Hannity & Colmes' guest lineup tonight, there to give us the inside skinny on tomorrow's "do or die" Democratic Primaries in Ohio and Texas on "America's Election HQ"...

Yup. Rove, Coulter, Morris, and Luntz. Guess they're needed to add balance to the Democratic powerhouse that is Alan Colmes?

BRAD BLOG FLASHBACK: Long time readers may remember the guest lineup announced for H&C's 2004 Presidential Election Eve show, as we reported at the time...

We ran an email campaign back then, haranguing them to add at least something resembling balance, which they eventually did by dumping Weld and adding Terry McAuliffe. Even though the clever little liars at Fox "News" still managed to figure out how to tilt it Right anyway.

Perhaps we're missing something here?

Our friends at BuzzFlash have their top screaming headline set currently as...

...which links over to a quick report over at the Texas blog Burnt Orange Report (also good folks, as much as we know about them.)

"Ominously"?

The quick BOR article by Glenn Smith is headlined "Clinton Caucus Disruption/Vote Suppression" and appears to be at the end of a chain of increasingly panicked blog items which began with a report from Dallas Morning News, quoted as follows by Smith...

Another Election Director with the temerity to speak out with concerns about E-voting has been done away with. This time in Texas.

As Early Voting starts today in the crucial Texas Primaries, it looks like we've got yet another new martyr --- from the rare ranks of Election Officials --- who has reportedly been taken out by "the powers that be" during a fight for the ideas of Election Integrity, which he even went so far as to mention on a Houston television news report, if you can imagine such a thing.

The following details come from today's FortBendNow...

The latest e-vote mess with Texas...

So how many more such cases are we going to see in next week's elections, and more notably, in next year's elections? Hope you're ready for the meltdown to come.

In the above matter, it looks like the Travis County Clerk was more than happy to lie to the reporter so she could continue using her democracy-busting e-voting systems:

That is, of course, complete and total bullshit.

Only one disabled accessible voting device (and it needn't be a DRE) is required per polling place, as per the federal Help America Vote Act. If Texas has some state law requiring that every voter use such systems, we are unaware of it. In other words, if the reporters quote was accurate, County Clerk DeBeauvoir was lying.

It's a shame the reporter on the piece, like so many at local papers who cover this beat on rare occassions, didn't know enough to call her on it.

Good god. Hypocrisy in Texas? In the State Legislature? Whoddathunkit?!

Behold Republican TX State Rep. Debbie Riddle, who --- despite any substantive evidence to demonstrate that citizens are voting more than once in her state --- is the author of a disenfranchising Photo ID law that would do little more than keep lawfully registered voters (mostly Democratic-leaning voters) from being able to cast their votes.

When it comes to her own vote, however, and those of her colleagues in the state legislature, the rules are apparently quite different. Incredible...

Thanks to all of those who sent the link to this video to us.

And to Ms. Riddle, who has all kinds of excuses as to why her colleagues don't have time to vote --- excuses which apparently do not also apply to actual working citizens on Election Day, which also happens to be a work day --- please kindly go Cheney yourself.

Blogged by Brad Friedman from Plano, TX...

"Compassionate Conservatism" at work.

Dallas Morning News reports today that there were 2000 confirmed allegations of kids in the Texas juvenile penal system who were beaten and molested by those who were supposed to be protecting them between Jan 2003 and Dec 2006.

The U.S. Justice Department knew about it and declined to prosecute. 2000 cases.

Notably, one of the sick and twisted "voter fraud" zealots at the U.S. DoJ, Bradley Schlozman, also finds his way into the middle of this story. As the Morning News, who spent three months on their investigation, reports on the ignored cases of rape, abuse, and manipulation of these kids:

The U.S. Attorney in San Antonio, Johnny Sutton, who received the case referral is "chairman of the U.S. attorney general's advisory committee and a Bush family friend." He declined to prosecute, on the grounds that no federal laws were broken by the detailed cases of sexual abuse in which "victims revealed that none sustained 'bodily injury'...None of the victims claimed to have felt physical pain during the course of the sexual assaults which they described."

The Bush Administration, and their DoJ, have similarly parsed the definition of "torture," claiming that if there's no permanent bodily injury, it couldn't be "torture."

No doubt "the president's conservative religious base" is prouder than ever of their man.

Blogged by Brad from...somewhere in Oklahoma...

As we continue on our eastward trek towards the Backbone Campaign's Progressive Cabinet Summit at the Carter Center on Tuesday in Atlanta, to be followed by several workshops and panels at the U.S. Social Forums for the rest of the week...We received this rude awakening early this morning out the window of the BradMobile...

The day got decidedly better thereafter (though not before passing the town of Bushland, quickly followed by Coulter St. just outside of town.)

From the Wise County Messenger in Texas...

The story gets even more amazing as a fire breaks out in city hall, where the machines are stored, engulfing one of them in flames. You'll have to check it out yourself for those details.

But we don't mind awarding Denton County's election administrator, Don Alexander, BRAD BLOG's "Understatement of the Year Award" for this quoted comment from the story:

A commenter over at DU asked which states used the ES&S iVotronic touch-screen voting system found vulnerable to an undetectable countywide vote-flipping virus which can be implanted by a single person, as we reported this morning.

Based on our quick review of a county-by-county database of voting systems, sorted by state, as made available by Common Cause (EXCEL spreadsheet downloadable here) just prior to the November 2006 elections, it looks like the answer is 16 states in total.

Since the EAC refuses, as our report detailed, to do their job in notifying Elections Officials about this incredibly serious vulnerability, it looks like it's up to you to notify your state's Secretary of State and/or county Election Officials! Details on the vulnerability and mitigating steps that may be taken are detailed in this brief report at VotersUnite.org as written by a computer scientist and voting system expert well familiar with the newly discovered flaw. Please refer your voting officials to both our original article, and that scientific report for more details at the following URLs:

• http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4396
• http://www.votersunite.o.../ES&SInsecurity.asp

The states which use the ES&S iVotronic affected (with firmware versions either 8 or 9, with or without a so-called "Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail") are as follows:

• Arkansas
• Florida
• Indiana
• Iowa
• Kansas
• Kentucky
• Missouri
• New jersey
• North Carolina
• Ohio
• Pennsylvania
• South Carolina
• Tennessee
• Texas
• West Virginia
• Wisconsin

If we've missed any, or any of the states above do not use the system in at least one county, please let us know and we'll amend the list.

The BRAD BLOG and You - Doing the EAC's job for them. But without the $15 million budget (or the incomprehensible incompetence).

The LA Times is reporting that the George W. Bush "Presidential" Library may well be built at Laura's alma mater, Dallas's Southern Methodist University.

Setting aside those in Texas and at the University who are less than thrilled with the idea of being associated with the guy, it comes as little surprise that the ground likely to be used for the library at SMU was obtained via tactics that perfectly represent the Bush Administration...

Even with the attempts by Bush's well-monied supporters to invent a less-than-humiliating legacy for him, it looks as if the library will be built on the intimidation of and land grabbed from others. Go figure.

No word on how many copies of My Pet Goat the library will be making available to researchers and visitors.

According to the Austin American-Statesman today America's largest Electronic Voting Machine Company, ES&S, has failed again. This time just north of Austin, Texas...

As expected, the company, which has had similar disasters in scores of states across the country this year --- including in Florida's 13th Congressional district where officials are currently trying to figure out what to do about 18,000 votes that disappeared on ES&S systems in a U.S. House race with just over 300 votes between the two leading candidates --- blamed everyone but themselves...

Orlando Sentinel's coverage on Friday began with these incredible words [emphasis ours]:

"Not as foolproof as hoped"?!

Just who exactly are the fools they're referring to there?

Electronic voting machines made by ES&S, the largest supplier of voting systems in the country, failed across the country on Election Day. We're beginning to see more and more of the results of the failures from those machines --- as "foolproof," apparently, as the Titanic was "unsinkable."

An unprecedented 83% voter turnout has been reported from ES&S iVotronic paperless touch-screen systems in Benton County, Arkansas, after the Election Commission reviewed it's balloting when it was found that tabulated votes were being dropped from the system as new votes were being entered into it on Tuesday night.

The results: More votes than citizens in several areas of Benton County and an overall turnout described as "eye-popping" by a University of Arkansas political science professor who pointed to Idaho's 63% turnout as having made news for a midterm election record. Idaho's got nothing on Benton County, apparently.

Four different Florida counties are reporting enormous undervote rates on the same type of ES&S iVotronic paperless touch-screen systems in at least one key U.S. House race and in their election for State Attorney General.

And in one small town, ES&S voting machines are reporting zero votes for a mayoral candidate who swears that, yes, he really did vote for himself!

In Arkansas, the Morning News reported on Friday...

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...

Blogged By John Gideon, 28 October 2006

Still over a week from election day and already the problems are piling up. Meanwhile the vendors and their shills are making excuses and attempting to sell the voting public a line of garbage. Among the shills is a federal agency, the Election Assistance Commission, that is supposed to assist the voter and, instead, has sent their chairman out on the road to defend the vendors.

In a blog posted yesterday, Brad said it well:

In a rebuttal to DeGregorios' opinion piece in the Tallahassee Democrat Avi Rubin, Johns-Hopkins Professor, computer scientist and author of "Brave New Ballot" had this to say in his blog:

In The Mean Time Across The Nation...