My article/review of HBO's Hacking Democracy (begins airing tomorrow, Thursday, Nov 2. @ 9pm) has now been posted over at ComputerWorld. I haven't read their final edit yet, as tech probs (yes, tech probs at ComputerWorld! And we're using these machines for voting?!) held up publication until just moments ago. But I trust it resembles something along the lines of what I orginally wrote for them. You can read my take on the landmark documentary in my ComputerWorld feature article now posted here...

As well, HBO has been kind enough to send us a trailer which, thanks to BRAD BLOG video-ace Alan Breslauer, is now online. EXCLUSIVE VIDEO PREVIEW posted right here...

And, just in case you missed it, see late last night's post on Diebold's pathetic (yet hilarious!) last-minute attempt to stop HBO from running this film. Catch that late-breaking news right here...

UPDATE: ComputerWorld has now posted a complete package on E-Voting issues compiled and edited by CW's Security Section editor, Angela Gunn. Tons of stuff available that I haven't even begun to comb through, but thought you might want to know about what appears to be an excellent new resource. It's all available from right here...

A lawsuit naming San Diego County Registrar of Voters Mikel Haas as defendant has been filed in the California Court of Appeals seeking to compel Haas --- whom we've previously described as one of the nation's worst Elections Administrators --- to follow the orders of the California Sec. of State and supply Paper Ballots to all voters who request one. Further, the suit demands that Haas actually count those ballots on Election Night, in accordance with the State order, rather than create an "unequal class of voters" by reporting only touch-screen voting results that night.

As The BRAD BLOG reported yesterday, Haas has announced that he plans to defy the SoS order to count such paper ballots as "normal ballots" by refusing to count them at all until the Thursday after the election. He has also instructed poll workers not to inform voters of their right to vote on paper if they so choose and, according to the lawsuit, has failed to ensure that an adequate supply of paper ballots will be available for voters who wish or need them.

As well, the lawsuit --- funded by the VelvetRevolution.us Election Protection Strike Force --- seeks in its third action a peremptory writ regarding the current "sleepovers" of Diebold electronic voting machines, now underway in San Diego where poll workers will have kept the pre-programmed, election-ready touch-screen systems in their homes and cars for a full three weeks prior to the November 7th election.

-- Download the full complaint here [PDF]...
(Link fixed! The complaint is very very good, btw, and charges, correctly in our opinion, that Haas has failed in and abused his role as Registrar of Voters.)

Carlsbad attorney Ken Simpkins's suit, filed on behalf of San Diego County voter Kathy Peterson, seeks appropriate security logs and precautions to be instituted, since Haas has failed to do so via his "sleepovers," which lack apppropriate security measures. A recent blog item at Velvet Revolution (VR) has described Haas as "apparently preferring plausible deniability of scattering the voting machines to innumerable volunteers" over actual accountability.

The "sleepovers" are also in violation of both state and federal laws and security requirements, effectively decertifying them for use before the election even begins. San Diegans should have no basis, at this time, for confidence in any results reported from San Diego's election on November 7th, due to Haas's failures.

Haas, in an article on the lawsuit in the North County Times, says that complying with the SoS order to count paper ballot votes as "normal ballots" would be impractical.

"We can't count these ballots on election night," he told the NC Times. "They will be counted during the canvas period, which allows us 28 days. We can't count two things at the same time. We'll have our hands full just uploading the results from the precincts where people will be voting on touch screens."

By refusing to count paper ballots on Election Night, "Mr. Haas risks skewing the early visibility of San Diego election results, which could impact public perceptions and lead to premature concessions by candidates," according to a statement by Ken Simpkins.

The NC Times quotes Haas as saying there is no reason for candidates to concede prematurely. "It isn't over until I certify the election, and that's usually around 28 days after an Election Day," he said. "What any candidate does within those days is their business."

Haas' claim that "it isn't over until I certify the election" is in direct contradiction to the facts on the ground, revealed by last June's U.S. House Special Election to replace disgraced Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham in San Diego. In that matter, a contest was filed after certification of the election, as per state law, but was thrown out by a San Diego judge who ruled the U.S. House, not the courts or voters of California, had jurisdiction over any election challenges or recounts once the "winner" in the race, Brian Bilbray, had been sworn in by the House just seven days after the election. At the time of the swearing-in --- a full two weeks prior to Haas's certification --- thousands of ballots remained wholly uncounted.

By law, no contest or recount could be filed until after Haas's certification. And yet, Superior Court Judge Judge Yuri Hoffman found the plaintiffs no longer had the right to challenge or recount the election results in any way.

Simpkins was one of the attorneys who filed the Busby/Bilbray lawsuit last summer along with attorney Paul Lehto. In that case --- as The BRAD BLOG originally broke on June 7th, followed with extensive special coverage thereafter --- Haas had also sent home both optical-scan and touch-screen voting systems made by Diebold on poll worker "sleepovers," despite new emergency security mitigation requirements made by both State and Federal oversight bodies after it had been discovered that Diebold voting systems contained a type of programming code making them particularly susceptible to tampering. That type of programming code, known as "interpeted code," is also in violation of both state and federal law.

During the June contest it was discovered that Haas's chain of custody security logs were virtually non-existent. The dismissal of that case is currently being appealed.

As we reported on Tuesday, the Democratic Sec. of State candidate, Debra Bowen, released a short video ad on her campaign website revealing the extraordinary dangers and, indeed, the serious national security threat presented by such "sleepovers."

A request has been made for an expedited decision from the court in the latest case due to the pending election. Hopefully decisions on these matters will be forthcoming.

Your help in fighting for accountability in such cases around the country is paramount. Please donate to the VR Strike Force effort so we can help hold the bad guys accountable and fight for clean elections! Our work is funded entirely by "we the people" so your support is crucial!

The VR Election Protection Strike Force website can be found at: http://VelvetRevolution.us/ElectionStrikeForce. Please pass that address around!

As well, the VR Strike Force is offering a $250,000 reward for tips concerning Election Fraud (details here, tip-line here: 888-VOTE-TIP)

The BRAD BLOG is a co-founder of VelvetRevolution.us. We hope to announce news concerning a special VR Strike Force Radio broadcast on Election Night, in conjunction with a number of other individuals and organizations. More details on that, hopefully, very soon...

I've written a feature article for ComputerWorld on HBO's upcoming Hacking Democracy, the superb documentary on the many insidious lies of Diebold scheduled for airing beginning Nov. 2nd. We posted a preview article on the film's release several weeks ago. That article should be posted in full Wednesday morning if the continuing delays are worked out (CW had said they'd hoped to publish it Monday).

In the meantime, Diebold seems to be embarrassing itself yet again by issuing a statement calling for HBO to pull the documentary, or at least run disclaimers before, after, and throughout the film. I've seen it. If I were them, I'd try to do everything I could to keep America from seeing the film, as well.

"Truth and accurate reporting are the biggest casualties of the film," Diebold Election System President David Byrd is quoted as saying in the media release.

But ironically, as The Hollywood Reporter is reporting tonight, Byrd has not only never seen the film, but his claims that the film is "Riddled With Errors and Slipshod Reporting" apparently refer to a completely different film!

Confusing a different film called VoterGate with the short film called VoterGate, which was an early version of the film now known as Hacking Democracy, Byrd writes a two page letter [PDF] to HBO refuting several points in the other film!

While Diebold's letter from Byrd claims that the film is "so egregious that HBO should pull the documentary," the letter itself is not only riddled with errors and slipshod reporting, it also makes a sad attempt at playing the partisan card, which Diebold has been trying to deny for years! Note this graf...

Never mind that the VoterGate Diebold refers to is the wrong VoterGate, but what the hell do either Susan Sarandon or The Streisand Foundation have to do with Diebold's claim that the film is inaccurate?

Not disingenuous enough for you? Byrd has more...

Of course, we know that Byrd never saw the Hursti Hack in Hacking Democracy (it hadn't occurred by the time either VoterGate film was released), the disingenuous claim that it "proved later to be a complete sham" is itself a complete sham:

Not only did the California Secretary of State's own technical advisory board at UC Berkley write that "Harri Hursti's attack does work" and that it was "definitely real" in their report [PDF] on the hack, but they also found "more serious vulnerabilities...that go well beyond what Mr. Hursti demonstrated, and yet require no more access to the voting system than he had. These vulnerabilities are consequences of bugs–16 in all."

We would later learn that the invitation to which Diebold refers, from the CA SoS "inviting" Hursti to try his hack out in California, was drafted by a Diebold employee and disinformation operative by the name of Rob Pelletier, and sent to Hursi on CA SoS stationery!

As revealed by this investigative report [PDF] released over the Summer by BlackBoxVoting.org (one of the film's main subjects) entitled "The Diebold Pursuasion Machine," it appears that Pelletier drafted the letter for CA SoS McPherson's office. The "invitation" would later come to be regarded as a "setup" using special Diebold machines and designed for Hursti to fail.

In the same report, it was revealed that Diebold employee Pelletier had been spreading disinformation under several phony names at various Internet sites, as well as here at BRAD BLOG as a commenter using the name "Wally O'Diebold."

As Barney Gimble wrote yesterday in a terrific piece on the history of Diebold in Fortune, about a "five-step plan guaranteed to make an obscure company absolutely notorious":

Hey Diebold: It's blowing up in your face. Stop blaming the critics. You're just making a continuous jackass out of yourselves. And, trust me, you've got far worse problems coming your way that you ought to be worrying about.

Click the photos for the video pitch of your choice. As someone mentioned recently to us (and we agree), the political novice vote-rigging whistleblower turned Congressional candidate (FL-24), Clint Curtis, has studied hard and well. He now comes off as downright "Clintonian" (in the good sense) in his presentation these days, as you'll note in the video below. His opponent, Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Abramoff), is the one Curtis alleges asked him to create vote-rigging software in 2000. Feeney claims Curtis is "not fit for public office." We'd suggest the short videos below prove otherwise...

The whistleblower...

The whistleblowee...

P.S. Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) currently has a quick feature article on Curtis at the top of their website. PDA has endorsed Curtis, as have the Daytona Beach News-Journal, Esquire Magazine, and others...

Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert comic strip, blogs today on Electronic Voting. Here's just one of the money quotes...

Democratic Secretary of State candidate, Debra Bowen has released a new video ad on her campaign website showing how easy it would be for hackers to break into a garage where pre-programmed, election-ready Diebold touch-screen systems are now being "stored securely" by poll workers around the state.

Such a break-in could allow them to easily manipulate a single Diebold touch-screen machine to implant a virus on it would could then pass itself from machine to machine, resulting in an entirely flipped election. Nobody would ever know.

We have long since been critical of CA Sec. of State Bruce McPherson's re-certification of Diebold voting systems after his own technical advisory board at UC Berkley had advised him the machines could be tampered with in dozens of ways.

His further lack of enforcement of security requirements for the use of the systems --- he has sat by and allowed them to be sent home for weeks ahead of the election with poll workers on so-called "sleepovers" --- is both an outrage and a violation of his own state requirements and federal law.

Yesterday, we detailed (with photographs) how San Diego County Registrar Mikel Haas has been handing thousands of such hackable voting machines to poll workers in his county since October 16th of this year. Those irresponsible "sleepovers" now allow those poll workers --- or anyone who may wish to access the machines in their garage --- a full 3 weeks prior to the election to find the 60 seconds needed to flip every race in San Diego County.

Bowen's Diebold "sleepover" break-in ad can be viewed at her campaign website. It's also posted in full below...

Reports now from yet another Texas county that votes are hopping from Democratic to Republican on paperless touch-screen ES&S systems during Early Voting. This time in Jefferson County...

Last night we reported similar problems as reported by a State Rep in San Antonio (Bexar County) on the same ES&S machines. As well, the problem was earlier reported occuring in Dallas.

Previous vote-hopping reports from other states (all benefitting Republicans) have so far come in from South Florida, St. Louis County, Missouri and Arkansas.

We've create a new Touch-Screen Vote Hopping category here so users can check all such reported incidents at a glance.

The drumbeat of reports from around the country of touch-screen voting machines failing during Early Voting continues to grow. These aren't "glitches." These are failures.

So far, the reports have all involved Democratic (or Green) votes flipping to, or otherwise benefitting, Republican candidates. In South Florida, St. Louis County, Missouri, Virginia, Arkansas, Dallas, and now San Antonio, Texas.

While I was guesting this evening on the Chris Duel show on KTSA News-Talk 550 AM, we received a call from Democratic State Rep. Jose Menendez, who reported several incidents that have come to the attenion of his office during Early Voting, which is already under way in San Antonio. The reports concern votes flipping and candidates not showing up on the summary screens of Bexar County's paperless ES&S touch-screen systems.

During the short interview (audio posted in full at end of this article) Menendez reported an incident involving a teacher in his district who noticed that one of the candidates wasn't showing up on the confirmation summary screen. I later learned off air that the missing candidate was Menendez.

Another incident involved a voter who voted for a straight party ticket only to have it flip to a straight party ticket vote for the other party.

Menendez didn't identify which parties were involved while on air. Since then, Duel followed up to let me know that the straight party ticket the voter intended to vote for was Democratic and it flipped to Republican.

Menendez said during the interview that he now plans to file legislation requiring a paper "trail" on all voting machines across the state of Texas where none are (incredibly) now required. As you'll hear, I made it clear that it's paper ballots that are needed, not uncountable and uncounted so-called paper "trails." For the moment, his efforts are unfortunately too little, too late to do anything for 2006. While he may not have realized the dangers to our democracy and national security until now, Bexar County Election Administrator Jacquelyn F. Callanen has no such excuse. She needs to be held directly accountable for her failure to provide an auditable voting system to her voters.

Callanen, however, seems to be selling Menendez and other concerned citizens the usual bill of goods, as most of the country's election directors are now doing in hopes of saving their jobs. I pointed out in no uncertain terms, hopefully, on air during the interview, that Callanen needs to be held accountable. Her office's number is: 210-335-VOTE, and their webpage is here. Here's the interview...

-- AUDIO: Brad on the Chris Duel Show with Rep. Mendendez, 10/30/06 [MP3, Appx 16 minutes]

UPDATE: Votes reported to be hopping from Democrat to Republican also now in Jefferson County, TX. Details here...

More than 10,000 pre-programmed election-ready Diebold touch-screen voting machines, to be used for the first time across the entirety of San Diego County this November 7th, are now in the cars, garages, homes, and hands of poll workers and lord knows who else across one of Southern California's largest voting regions.

As reported in several first-hand accounts from San Diego poll workers just after recent training sessions (see end of article for one of those first-hand accounts), the voting machines were sent home on so-called overnight "sleepovers" with temporary poll workers beginning on October 16th, allowing for a full three weeks prior to the election for poll workers to find the 60 seconds they might need to hack a single machine. One tampered machine could affect the results on every single voting machine, in every race in the county.

San Diego Registrar Mikel Haas --- easily one of the country's worst and most irresponsible election administrators --- is unconcerned. He's also instructing poll workers not to give out paper ballots despite a recent order from the California Secretary of State.

The ability to easily insert malicious viral code onto Diebold's touch-screen systems has been proven, and video-taped by Princeton University and others. A single person could hack an entire election, flipping votes undetectably, and no trace would be left behind after the election.

But it's not just tampering that should be of concern to the voters of San Diego. It's the fact that these particular systems are amongst the most unreliable in the country. They simply do not work.

Diebold touch-screen voting systems are innacurate. Their screens freeze. Their printers jam and fail to create reliable "paper trails" and frequently they simply fail to start up at all. All of which occurred during Primary Elections in states across the country earlier this year, resulting in thousands of legally registered voters being disenfranchised, or turned away without being able to cast a ballot.

Incredibly, Haas has ordered these systems to be used for the first time in this November's general election, without even a test run during the June 6th Primary & Special Election, when a blended system of both Diebold optical-scan (paper-based) and touch-screens was used.

The few touch-screen systems in place during the June election (one per polling location) went almost completely unused. And yet Haas has ordered them for use across the entire county this November, despite notorious failures by these same unreliable systems in states like Georgia and Maryland and --- perhaps most notably --- Cuyahoga County, OH, where the systems in first-time use failed monumentally during the Buckeye State's Primary Election.

USA TODAY wrote Friday about the aftermath of Cuyahoga's Primary Elections and the extraordinary measures now being taken to turn the county's temporary poll workers into rocket scientists able to trouble-shoot the many expected problems with the systems. After some 300+ recommendations were made by an independent audit of that particular train wreck, elections officials are scrambling and bracing for the worst.

Haas, however, has taken no such measures and, indeed, his poll worker training has reportedly consisted of instructing folks to sing the praises of electronic machines and avoid handing out paper ballots to voters despite the recently unearthed memo from the California Secretary of State's office instructing all Registrar's that all California voters may vote on paper if they wish.

An account of one such training class by Ken Simpkins, the Carlsbad attorney who filed an election contest to challenge the results of the Francine Busby/Brian Bilbray Special Election sleepover fiasco last June, reports that workers are being told not to give paper ballots to voters even if machines are unavailable when voters show up to vote.

"If the machines were not ready at the opening of the polls and voters were there," Simpkins writes about instructions given at a training class he attended, "voters should be asked to wait until the machines are ready." His full description of that and other stunning moments from Haas's training is at the end of this item.

In an accidental fit of reporting, the far-right San Diego Union Tribune yesterday asked Haas about the ongoing "sleepovers" in an article on concerns about the county's upcoming beta test election. As usual, his obnoxious answer was just another "fuck you" to the voters of San Diego:

Never mind that we've previously reported first-hand accounts from poll workers who took voting machines home with them during the June 6th election, where they admitted that family members, and any number of neighbors, may well have had easy access to the machines in the "secure storage space" known as their garage or their car. But Haas knows "where they live." So rest easy, San Diegans!

Also, never mind that such sleepovers are in violation of state and federal law. But, hey, it's San Diego! Mikel Haas territory! He makes the rules and can do whatever he wants!

Chaos is now raining down on the voters of Ohio. Anyone surprised?

With yet another court decision today restoring disenfranchising Photo ID requirements in the Buckeye State (after they had previously been disallowed via an earlier court injunction days ago), we're now barrelling towards yet another clusterfuck in Ohio, wherein the only winners will be those who don't want people to vote or to have their votes counted accurately or at all (namely Republicans.)

Columbus Dispatch covered the story here...

...Alhough, as usual, we prefer the coverage from our friends Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman at the Free Press: America's definitive news source for all the ugly election news on the ground from inside Ohio's former democracy. Their detailed report today starts this way...

A man from Centerville, Ohio, identifying himself as "Sock" Sokolowski has sent a death threat to radio host Stephanie Miller after her recent appearance on Fox "News'" Hannity & Colmes.

The BRAD BLOG has obtained a copy of Sokolowski's profanity-laced letter which includes a closing salutation claiming that he is "From the right 'Right'". The letter is posted, unredacted and in full at the end of this article.

On her popular Stephanie Miller Show this morning, the radio host telephoned "Sock" --- who included his address and phone number with the letter --- to confront him live and on air about the letter.

UPDATE:
-- You can now listen to this morning's phone call here [MP3].
-- The video of Miller's H&C appearance that began the whole "kerfuffle", as producer Chris Lavoie just described it to us, is here on Youtube. BTW, in this appearance Miller brilliantly says to Colmes: "It's called journalism, Fox News should try it sometime."

Despite numerous clear threats in the letter, Sokolowski --- who opens his missive by writing "As with Cindy Sheehan the best thing that could happen to you would be seeing some WONDERFUL activist sticking an AK-47 up your Glory Holes and sending you into eternity" --- claimed several times during the phone call that he didn't threaten Miller in the letter.

Writing that "I am a paci-fist [sic]", Sokolowski typed "this is not a threat". He then went on to write that he hopes and prays "that someone decides you're better off as statistics."

"Honestly," the letter continues, referring to both the radio host and Sheehan, who lost her son in the War on Iraq, "should I hear of either you leaving this earth prematurely I would initiate a personal celebration that would make Animal House appear to be just another quiet Sunday in church."

Promising to to mail copies of Miller's H&C appearance to "some WONDERFUL people," Sokolowski threatens that "we must identify this nation's enemies and though we keep friends close, we MUST keep our enemies even closer and you two vile bitches are just that."

Referring to both women as "mother fuckers," Sokolowski writes that he hopes for further exposure for both Miller and Sheehan on "TV shows...as GUARANTEED your words will someday possibly accelerate your demise."

He concludes the note by explaining that he "would love to celebrate and would for days on end as I would and will when still another America HATER meets his/her maker."

The Stephanie Miller Show has said that they will be posting now posted a profanity-free version of the letter in the Daily blog section of StephanieMiller.com. The BRAD BLOG, however, is happy to post the entire unredacted letter below, exclusively and in full. Only the phone number and address have been removed...

FURTHER UPDATE BEFORE THE LETTER 12:50pm PT: It looks like our man "Sock" is a rather prolific letter writer. Former CIA man Larry Johnson of NoQuarter has identified this man and posted another letter which "Sock" apparently sent to a local newspaper. Given the text of his letter to Miller, this passage from his railing for the importance of "conservatism" in America, strikes at our irony bone:

Moreover, KamaAina at DU has located another laugher of letter from "Sock" to the Dayton City Paper from last year, headlined "CONSERVATISM IS WINNING THE WAR". That commentary calls for, among other things, the ascendency of George "Makaka" Allen and Condi Rice as our next President and VP.

Here now, "Sock's" not at all "hate and venom" filled death threat to Stephanie Miller in full...

ED NOTE: BRING YOUR VIDEO AND STILL CAMS WITH YOU TO VOTE, ESPECIALLY ON TOUCH-SCREEN, TO DOCUMENT THIS STUFF!

The Miami Herald is reporting that votes on touch-screen voting systems in in South Florida are flipping from Democrat to Republican candidates.

Not a single report of a vote flipping from a Republican to a Democrat so far. As usual.

The Herald didn't mention it --- but we will --- the type of touch-screen voting machine reportedly failing in Broward was the ES&S iVotronic.

That's the same model of voting machine that was also reportedly flipping votes in St. Louis County from Democratic candidate Claire McCaskill to Republican Jim Talent in Missouri's extremely close U.S. Senate race as we reported late last week along with several similar incidents reported in both Texas and Arkansas as well.

Note in the Herald report linked above, the Broward Supervisor of Elections spokeswoman also admits that "it's not uncommon for screens on heavily used machines to slip out of sync, making votes register incorrectly. Poll workers are trained to recalibrate them on the spot --- essentially, to realign the video screen with the electronics inside. The 15-step process is outlined in the poll-workers manual."

A "15-step process" for recalibrating by poll workers with a few hours training? Brilliant.

And this...

Relax, people. It's only democracy. Do you actually want it to be accurate too?! George Will's column on Sunday, --- which either supports electronic voting or doesn't, it's hard to tell --- seems to think you're probably asking way too much.

UPDATE 2:40pm PT: And more reports coming in now from Florida of votes hopping from Democratic candidates to Republicans. This one via Tampa Bay Tribune...

...With a huge nod to Tom Tomorrow who presented a similar toon a full three years ago...well before many of us even understood how scary these things are...

(Hat-tip to BRAD BLOG emailer Melisa U.)

"The equipment has been tested by independent agencies and federal agencies," Diebold's Chief Disinformation Officer, Mark Radke lied to Diane Sawyer in a recent Good Morning America interview on ABC.

Sadly, the only ones there to counter Radke's knowing and misleading disinformation was a computer scientist from Princeton, and a Republican governor. Not a Democrat in sight.

The National Democratic Party, to their eternal shame, has remained virtually silent about the grave national security threat --- as it has been described by almost every computer scientist and security expert with whom the The BRAD BLOG has discussed the matter --- which our country now faces vis a vis the nationwide use of inaccurate, uncountable, unaccountable, hackable and, yes, untested electronic voting systems.

To be crystal clear, Radke was simply lying in his statement to Sawyer. He knows damned well that not a single independent body --- nobody, none, zero...no computer scientist, security expert or federal, state or local election official or organization --- is allowed to test Diebold's voting systems in full and release their findings publicly. The same is true for the systems of every other voting machine company in America.

The only federal testing of these systems is done by the so-called "Independent Testing Authority" (ITA), a consortium of three private corporations chosen and paid for by the voting machine companies themselves. The ITAs test only what their client Voting Machine Companies tell them to test. They do so in secret and without releasing the results of their limited testing publicly.

Lou Dobbs Tonight filed a very good report on the ITA scam the other day. The video and transcript are here.

ABC's online coverage of the interview goes on to report that "Approximately 40 percent of Americans will use these machines to vote in November."

That is wrong. Well over 80% of American voters will use such machines this November. ABC should know better by now.

Most disturbingly, the DNC has said and done literally nothing about the problem, and has let it fall to the Republican governor of Maryland, Robert Ehrlich, to speak about the issue nationally.

Says Ehrlich about the need to scrap these dangerous systems at the end of ABC's report:

Ehrlich is 100% correct. As we reported last August after we were invited to address state party chairs and the DNC's national attorneys at their Summer convention, the national Democratic party continues to whistle past democracy's graveyard. As far as we can tell, not a thing has changed since then.

In the meantime, as we've reported previously, the Republicans are positioning themselves to be able to scream Democratic fraud via electronic voting machines along with their even more disingenuous claims of "voter fraud." Here's a blog item posted today by some wingnut who quotes a couple of our reports from months ago as "proof" that Democrats are preparing to flip votes via Sequoia Voting System electronic machines. The blogger's supposed basis for the report is the claim that Sequoia was purchased by a consortium tied to Venezuala's Hugo Chavez.

You'll also note the anonymous blogger linked the above points only to problems reported on Sequoia systems, ignoring the mountain of reports that voting systems made by Republican-based companies such as Diebold, ES&S and Hart Intercivic are equally, if not more, unfunctional, inaccurate and vulnerable to tampering and fraud.

We don't see the Dems waking up any time soon, as they have failed so far to challenge any of the outrages already plaguing the system during early voting --- from illegally truncated screen displays, to touch-screen votes flipping from one candidate to another, to illegal voting machine "sleepovers" with poll workers as are now occuring in California, Ohio, Florida, and elsewhere. By the time Election Day rolls around, poll workers in San Diego County, for example, will have had more than three weeks to have found the 60 seconds they would need to game a single pre-programmed, election-ready Diebold voting machine --- that they've been allowed to keep in their houses since SD County Registrar of Voters Mikel Haas has been handing them out like candy since October 16th. (NOTE: We'll have much more on that tomorrow.)

The Democrats, so far, have failed to do a damned thing about any of it, choosing instead to close their eyes, cross their fingers, and hope for the best. Good luck.