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Troubling Evidence is Beginning to Mount!
By Brad Friedman on 11/5/2004 5:38pm PT  

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!:

Three congressmen sent a letter to the General Accounting Office on Friday requesting an investigation into irregularities with voting machines used in Tuesday's elections.

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.

Click for complete story...

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!)

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By Brad Friedman on 11/5/2004 3:13pm PT  

In a different North Carolina incident to the one we've already report where some 4500 votes were lost for good from a single NC E-Voting machine, The Sun-Journal is now reporting additional North Carolina E-vote errors:

A systems software glitch in Craven County's electronic voting equipment is being blamed for a vote miscount that, when corrected, changed the outcome of at least one race in Tuesday's election.

Then, in the rush to make right the miscalculation that swelled the number of votes for president here by 11,283 more votes than the total number cast, a human mistake further delayed accurate totals for the 40,534 who voted.
...
An override, like those occurring when one attempts to save a computer file that already exists, is supposed to prevent double counting, but did not function correctly, [Craven County Elections Director, Tiffiney] Miller said.

This machine in question, by the way, was also an ES&S machine.

The story also notes that "a national Republican political consultant who had watched the returns and had some concern that other precincts were involved in the problem entered the office." --- Hello? Are there "national Democratic political consultants" out there who are watching this stuff as well?!

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By Brad Friedman on 11/5/2004 2:13pm PT  

Thanks to all who have sent tips and links. I am looking into all of them even if I can't always reply!

Thanks also to those who have hit the "Support the BRAD BLOG" button in the last day or two! Your donations --- big or small, and if using credit card, no PayPal account is necessary! --- are helping a great deal to allow me to devote much more time on this than (clearly) I thought I would have to after Election Day!

So thanks for the tips, info and support! I hope to put together an "Executive Summary" of the major items here shortly! And possibly some "Action Items" to move forward! In the meantime, PLEASE let folks know about what is going on! More soon...

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By Brad Friedman on 11/5/2004 12:56pm PT  

Miami Herald now reporting that 70,000 votes were "discovered" last night in Broward County, FL for a gambling initiative that reversed the previously announced outcome. [emphasis mine, and mostly notable to those who have been following along with previously reported items]:

Broward County corrected a computer glitch Thursday that had miscounted thousands of absentee votes, instantly turning a slot-machine measure from loser to winner and reinforcing concerns about the accuracy of electronic election returns.

The bug, discovered two years ago but never fixed, began subtracting votes after the absentee tally hit 32,500 --- a ceiling put in place by the software makers.
...
The problem was quickly traced to software in what is known as the central tabulation machine, a computer that collects data from optical scanners that read the individual mail-in ballots.
...
County officials blamed Election Systems & Software, the company that sold the machines and counting software to Broward.

County officials say they think ES&S failed to follow through on a problem that was brought to their attention two years ago, during the 2002 general election.

ES&S spokeswoman Becky Vollmer said the glitch --- which limits the number of votes that can be counted in each precinct to safeguard against ballot stuffing --- will be fixed in software updates they are submitting to the Division of Elections next year.
...
Alia Faraj, [FL Secretary of State, Glenda] Hood's spokeswoman, said ES&S had not previously submitted any information about the counting cap in its tabulation software, which is supposed to be certified by the Secretary of State's Office.
...
The tabulation software was set to reverse the vote count at 32,500. It was triggered when Broward counted all 97,535 absentee ballots in one mega-precinct Tuesday night and early Wednesday.

Hello? Connect. The. Dots.

(For more on the Optical Scan oddities in Florida, and info on who ES&S is, see this previous item.)

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What a Difference a Day Makes.
By Brad Friedman on 11/5/2004 11:53am PT  

I'm happy to report that folks are starting to catch on to all of this. Hunter over at DailyKos gives a very sober and detailed analysis of where things are at this point in regards to both counting votes and the serious potential fraud being looked at, much of it that we've reported over the last two days here in various items.

Lots of good and new information in that piece is offered as well. Including this little "anomaly" discovered in the released Franklin County, OH voting results in PDF format:

Franklin County, OH: Gahanna 1-B Precinct
638 TOTAL BALLOTS CAST

US Senator:
Fingerhut (D) - 167 votes
Voinovich (R) - 300 votes

US President:
Kerry (D) - 260 votes
Bush (R) - 4,258 votes

AP has now picked up that story, and some of the others I'd been telling you about over the last couple of days. But perhaps even more notably, Drudge(!) is also now pointing to that article!...So I guess it's now officially "news"!...DEVELOPING HARD...

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By Brad Friedman on 11/5/2004 11:40am PT  


STEPHEN COLBERT: Eleven states approved anti-Gay Marriage ballot initiatives yesterday. Clearly our deep national fear of hot man on man monogamy...drove turnout among the nation's so called "value voters". And here's what's interesting...these voters see the connection between terrorism and what I'll call...homo-ism.
...
JON STEWART: If those are the two major issues concerning voters --- and again, uh --- why would New York City --- which really has the most significant gay population in the country...and has already had the most significant terror attack in the country...vote overwhelmingly for Kerry?

STEPHEN COLBERT: Well, here's the thing, John. We in New York are too close to the terrorism and the gay people. Only the red states, with the advantage of a safe distance, can take in the whole picture...and clearly see what we should do about those issues...And so, on behalf of everyone living in the blue states, I'd like to thank the red states...for saving us...from ourselves. John?

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Massive 'Freedom of Information Act' Filing Now Under Way!
Pay Attention!
By Brad Friedman on 11/4/2004 9:19pm PT  

Connecting the dots... Investigative reporter, Bev Harris, has been reporting on the various concerns related to electronic voting for some time via her site BlackBoxVoting.org She released a book within the last year on the topic, and likely has compiled more evidence on the matter than anyone else in the world.

After studying the audit logs from one Washington state county's voting machines (audit logs obtained through a "Freedom of Information Act" petition) they discovered 3 hours of deleted data on the logs from the primary election there just six weeks ago.

Today they posted this:

THURSDAY Nov. 4 2004: If you are concerned about what happened Tuesday, Nov. 2, you have found a home with our organization. Help America Audit.

Black Box Voting has taken the position that fraud took place in the 2004 election through electronic voting machines. We base this on hard evidence, documents obtained in public records requests, inside information, and other data indicative of manipulation of electronic voting systems. What we do not know is the specific scope of the fraud. We are working now to compile the proof, based not on soft evidence --- red flags, exit polls --- but core documents obtained by Black Box Voting in the most massive Freedom of Information action in history.

We need: Lawyers to enforce public records laws. Some counties have already notified us that they plan to stonewall by delaying delivery of the records. We need citizen volunteers for a number of specific actions. We need computer security professionals willing to GO PUBLIC with formal opinions on the evidence we provide, whether or not it involves DMCA complications. We need funds to pay for copies of the evidence.

Visit the site for more details on how you can help...

Other ways you can help: 1) Send the link to this story and/or this blog and/or as many of the previous items I've reported on (scroll down!) to as many folks as you can! 2) If you find something you think I should look at, feel free to post here in comments or email me with a link (please pardon if I can't respond immediately, I assure you I'm looking at it).

The Mainstream Media has largely taken their lead from the Bush Administration and the Rightwing media to follow the "Great Bush Mandate" storyline despite the numbers --- at best --- just not adding up, and even if accepted at face value, they represent the slimmest margin for a sitting President since Woodrow Wilson in 1916!

I understand full well that "conventional wisdom" is already beginning to harden that Bush "won" this race, and I'm sorry to continue to offer troubling information to those of you who would have liked a clean result this time around. If that's where my investigation leads, I will tell you that. But as of now, every street I turn down seems to display more and more that something is rotten in the state of Diebold/ES&S. Pay. Attention.

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By Brad Friedman on 11/4/2004 5:37pm PT  

Though Ohio got all the Florida-like attention this year from the mainstream media (who can't seem to focus on more than one thing at time, and at that, for only mere seconds) back in Florida --- where nobody is looking, and yes the results were close though less so than in 2000 --- something also doesn't add up.

Kathy Dopp has been crunching hard election result numbers and a strange --- yet very clear pattern --- is emerging.

Using the very rough gauge of comparing Republican and Democrat registrations county by county to the actual final voting results, she finds that the percentage change of "Expected Votes" versus "Actual Results" are fairly consistent in counties that used E-Voting machines.

But in counties that used Optical Scan Voting the "Expected Votes" versus "Actual Results" are wildly discordant to say the least.

For example, look at just one sample from Baker County, FL...

Registered Voters
REP: 24.3% DEM: 69.3%

Actual Votes
REP: 7,738 DEM: 2,180

Change from Expected Results
REP: 220.4% DEM: -68.4%

That's a sample from just one county, but the majority of counties that used Opti-scan systems, particularly those systems made by "Election Systems and Software (ES&S)" show the same wildly discordant pattern.

Such a disparity between Actual Results and Expected Results (based on voter registration) could well be explained if the voter turnout was simply far and away in favor of Bush in Florida due to any number of factors. But why then do virtually none of the Electronic Voting counties in Florida show anything like those kind of disparities in the Expected versus Actual Results?

She's been updating her data throughout the day, adding info as it's made available by the state of Florida.

(Thanks reader Teri K. for the tip)

UPDATE: ES&S, together with Diebold Election Systems, are responsible for tallying some 80% of votes in the U.S. The CEO of Diebold Election Systems is also the founder of ES&S according to this interesting report from July 2003. It's also an interesting report because it seems to describe yesterday's results "to a T" in many ways...More on that soon...

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By Brad Friedman on 11/4/2004 4:32pm PT  

If the mainstream media is reporting their data from Exit Polling as being accurate in regards to who voted on Election Day (for example: "Christian Conservative" voters showing up in increased numbers) why was the information from those same polls concerning who people were voting for so wildly different from the reported Final Results?

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By Brad Friedman on 11/4/2004 2:16pm PT  

From an email yesterday from Jaime:

PS. if Kevin Bacon can change the attitudes of theo-conservatism with his positive disposition and upbeat dance moves...so can we.
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Pay Attention...Or Not.
By Brad Friedman on 11/4/2004 2:02pm PT  

I'm sorry if there are some of you who would rather "move on". I'll err on the side of accurately counting "the will of the people in a Democracy". If, like so many of the wingnuts out there, you'd rather not examine such matters accurately (and I can hardly blame the wingnuts), you are welcome to read other blogs more likely to repeat to you what you wish to hear.

To that end, there are continuing questions about the results in Ohio, New Mexico, and yes - Florida. Since Democracy demands both vigilance and an accurate reflection of the will of the people, I will do my best to stay on top of these matters as so many of your Emails have requested of me. I hope to have more information for you about those states later today.

In the meantime, here's a report just released by AP concerning at least 4,500 votes that Election Officials admit were lost in North Carolina in just one county due to inaccurate information provided by the makers of the E-Voting machine in use there:

Local officials said UniLect Corp., the maker of the county's electronic voting system, told them that each storage unit could handle 10,500 votes, but the limit was actually 3,005 votes.

Expecting the greater capacity, the county used only one unit during the early voting period. "If we had known, we would have had the units to handle the votes," said Sue Verdon, secretary of the county election board.

Officials said 3,005 early votes were stored, but 4,530 were lost.

[UPDATE]: The link to the AP story is now dead. Here's another one with the same info.

That was just one county in North Carolina. Pay attention...

UPDATE: More problems with UniLect machines now reported! This time in Ohio where they used thousands of UniLect machines:

"I don't know what happened," said James Bennington, who had been assured Friday that all 250 of the county's touch-screen units had been checked and rechecked. The county has 100 voting precincts.

Keith Jenkins, director of the county's computer department, agreed that it was a software malfunction and said repeated calls to UniLect Corp., the company that sold the machines to the county in 2001, failed to resolve the problem.

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The One President-Elect Bush Won't be Viewing.
By Brad Friedman on 11/4/2004 1:28pm PT  

What America actually looks like in regards to this election. States sized proportionally to their population...

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By Brad Friedman on 11/4/2004 12:20pm PT  


JON STEWART: Ed, the election is over, what's happening there in Washington today?...What's the focus?

ED HELMS: Well, John...The president is focusing on his agenda for the next four years. 1) Finishing the war in Iraq. 2) Starting the war in three other places...TBD, of course. 3) The Supreme Court has got some vacancies to fill...The constitution still has a few loose ends that need tightening...And, I'm not going to say "prayer will be mandatory"...but, let's just say thine loom and churn best be still on the sabbath, goodman.

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By Brad Friedman on 11/4/2004 12:12pm PT  

From President-Elect Bush's press conference today:

"Let me put it to you this way: I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style. That's what happened in the --- after the 2000 election."

Any questions?

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The Bush Legacy: 1124 and Counting...
A Photographic Tribute
By Brad Friedman on 11/3/2004 5:59pm PT  

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