting systems technology advisory board, David Jefferson of Livermore National Laboratories, explained during an interview on the PBS News Hour : "You can affect multiple machines from a single attack. That's what makes it so dangerous." Jefferson was part of the team who advised the CA SoS on the new security mitigation requirements, which were then ignored by Registrar Haas' voting machine "sleepovers".

Demands for a Manual Hand Count Stymied by Registrar

Dozens of election integrity organizations, including California Election Protection Network, Progressive Democrats of America, Election Defense Alliance, the Commonweal Institute, VelvetRevolution.us and many others, along with several candidates and journalists have previously called for a hand count of the paper ballots and "paper trails" in the Busby/Bilbray race to ensure accuracy and accountability in the election.

A request to hand count the ballots was filed by CA-50 voter Barbara Gail Jacobson, but was eventually stonewalled by Haas, who refused to commit to the production of chain of custody documents for ballots and voting machines. Haas also set what appeared to be wholly arbitrary charges for the requested hand count, quoting three different estimates to three different inquiries. His final estimate, as given to the hand-count requester, was for as much as $150,000 to count the election. The price of nearly $1 per vote is in contrast to neighboring Orange County, CA who recently charged just .14 cents per vote to hand count an election. Haas has refused to offer any accounting or explanation for the exorbitant and prohibitive pricing.

A public record request from Jacobson for the results of the state mandated 1% manual audit of ballots has also not been supplied. As of this date, we are unaware of anyone having seen the results of that mandated audit.

The Fight for Accountability Continues...

As citizens organizing to fight for accountability in the race are collecting donations towards the effort at VelvetRevolution.us, they are weighing the legal options in consideration of the next step which will certainly be expensive.

After weeks of frustration, waiting for national organizations such as the DNC and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) to weigh in on the matter, the DNC's announcement will likely bring encouragement to the election integrity advocates (including The BRAD BLOG. The DCCC, we have learned from several sources, had advised Busby to stay away from discussion of electronic voting machine issues prior to the election, and has still failed to comment publicly on the matter.

This morning's statement by Greg Moore, Director of the DNC's Voting Rights Institute, is posted at the National Democratic Party website, and also posted below in full...