In an email discussion yesterday among a group of Election Integrity advocates, in reply to the horrendous San Diego Union-Tribune coverage of the Busby/Bilbray issue, Yolo County, CA Registrar of Voters Freddie Oakley posted a crystal clear statement on the concerns of sending voting machines home with poll workers prior to elections.

"As an election official, I understand the practical issues involved here perfectly. I am strongly of the opinion that it is exactly this kind of practical issue that should give election officials serious reservations about deploying electronic voting machines," Oakley wrote.

"If, as a practical matter, [the electronic voting machines deployed prior to an election] can't be secured, then perhaps they ought not be used at all. Period. Until the impediment can be removed," her email statement read.

Her comment was in direct reply to a discussion about how voting machines, in the post-Hursti Hack age, might be deployed now that sending them home unsecured for "overnights" with poll workers is no longer a secure option. That hack, in Leon County, Florida in December 2005 of a Diebold optical scan voting system, has set off a chain reaction revealing massive vulnerabilities in these systems, forcing both federal and state authorities to issue extraordinary security requirements for the machines in just the last few months. Those requirements were subsequently all but ignored in the June 6th Busby/Bilbray U.S. House special election --- the first federal election in the nation to be administered since the additional mitigation requirements were put in place.

Oakley's responsible comments are in direct contradiction to the irresponsible statements by San Diego County Registrar Mikel Haas, given to the Union-Tribune, in which Haas dismisses concerns of election integrity advocates. Haas claims that proper procedures were followed (they were not) and that the practice of sending home voting machines with poll workers "has been followed without incident for about 40 years." Haas ignores, along with his other prevarications, that these eminently hackable electronic voting machines were not in use during all but the last few of those 40 years. The U-T didn't bother to quote, or apparently even attempt to contact, anyone who could reply directly to Haas' deceptive comments.

Registrar Oakley's entire statement --- a grand slam as far as I'm concerned --- should be read in full. It follows below...

It's still remarkable how many in the MSM regard bloggers as "unreliable"...even as they get story after story wrong and report unsubstantiated, unverifiable nonsense as fact.

I wrote early on in the Busby/Bilbray election results saga about AP (and all the rest) reporting that Brian Bilbray had won the election. They did so without a shred of evidence to prove that assertion.

Yesterday, the San Diego Union-Tribune's John Marelius jumped in to report on the Busby/Bilbray fiasco (where the world's most hackable voting machines were sent home overnight with poll workers days and weeks before the election, to be stored in their cars and garages or who-knows-where in violation of both state and federal laws, effectively decertifying all of the voting machines used in that U.S. House special election.).

Here's how the U-T article began:

Okay...For a start...Who is calling for a recount, as Marelius writes? You can't recount something that you haven't counted in the first place and I know of no organization declaring "No Confidence" who has called for a "recount." Yet, the story uses the word "recount" again and again.

While it may be a subtle distinction, it's a very key one that I assure you both Karl Rove and Frank Luntz would understand quite clearly.

If the concept is too difficult to understand, however, the California Election Protection Network's press release announcing their eloquent "No Confidence" declaration --- referred to in the article --- not only never uses the word "recount", it also spells out clearly that they are not asking for a "recount". "Calling it a 'Free-Count' rather than a recount," the press release states, "the CEPN citizen watchdogs insist that this manual counting of the ballots be conducted without charge to the voting public."

If that was the only problem with the U-T article, we might have let it slide. But it's not. Not by a longshot. Marelius then goes on to "report" that a townhall meeting was held on Wednesday in San Diego. It was, of course. But apparently Marelius neither bothered to attend it, nor talk to anybody who actually did attend it.

He did, however, bother to report the point of view of SD County Registrar Mikel Haas (who also didn't attend). In fact, Marelius devoted a full five grafs to Haas' point of view. By my count, there are at least 5 different complete inaccuracies, misrepresentations and out-and-out misleading pieces of information passed on in those grafs...

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.

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...

Video in Streaming Flash format...
Video in Windows Media format...

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

My reporting here, and the concerns expressed about the Busby/Bilbray election results as announced, have little or nothing to do with Francine Busby or Brian Bilbray or even, in particular, the June 6th U.S. House special run-off election in California's 50th congressional district.

It has only a tiny bit more to do with San Diego. And only slightly more than that to do with California.

It has everything, however, to do with democracy. Across the entire country. As opposed to any one race in any one area.

If I've not been clear on that until now, please allow me to set the record straight.

The concerns I've reported --- and will continue to report --- over the blatant disregard for the rule of law and clear illegalities endorsed and encouraged by the SD County Registrar of Voters, Mikel Haas, and apparently approved at this point by California's Secretary of State Bruce McPherson, have everything to do with the future viability of democracy in this country in general, and a perhaps naive hope that there's a chance in hell that taking action now will help to salvage a shred of legitimacy for this November's election.

That can only happen if action is taken now, however, directly in regard to the Busby/Bilbray election results as announced.

As far as I can see it, what happens in regard to Busby/Bilbray will be America's last, best, and only hope of affecting any real election reform prior to the November 7th general election. That's why, for me, this has become "Line in the Sand" time.

Never, in the two-and-a-half year history of The BRAD BLOG have I set aside almost everything else in order to cover and raise attention to a single story --- to the exclusion of almost every other story --- for such a long period of time as I have done since the original coverage of this matter the day after the June 6th election.

Since then, I've stated many times in both written and spoken words that I don't actually give a damn who won the Busby/Bilbray race and that I didn't even much bother to follow any of it prior to Election Day. I've got no dog in the hunt and only care that the person who actually received the most votes is the one that was declared the winner. At this point, there is absolutely no way of knowing who actually won.

The fact of the matter is that just two or three months after both the federal certification oversight body (NASED) and California's own Secretary of State issued emergency "security mitigation requirements" in light of newly discovered and massive vulnerabilities in Diebold's voting systems, those security requirements were entirely tossed out the window when all of the machines were sent home with poll workers for overnights in the days and weeks prior to the election. In doing so, the machines themselves were effectively rendered illegal and uncertified for use in any California election, and at the federal level as well.

Unless something is done, the same thing is about to happen in elections across this entire country.

(NOTE: Lou Dobbs will be covering this issue on CNN tonight I am told. Including interviews with some of the poll worker sources we gave them after originally reported on them here at BRAD BLOG.)

I'd have hoped that more media, candidates, individuals and even Election Reform organizations would have come to understand the national significance of what all the sturm and drang here has actually been about. If they haven't, that's likely my failing. So I'll try again to make both myself and the stakes here crystal clear...

What happens here and now --- in regard to this race and its results as announced --- will send a signal to elections administrators across the country. The signal will be one of two...

Congratulations to California Sec. of State Bruce McPherson!

Not only did you succeed in running the first federal election --- with illegal/decertified voting machines --- since massive vulnerabilities have been discovered in the Diebold systems you okayed for use (against state laws), but you've also now received an 18% pay raise in the bargain!

According to yesterday's Sacramento Bee, your pay will increase by $23,265 to a full $154,875 just after you run your next illegal election in November!

Nice work if you can get it! Not that he's not worth it, of course. Here's a video to give you an idea what $154,875 buys for California these days. (The following video and details explaining it were originally posted at BRAD BLOG here back in February, when McPherson was acting as if he didn't know for sure if he'd re-certify Diebold in the state. Nice acting, Bruce! It was dang-near believable!)

-- Video in Streaming Flash format...
-- Video in Windows Media format...

(Hat tip Bruce Sims, who pays closer attention to California's elections --- by far --- than Bruce McPherson has ever done. And Sims does it on his own damn dime. For free! And also, unlike McPherson, doesn't have Diebold employees actually doing his work for him!)

Downloadable/printable versions of the flier, and more details, are available here...

UPDATE: Printable/emailable flier for the "Emergency Townhall" events now available here...

This will be quick-ish. By necessity.

Several additional organizations and individuals have announced "NO CONFIDENCE" declarations in the announced Busby/Bilbray election results due to state and federal laws and provisions violated when the San Diego County registrar allowed the highly-hackable Diebold voting machines to be sent home with poll workers in the days prior to the June 6th. U.S. House special election.

"Emergency Townhall" events...to rally around the issue, raise awareness, and discuss actions to deal with the problem moving forward and call for accountability are now scheduled for Tuesday the 27th in Los Angeles and Wednesday the 28th in San Diego...

LOS ANGELES: Tue, June 27, 2006 @ 7:30pm
Venice United Methodist Church
1020 Victoria (Lincoln & Victoria, 1 block N. of Venice Blvd.)

SAN DIEGO: Wed, June 28, 2006 @ 7:00pm (rally@ 6pm)
Oceanside Civic Center
330 N. Coast Hwy. Oceanside, CA

Speakers at both events to include myself, Rob Cohen (co-director of the upcoming VoterGate documentary), Mimi Kennedy and Marcy Winograd (CA Election Protection Network and PDA), Jeeni Criscenzo (U.S. House nominee in San Diego's 49th district) and...possibly others to be announced soon.

Both events are OPEN TO ALL and I hope you'll turn out if you're anywhere near! More details, a swell poster, fliers and other info soon (hopefully by this evening). Please spread the word!

New Folks Declaring "NO CONFIDENCE" in the Busby/Bilbray Election Results as Announced...

- - The Commonweal Institute. A "multi-issue research and educational institute/think tank" who, amongst other things, has been "working to raise awareness of the public and our political representatives of the problems posed by electronic touch-screen voting systems and how these might be corrected."

- - Progressive Democrats of Sonoma County. They also join both the national PDA and California Election Protectoin network in endorsing the declaration of "No Confidence" in the reported Busby/Bilbray Election results.

- - Clint Curtis. Vote-rigging whistleblower, election integrity advocate and now candidate in Florida's 24th congressional district. Curtis, whose extraordinary story was first broken here is running against Rep. Tom Feeney, the man who he claims had asked him to create vote-rigging software when they both worked for the same computer firm. Curtis has released an eloquent declaration of "No Confidence". Few know better than Curtis how easy it is to game these systems via electronic voting systems. As with the other candidates who've come out to declare "No Confidence" (see the list below), we recommend that you support him...as opposed to candidates and organizations who do not do so.

(ADDITIONAL NEWS FLASH: The Miami-Dade chapter of Democracy for America has just endorsed Clint!)

- - Among those already having declared "No Confidence":

- - It's also well worth noting again that San Diego's Republican radio host (and former mayor), Roger Hedgecock has also come firmly on board --- as I discovered while a guest on his program yesterday --- in calling for accountability in Busby/Bilbray as well. And he is an ardent Bibray supporter! Hedgecock will be guest hosting the Rush Limbaugh show tomorrow.

Wow...Given what I know about San Diego's KOGO radio host, Roger Hedgecock --- a frequent fill-in for Rush Limbaugh, by the way --- I would have predicted a firefight between us concerning my arguments questioning the validity of the Busby/Bilbray U.S. House special election in California's 50th congressional district on June 6th.

You know, the one were the highly-hackable Diebold voting machines were sent home with poll workers for days prior to the election in defiance of both state and federal rules and laws, rendering them illegal and uncertified for use in the election.

Well, slap my bottom and call me Spanky!...Guess what? I just got off the air with him, and Hedgecock and I were in complete agreement! He may even turn up at next week's "Emergency Townhall" meeting on this which is currently being organized (details soon).

The full afternoon drive-time appearance, about 15 minutes, is linked below if you'd like to listen. But to give you a flavor, here's how it ended...

Were it not for other fairly unforgivable transgressions in the past in other areas politically, I might have otherwise given Roger the too-rarely bestowed BRAD BLOG "Intellectually Honest Conservative Award." If he decides, however, to show up and bring along a few thousand folks with him for next week's "Emergency Townhall" event in San Diego (details soon) --- as I've invited him to do --- I might even consider a "provisional" awarding of the highly coveted prize!

Listen up...
-- Brad on the Roger Hedgecock Show on Busby/Bilbray & Electronic Voting [MP3]

(AFTERTHOUGHT: For those interested in on-air firefights between myself and "conservatives," see my shoot-out with St. Louis' wingnut-in-training, Crane Durham here, or the time I helped run Ann Coulter off the air halfway through our debate on Ron Insana's show here.)

Sorry. Up to my neck in phone calls, media inquiries and all manner of related items in re: the Busby/Bilbray race for the moment. Looking forward to covering it here ASAP. But I can't do it all at the same time, unfortunately.

I'll be on Roger Hedgecock's show in San Diego at 4pm PT (7pm ET). Hedgecock sits in for Rush Limbaugh with some frequency, so it could be an interesting appearance. See the "Media Appearances" info above for details on listening in online.

More groups and individuals have come on to declare "No Confidence" as well. Details on that and, fates allowing, much more by tonight, I hope. Other than that, for the moment, it's an official Open Thread....

The number of organizations and individuals now declaring "No Confidence" in the reported results of the Busby/Bilbray special election to fill the U.S. House seat of the jailed Randy "Duke" Cunningham is now increasing exponentially. The race, as we've reported since it was held on June 6th, was run on easily-tamperable Diebold voting machines that were effectively illegal and decertified on both the state and federal level after they were sent home with poll workers for days and weeks prior to the election in contravention of laws, regulations, and of course, common sense.

I'd continue to encourage you to support candidates and organizations who are willing to speak up on these issues! As well as not support those who don't! And feel free to let them know why!

So far today, joining the burgeoning list of groups and individuals and candidates who have already declared "No Confidence" in the race and who are demanding a manual hand count of the ballots (you can do so yourself via VelvetRevolution.us' petition here) are the following:

Massachusetts Secretary of State candidate, John Bonifaz --- who's also a Constitutional attorney --- joins the "growing number of citizens" in declaring "No Confidence" in the unverified Busby/Bilbray election results. In his statement, he declares, "We face today a crisis in public confidence in the integrity of our elections. This crisis threatens the foundation of our democracy."

His statement then goes on to add...

In Maryland, U.S. Senatorial candidate Kevin Zeese calls for a hand count and says in his full statement:

The recently formed Election Defense Alliance, dedicated to bringing together and helping local groups fight for issues of electoral integrity, has also issued a "No Confidence" statement in the Busby/Bilbray election:

The folks above, with more to come as I understand it, join several other notable groups and individuals who have already declared "No Confidence" in the announced results and have demanded a manual hand count of the ballots used in the race. Some of those groups currently include the California Election Protection Network (CEPN), Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), VelvetRevolution.us, Tribune Media columnist Robert Koehler and U.S. House nominee (CA-49) Jeeni Criscenzo.

As we reported (both here and here) the media must stop reporting what they can't actually verify. There exists no proof that Brian Bilbray won the special election in the CA-50th U.S. House race. And yet, nobody holds AP or anyone else in the MSM accountable for reporting to that effect. (Never mind what they'd say about us bloggers if we reported something that couldn't be independently verified! So we try not to do that here. Ever! Of course, they still dismiss us despite the fact that we try only to report veriafiable facts, and they don't bother to do so.)

Given what we've learned since the still wholly unverified Busby/Bilbray election then, the following photo is from a rather prescient Election Night press conference held by Dave Berman and his "We Do Not Consent" folks up in Humboldt County before the polls closed on the evening of June 6th in California. As printed in the Humboldt Advocate on 6/9/06...

(Click photo to read the whole story)

As readers have likely noticed, the Busby/Bilbray issue has sucked me into its vortex (or vice versa?) for the moment. Necessarily. I'll hope BRAD BLOG readers with interests in other non-Busby/Bilbray items will understand, forgive and realize that it's just me here for the most part at this time, though David Edwards and John Gideon are able to jump in with other items as their time allows.

Further, I believe the Busby/Bilbray issue merits the attention currently being given to it, both on the blog and behind the scenes, since it has ramifications for every election in this country come November (after which it will be too late to do anything about what needs to be done now concerning the security of unsecure electronic voting machines).

With that then, two small points for now about which I'll have more details in the days ahead..."Emergency Townhall Meetings" are now being organized to deal with these issues both in Los Angeles and San Diego. In LA, there will be such an event with myself, and several other speakers (details soon) on Tuesday the 27th at 8pm @ the Venice United Methodist Church. In SD on Wednesday the 28th, there will be another event, specific time/location to come shortly. A press conference may be held in conjuction in San Diego next week as well. As mentioned, details forthcoming on all of the above. If you're anywhere in the area, I hope you will turn out. It matters.

Also, yes, as some have asked, I can confirm the item now posted at RAW STORY wherein Bobby Kennedy is quoted as saying in an interview: "I would say that very soon we'll be announcing lawsuits against some of the individuals and companies involved."

Such litigation is, in fact, in the works and has been for some time. Beyond that, it would be imprudent of me to give any further details at this time for a number of reasons. But you've now got still more to look forward to.

Beyond that, feel free to use this as an Open Thread to discuss any or all of the above...or anything else about which I haven't had time to do any reporting over this past week....

The California Election Protection Network (CEPN) has issued a 'No Confidence' Resolution in regard to the Busby/Bilbray Election held on June 6th in San Diego County.

The non-partisan election watchdog network, comprised of more than 25 election integrity groups, has also issued a press release this morning announcing that the elections held in SD County "were conducted under illegal conditions" due to the Registrar having sent voting machines home for overnights with poll workers for days and weeks prior to election day, in direct violation of state and federal rules, laws and provisions.

The statement goes on to call for a manual hand count of the ballots to be paid for by the SD County Registrar, charging that the office has the "obligation to conduct a proper election, not bill the people to pay for his blunder."

A few grafs from that news release today:

-- CEPN's complete press release can be read here...
-- CEPN's 'No Confidence Resolution' can be read here...

CEPN is urging citizens and members to sign Velvet Revolution's petition demanding a manual hand count of all ballots in the race.

In their statement and declaration, CEPN has joined several other organizations and individuals who have declared 'No Confidence' in the race who are demanding that the ballots be counted by hand. Included amongst those are Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), VelvetRevolution.us, and Tribune Media columnist Robert Koehler. As well, VoteTrustUSA has condemned the "egregious violations" in the election and U.S. House Nominee (CA-49) Jeeni Criscenzo has come out to discuss the "outrageous breaches in security" during the election, in which she also ran on June 6th (and won!).