The coverage of Voting and Electronic Voting issues is increasing exponentially at this point due to 1) the impending November election (read: coming train wreck) 2) the fact that an electoral meltdown occured in last Tuesday's Maryland primary (they've been happening in every primary so far this year as BRAD BLOG readers know, but now that they've occured in Montgomery County, MD, where the DC media and politicos live, the problem suddenly "exists"!) and, of course, 3) the news of the VelvetRevolution.ussponsored Princeton University Diebold Virus Hack.

I'm doing my best to keep up, but there is now much to cover and as well, I'm now being asked to do many media events which are time-consuming but also necessary. So, expect much more cover here shortly on all of the latest, even if some of that coverage must (necessarily) be a bit more abbreviated than in "the old days" when none of this stuff actually "existed".

One such new story worth covering is on the front page(!!!) of today's Sunday Washington Post. It begins this way:

...That's a good start --- if it took Maryland for WaPo to "notice" what's been going on now for months (in fact, years!), I'll take it! But the "truthiness" of the WaPo coverage goes quickly downhill from there.

Little wonder it's linked from Drudge Report right now!

The framing of the problems as mostly "human error" is exactly the type of coverage that Diebold, ES&S, Sequoia, Hart InterCivic and friends are no doubt delighted about. The facts of the matter, however, are far different from the incredibly "Fair and Balanced" (read: uneven playing field, levelled inappropriately to the advantage of bad guys who don't deserve it, so WaPo stays out of trouble) spin given to the story. Even the WaPo's own coverage defies their own attempted spin, bias or failure (whatever you wish to call it)...

Blogged by John Gideon

Today the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that vote totals in three-quarters of the cities 314 wards are suspect.

The paper reports:

The state is blamming the bogus vote totals on programming problems but they seem to be only concerned with the total number of ballots reported and not the total number of votes given to any particular candidate.

Apparently this is nothing new for the city and county of Milwaukee as they have been in trouble with the Wisconsin state legislature for not following state canvassing statues for over 5 years.

Maybe this time the city and county will do the right thing and figure out what the problem is finally. It's past due that they do something.

Guest Blogged by John Gideon

Sarasota Alliance for Fair Elections (SAFE) has just announced that a Sarasota County Judge has found in their favor and against the county voting officials and the Florida Secretary of State.

SAFE had been proposing a ballot initiative that would require voter verified paper ballots and independent random audits of election results in Sarasota County. The County Commissioner chose to go to court instead of allowing the legal petition to move forward.

The press release from SAFE says:

This is a big announcement from a hard-working group of activists who still have an uphill battle to force their county to use a voter verified, auditable voting system.

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Election integrity advocates in Arizona got a double-whammy Tuesday --- just in time for their primaries!

First we have some bad news from Erica Meltzer of the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson:
Backup verifying of votes unlikely: Hand-recount procedures not cleared for touch screens

What??? Late Thursday? To get the recount procedures approved for use when?

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Here's Scott Maxwell of the Orlando Sentinel, from his blog, with my emphasis:

As reported extensively at The BRAD BLOG during the past two years, Clint Curtis has leveled several specific accusations at Tom Feeney. The chief allegation is that Feeney requested Curtis to design a software vote-rigging prototype (a computer program which appeared to be a simple vote-counter but which was in fact something else). Curtis has taken --- and passed --- a polygraph test in support of his allegations. Feeney has not indicated any willingness to go near a polygraph.

For more on the Clint Curtis / Tom Feeney story, start here.

Guest blogged by Emily Levy

The BRAD BLOG has learned that the plaintiffs in the Busby/Bilbray CA-50 election contest will be appealing the recent dismissal of the case by a San Diego judge. The appeal will be filed in California's 4th District court. Briefs are now being prepared and funds being collected for what may be a rather expensive appeal. Notice of appeal may be filed as soon as today.

Donations to the appeal can be made via Velvet Revolution.

The appeal is a rejection of Judge Yuri Hofmann’s August 29 ruling which echoed GOP claims that the U.S. House of Representatives, not the state courts or voters, have the power to determine the outcome of elections of members of Congress. In California’s 50th Congressional district in San Diego County, Republican candidate Brian Bilbray was announced to be the winner of the June 6 special election, flown to Washington and sworn in before all the votes were counted or the election certified. That, after reports were initially broken, and well circulated by The BRAD BLOG revealing that the Diebold voting machines used in the elelection were sent home with poll workers for overnight "sleepovers" in the days and weeks preceding the "bellwether" U.S. House special election.

Those sleepovers, in which election works had unsupervised access to the highly hackable, programmed, election-ready voting systems, were in contravention of both state and federal laws and led to a filing of an election contest in early July.

Says attorney Paul Lehto, who argued the plaintiffs' case in Hofmann’s court...

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Late Tuesday night, after the election returns from Florida showed a landslide win for Clint Curtis over Andy Michaud in the 24th congressional district's Democratic primary, I heard a fascinating story from Ace Reporter and Managing Editor Alex Babcock of Oviedo, Florida's Seminole Chronicle. The Chronicle is Feeney's "hometown paper" which both the corrupt Republican congressman, and Yang Enterprises Inc. (YEI) --- the company he used to lobby for, even while he was speaker of the Florida House! --- threatened with a lawsuit after the paper dared to report on Curtis' sworn, video-taped testimony to members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee.

Curtis had testified that Feeney asked him to create a prototype of electronic vote-rigging software when they were both employed by YEI as The BRAD BLOG originally broke back in December of 2004. Curtis, of course, is now the Democratic candidate challenging Feeney for the U.S. House seat in Florida's 24th congressional district.

Babcock's remarkable account of the "jubilant" Election Night conversation, witnessed by at least three other parties, went as follows...

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Late Tuesday night, after the numbers coming in from the Florida primaries had told their story, many BRAD BLOG readers were happily celebrating Clint Curtis' win in the 24th district, and we were blogging about it quite a bit. If you drew inspiration from the events of the evening; if you thought it was very important, and very encouraging: Congratulations! Your heart is still beating and your blood is still red --- and American!

In the barrage of Curtis-Feeney blogging, I neglected to mention another Democratic primary victory which in its own way was equally important and perhaps even more encouraging: Robert Bowman's victory in Florida's 15th district was a powerful shot in the arm for those of us who agree with what Bowman says about 9/11.

"And what does Bowman say about 9/11?" you ask.

Well done! Instead of jumping to conclusions immediately, you have asked the key question.

In a nutshell, Bob Bowman says:

A large and growing number of Americans share Bob Bowman's view, and clearly it hasn't hampered Bowman in his quest for the Democratic nomination in Florida's 15th congressional district.

Are you with me so far? Good!

More clips and links below the fold ...

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

An "explosive" new press release from the office of Congressman Tom Feeney (R-FL) reveals "new information" regarding his November opponent, Clint Curtis, the "Craziest Man in America".

Wow! Craziest Man In America! That's quite a distinction. There are some pretty crazy men in America these days, as if you haven't already noticed. And it's odd that Tom Feeney should award this title to Clint Curtis, because ...

I never even knew Clint Curtis was a little bit crazy! Did you?

Well apparently he is, because Tom Feeney certainly wouldn't say so if he wasn't.

Right????

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Miriam Raftery:
Court rules against voter-supervised elections, attorney tells RawCourt rules against voter-supervised elections, attorney tells Raw

Run right over there and read it!

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

The Orlando Sentinel jumped all over the story of Clint Curtis, his apparent victory in last night's Democratic primary, and the epic battle "between Good and Evil" which it sets up in Florida's 24th Congressional disctict.

See? Here's their coverage!, and this is --- literally --- the bottom line:

Even lower down the page, it also says this:

Calling 6 or 7 green and yellow bloggers!

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

According to reliable sources, WESH-TV has called Clint Curtis the winner of the FL-24 Democratic primary by a landslide. Curtis had 12,652 votes, compared to 7,990 for Michaud: That's 61% for the vote-rigging whistleblower, with 208 out of 257 precincts reporting, or or 81%.

According to other reliable sources, a reporter from the Daytona Beach News-Journal called Clint and asked whether he wanted to make a statement. Clint said:

So ... shall we let the party begin? Well, really: there's no hurry!

If Clint can wait until all the votes are counted, then so can we!

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Democrats in Florida's 24th Congressional District are used to being surprised by Tom Feeney (left), but he's been surprising them again during the past few days. They have reported receiving fliers in the mail --- and phone calls, too --- which appear to be serious, even respectful --- if brief --- comparisons of the policy positions taken by the Republican incumbent, Feeney, and his potential Democratic challenger, Clint Curtis.

What's wrong with this picture?

Guest Blogged By Dan Field

We're all on pins and needles here at Clint Curtis for Congress as the election rolls upon us. For those who haven't been following the race, election fraud whistleblower Clint Curtis --- who says he was asked to deliver a computer program to U.S. Congressman Tom Feeney to flip the vote in Florida --- hopes to run against Feeney himself in the general election in November. But to do that, he has to defeat Democratic rival Andy Michaud.

The interesting wrinkle? Michaud has been virtually a complete no-show on the campaign trail! In fact, many newspaper columnists have simply written him off. He hasn't appeared at any events in weeks and didn't even bother to show up for a 10-minute televised debate with Curtis on the local NBC affiliate!

So it would appear that Curtis has the Democratic nomination in the bag, right?

Well, this is Florida we're talking about, so who knows what sort of chicanery could happen.

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Mother Jones has the skinny on eleven of the worst places to try and vote in America, courtesy of Sasha Abramsky:

Just Try Voting Here: 11 of America's worst places to cast a ballot (or try)

I won't spoil the top ten for you. But here's what Sasha says about number eleven:

Please read the whole article.

CONFESSION: This piece was originally blogged with an incorrect heading which claimed "Ohio didn't even make the top ten" ... in fact Ohio claimed two of the top four spots. So that was a big FUMBLE! by your nearly frozen host, spotted by Lorraine Bieber. My apologies.