Last night, Tuesday, Kitty Pilgrim stood in for Lou Dobbs for "Democracy At Risk" on CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight.

Tonight's report (text transcript at bottom of this article) featured a discussion of the reliability of the voting machines used across the United States. Featured in tonights segment were John Washburn of VoteTrustUSA.Org, New York Congressman Jerrold Nadler, and EAC Commissioner Paul DeGregorio.

DeGregorio had this to say about the reliability standards:

We believe that it is very important that these guidelines and any kind of standards be improved all the time, and we're working on spending federal money to do that because we want voters to have trust and confidence in the voting process in America.

Even though the standards have not been changed since the 2002 standards went into affect and they have not been changed as of yet in the proposed standards that were signed into existence by the Elections Assistance Commission. There is no trust and confidence when elections officials can't even get their facts straight.

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The complete text transcript follows…

On Monday night, Lou Dobbs and his correspondent, Kitty Pilgrim, again did a segment on "Democracy At Risk" on CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight.

Tonight's report (text transcript at bottom of this article) featured a discussion of the certification standards used (or, more accurately, not used) for the certification of voting machines by the US Government. Featured in tonight's segment were Michael Waldman of the Brennan Center For Justice, John Washburn of VoteTrustUSA, and Rev. DeForest Soaries who resigned from his post as the first chairman of the federal Election Assistance Commission (EAC).

Soaries was also recently interviewed by Rolling Stone's Tim Dickinson.

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The complete text transcript follows...

Guest Blogged by David Edwards

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Brad appeared on this evening's edition of CNN Lou Dobbs Tonight. He explained some of the dangers of having wireless connections built-in to e-voting machines.

UPDATE FROM BRAD: Thanks for getting this up quickly, David! Was a quick piece tonight (made it back from a frantic trip back from San Diego just two minutes after my appointed time), but I'm pleased to be in the good company of Avi Rubin and Rep. Rush Holt in the Lou Dobbs report. I'm told they'll be using more of me tomorrow. We'll see. Ironically, I live about 3 blocks from the CNN building in Los Angeles and they've never called me in before...until I was several hours away in San Diego. No rest for the weary.

Full text transcript follows...

Blogged from San Diego...

...But about to rush back to Los Angeles to get to the CNN building for an interview with the Lou Dobbs folks. If I can get there in time!

I should be on tonight's Lou Dobbs Tonight tonight at 6pm ET (3pm PT) and perhaps tomorrow night's show as well. Or so I'm told.

Had hoped to catch up a bit here about the Busby/Bilbray events last night and Tuesday, but it looks like that's going to have to wait again in order for me to race back up north to get to the interview on time...yeesh...

Will also be on Mike Malloy's national Air America program tonight as Guest Hosted by Laura Flanders. We were last on air with Laura when she came down to Crawford, TX to simulcast with us on The BRAD SHOW from Camp Casey last summer.

Apologies to those of you waiting for email responses and other interesting blog items here. Looks like I'll have to be off the grid again for a bunch of hours in a row...So Open Thread here as ya like!

UPDATE: Tonight's Dobbs clip, with a brief, yet starkly vital, cameo from yours truly, now posted here courtesy of the mighty David Edwards.

Blogged by Brad from San Diego...

Just in from tonight's Busby/Bilbray Democracy Shindig in Oceanside. A great event with a lively turnout (including our old buddy Jim Lampley in da house.) As promised after last night's LA event, more as soon as I can catch my breath.

Until then, here's last night's Lou Dobbs, which I think was terrific. Be sure to watch it (or read it, transcript below the fold) until the end. Lou is gettin' angrier by the day...

I posted the results of the "Quick Poll" this morning before leaving Los Angeles. In case you missed it, the question was "Do you believe that e-voting machines should be disallowed until their integrity can be assured?" The results... YES: 97%, NO 3%.

Could America finally be coming to its senses?

Too exhausted to comment on this tonight with much detail, so please be my guest and "be the blog" for us here in comments. I will point out, however, that it's nice to see folks finally discussing the threat of Palm Pilots and other PDA's (personal digital assistants, as opposed to Progressive Democrats of America) and their wireless capacity posing a threat to these stupid systems as well. Kitty Pilgrim broaches the topic in this report from Tuesday which covered the release that day of the new NYU Brennan Center report on E-Voting security. We orginally discussed the alarming possibility of a voter with a PDA when we ran an exposé on the wireless Infrared (IrDA) port we photographed on one of the older paperless Diebold touch-screen systems.

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The complete text transcript follows...

Must hit the road shortly to take the Democracy Train down to San Diego for tonight's Emergency Townhall on the Busby/Bilbray election results fiasco. If you're anywhere near San Diego or Oceanside please come out tonight! We had a great time last night in Los Angeles!

More on all of these as soon as I can catch my breath. The fine lower-cased blogger, skippy the bush kangaroo, was amongst those in attendance last night (as was Joseph Cannon of Cannonfire) and so I'll defer for the moment to skippy's coverage (since I don't have time for any of my own right). Skippy got a coupla small points slighly wrong, but I suspect he'll update since I let him know. As BRAD BLOG readers realize, unlike with AP and NY Times accuracy counts for bloggers.

Lou Dobbs report last night on the Brennan Center's year-in-the-making report on 120 threats to E-Voting Security was fan-damn-tastic. When I can catch my breath, I hope to get it, along with the video, posted in full. And more thoughts on that Brennan Center report. But for now, by way of teaser, Dobbs started it this way: "More evidence tonight that an increasing number of elections in this country can be outright stolen. And no one would ever know. It's incredible."

And, as of this hour, here are the results from his "Quick Poll" on this topic last night (you can still vote yourselves if you want)

Any questions? We're told he'll still be on the same beat tonight (6pm ET, 3pm PT --- you can send thank you notes/comments here to Dobbs for all of his very responsible coverage over the past three weeks and counting!)

Last, but most certainly not least, Washington Post covered the Brennan Center report themselves this morning. They highlighted the very message we've been trying to convey to Francine Busby, the voters in San Diego and across the nation over the last three weeks. The WaPo article begins this way...

See you tonight in San Diego!

Earlier this evening, I heard Mark Crispin Miller as the guest on Air America's Majority Report discussing the Busby/Bilbray election fiasco with whoever was guest hosting tonight (sorry I missed the name.) As well, I'm told that Lara Flanders covered the issue on Air America as well tonight while guest hosting for Mike Malloy (I believe both Mimi Kennedy and Jeeni Criscenzo were her guests.)

But the largest media outlet to cover the story that we originally broke back on June 7th --- and who still failed to invite me as a guest...am I hard to reach? --- was Lou Dobbs on CNN.

Tonight, Dobbs covered the threat to democracy posed by the Voting Machine Sleepovers that we've been reporting on here since the Busby/Bilbray election was run on highly-hackable Diebold voting machines which were sent home overnight with poll workers for days and weeks prior to the election in contravention of both state and federal rules and laws.

One of our sources, San Diego Poll Worker Patti Newton, who we had helped CNN's producers get in touch with, is interviewed in tonight's report. Newton shows, on camera, the location of the "secure storage" she provided (her garage, near the paints) for the voting machines given to her for use in the "bellweather" Busby/Bilbray U.S. House Special Election a full week prior to the Election Day on June 6th. We originally posted some of Patti's story in our report back on June 8th.

Tonight Dobbs and reporter Kitty Pilgrim discussed "the threat to American democracy from within," the lack of security for e-voting machines and described them as "incredibly vulnerable to fraud, tampering, hacking and theft."

Here's a QuickTime video of Dobbs' report, courtesy of BRAD BLOG reader, Tab B. UPDATE: Here are faster streaming versions of the video courtesy of David Edwards...

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The full text transcript from Dobbs' report tonight follows below. It's short! Please read it!...

With special thanks to David Edwards for the Video Magic...

Lou Dobbs has now done at least eight reports over the last two weeks on the grave danger to American democracy as posed by Electronic Voting. We've had a tough time keeping up with them all.

We've yet to hear anybody so far refer to Dobbs as a "Lefty" or a "Moonbat" or a "Conspiracy Theorist" or a "Sore Loser" or suggest that he wears a "tinfoil hat". Just a coincidence, we guess.

Here's two of his reports that we've only gotten to post finally today. One is on un-recountable paperless elections and the other focuses on Democrat Cathy Cox (Georgia's SoS and Diebold champion) and her extreme conflict of interest in running her own unverifiable election now that she's the Gubernatorial nominee. Will Dobbs be running a similar report on Ohio's J. Kenneth Blackwell's similar conflict of interest? We'll hope so.

Please note: It seems Diebold is no longer returning Lou's calls for comments. Go figure.

06/13: Lou Dobbs - "Electronic Voting Machines Nullify Recounts"

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06/20: Lou Dobbs - "Quite a little industry. E-Voting."

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Text transcripts from both reports follow...
(See previously posted Dobbs reports here.)

Yesterday, Lou Dobbs did his 6th straight report on the dangers of E-Voting. Today he did his 7th report in a row, we hope to have that for you tomorrow.

In yesterday's report, Dobbs introduced it by describing the "rising doubts" about Electronic Voting Machines and said those doubts "about their accuracy and integrity threaten to undermine confidence in our democracy." Right on, Lou.

The report even quotes from last year's landmark GAO report on Electronic Voting, broken here last October, and unreported by CNN (or virtually anyone else in the media) at all until yesterday! (See the graphic at upper right)

Attorney Lowell Finley of VoterAction.org, the non-partisan group filing lawsuits to stop these systems around the country, is quoted as saying, "The real danger with electronic voting is with insider fraud, who just need a few minutes of access to a voting machine or to a tabulating computer and they can wreak havoc."

Dobbs closed the segment yesterday, incredulously, with this:

We'll have a report on one of those "people defending results," Michael Haas, the Registrar of Voters in San Diego County, where the results of the 50th Congressional district U.S. House race have been corrupted by his cavalier lack of concern about the security of Diebold voting systems used in the race. He seems to have no concerns, as Finley mentioned, about "insider fraud," or of the concept that "a few minutes of access to a voting machine...can wreak havoc." More on that tomorrow.

The video of Dobbs' 6th report in a row (compliments of David Edwards, natch) is linked below:

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The complete text-transcript of yesterday's report follows...

It appears that Election Integrity advocates have a staunch new ally in their fight for clean, legitimate elections in the United States of America. And he's hardly a "lefty," a "conspiracy theorist" or a "sour grapes" guy.

Conservative CNN anchor Lou Dobbs hammered on Electronic Voting machines and the company's that own them for the third straight day yesterday on his show, Lou Dobbs Tonight.

Yesterday, his report led off with these clear words: "The security of our elections and the integrity of our democracy is in jeopardy."

While Dobb's initial focus for his reports concerns the foreign ownership of the Sequoia Voting Systems company (recently purchased by Smartmatic, a Venezuelan firm said to be tied to Hugo Chavez), his reports, and the guests he's interviewed, also focus on the broader aspect of private ownership of all the voting machine company's running our public elections, as well as the security vulnerabilities of the hackable and unreliable electronic machines.

We're working on getting the video up (the video and transcript from the report the day before is here), but in the meantime, here's the transcript from last night's installment which featured Warren Stewart from VoteTrustUSA.org and computer security expert Avi Rubin of Johns Hopkins University...

This was buried in the earlier piece concerning Lou Dobb's coverage of Electronic Voting in which his report alleges that these machines and the private company's that now control our vote are a "threat to democracy". But the later CNN segment with Jack Cafferty deserves to be front and center.

Said Cafferty yesterday (complete must-read transcript of the segment is below!):

THANK GOD someone in the MSM finally gets it! Lord knows Wolf doesn't! See the full transcript below for answers from emailers to Cafferty's question-of-the-day yesterday: "Do you trust the honesty of America's election process?"

Regular BRAD BLOG readers won't be surprised at the answers sent in. Only that CNN actually read them on air! (Thank you, Jack Cafferty!)

...CONTACT...
Email: caffertyfile@CNN.com
Or go to CNN.com/caffertyfile

Guest Blogged by John Gideon

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Yesterday on the Lou Dobb's Show on CNN, Lou's crack reporter, Kitty Pilgrim did the second of a two-part (with more to come we hope) report on the ownership of Sequoia Voting by a foreign conglomerate that is directly owned by Venezuelan nationals with direct ties to the Hugo Chavez regime.

It was fun to see Lou all blustery and nearly spitting as he decried the fact that the US government had allowed a foreign owned company to buy a company that supplies voting machines to states and counties.

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ADDITIONAL THOUGHT FROM BRAD: It should also be pointed out here, when the questions/concerns about Sequoia's ownership are raised, that it's no different from the "local" privatized ownership of all of the other companies, such as Diebold, ES&S, etc. They are equally, if not more, partisan and their privatized (and secretized) ownership of our public elections should be of equal concern to Lou Dobbs, and all other, mostly rightwingers, who are suddenly concerned about the ownership of Sequoia!
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A transcript of the show follows but a lot is missed if you cannot watch the video above.

Also Jack Cafferty asked about the honesty of the election process in his "Cafferty Files" segment on CNN's "Situation Room".

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UPDATE: Tonight on Lou Dobbs - Warren Stewart, Legislative Director from VoteTrustUSA and a poll worker in the Bay Area in CA. and Avi Rubin, Computer Scientist and possibly a poll worker again this year in Maryland.
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Text transcripts from both of yesterday's segments follow?

Guest blogged by David Edwards of Veredictum.com

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Wolf Blitzer hosted a "debate"/ambush on CNN's Situation Room between Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former Bush/Cheney '04 spokesman, Terry Holt. In his Rolling Stone article Kennedy shows that Republicans prevented 350,000 voters from voting or having their votes counted.

Blitzer allowed a more civil discussion than did Tucker Carlson in another recent interview with Kennedy. CNN must have decided that an interview with Kennedy --- which would be entirely warranted --- would have appeared partisan. Republicans don't need someone who is uniquely qualified to defend their illegal electioneering in Ohio. Terry Holt can parrot the same tired GOP lies talking points and unsubstantiated, evidence-free charges as well as any talking head.

Holt said he would turn Kennedy's charges of Republic election rigging "on it's head". His first line of defense was that "an exhaustive bipartisan study of all 88 counties in Ohio was conducted after the election and Republicans and Democrats... have agreed that there was no significant or insignificant fraud." Kennedy is quick with a strong response, saying that, "there has no been no bipartisan commission... It's simply wrong to say that."

Holt wasted no time in blaming the voter. The true threat to America's democracy are the statistically insignificant fake voter registrations. Especially dangerous are those voters that attempt to "stuff the ballot box" registering with fake names like "Mickey Mouse" and "Michael Jordan". Holt's second talking point is a favorite in the Republican's long term strategy to restrict voting rights. They use this argument for everything from establishing voter Ids to purging Democrat voters from the rolls.

Robert Kennedy found his voice and easily defeated Holt's weak attempt to divert attention from the real issues. A few "Mickey Mouse" registrations hardly compare to the fact that Republicans stole the 2004 Presidential election by subverting the will of 350,000 voters in Ohio.

UPDATE FROM BRAD: Allow me to add to David's analysis here that there is not one known instance of phony "Mickey Mouse" or "Michael Jordan" registrations actually recorded as having voted. Holt spent no time speaking to the serious charges made by Kennedy in Rolling Stone but rather made up his own phony, unsupported nonsense. All the while Blitzer charged Kennedy didn't present evidence to support his charges (apparently, only if RJK Jr. had brought forward someone admitting they personally rigged the election would that have been evidence of anything). In the meantime, Blitzer allowed Holt to spread his unsubstantiated garbage without being challenged even once.

The complete text transcript from the video interview from Friday, June 2nd's edition of The Situation Room on CNN follows...

Guest blogged by David Edwards of Veredictum.com

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On Wednesday, May 24th at about 3:43 pm ET, CNN broadcast this odd little story. There seems to be no reference to it on CNN's website and we haven't seen any encore broadcasts since.

Here is the short version of the story... Geronimo's great grandson is making a plea to President Bush to facilitate the return of the remains of the Apache chief. The heir to Geronimo decided to make this request to Bush after a researcher found proof that Bush's great grandfather, Prescott Bush, had robbed Geronimo's grave. The skull, bones and other relics are now part of initiation traditions in the secret society of the Skull and Bones.

Read on for more of this story...

Guest blogged by David Edwards of Veredictum.com

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CNN's Lou Dobbs interviews former CIA Analyst Ray McGovern on Lt. General Hayden's nomination to be CIA Director. McGovern insist that Hayden's circumvented the FISA law and the U.S. Constitution when he followed Bush's order to listen to domestic phone calls without a warrant.

In the past, Hayden has shown to be a person who strictly followed the rule that the NSA and the CIA do not spy on Americans. Hayden has been known to push back against orders that breech the threshold of domestic spying. Since September 11th, Hayden gave way to Administration pressure to do domestic spying.

Hayden eventually created and defended the most publicly known program of warrantless domestic eavesdropping. In this case, one end of the call originates in the U.S. and the other end of the call is a foreign location. The FISA law and the Fourth Amendment require a warrant to listen to any domestic source (regardless of who is on the other end of the call.)

From the CNN transcript: