The Al Franken attorneys rested their case in Minnesota today. Now there is an expected few days of closing arguments and statements and the judges begin deliberation. Meanwhile Franken has picked-up a few more votes and is now around 270 votes ahead of Norm Coleman. The whole contested election issue may come to a screeching halt when there is a decision by the court. The election contest process works on a “loser pays” system. If Coleman loses he will owe all legal costs of Team Franken and that is estimated to be between $1 and $3 Million.

As we expected ex-Hillsborough Co Florida election supervisor Buddy Johnson may have used taxpayer’s money in his campaign for re-election. During last years primary election he was being trashed by a local community activist. He appears to have then sent $16,000 to this activist who suddenly became one of his most vocal supporters....

The Texas legislature battle over a new expanded Voter ID bill included an all-nighter for testimony from invited ‘experts’. This was supposed to be followed by public testimony but that did not begin until 6:30 in the morning so the large list of interested public was whittled down by people leaving during the 20 hours of ‘expert’ testimony. It is telling that proponents of the bill did not call either the US Attorney or the Texas Attorney General to testify about the amount of voter fraud that would be stopped by more restrictive ID requirements. The bill was passed by one vote in the Senate. There will be one more procedural vote and the bill will then go to the House.

Today a very heated debate began in the Texas legislature over a more robust Voter ID law than the state presently has. The new legislation would require a photo identification or the use of alternative forms of identification such as utility bills or bank statements on top of a voter registration card or other personal identification. The GOP will call witnesses to include officials from Georgia and Indiana, two of the states that require a photo identification. Democrats will be calling witnesses from civil rights organizations.

Al Franken’s attorneys, in Minnesota, have said they will probably rest their case tomorrow. ...

It has been called to my attention that when I speak about the issue of ‘Voter ID’ I really mean ‘Photo ID’. Most, if not all, states require that a voter show some form of ID when they go to the polls to vote. That is a requirement that makes sense and the ID can be in the form of a driver’s license, passport, or even a utility bill. A requirement for a ‘Photo ID’ requirement for voting, based on some unsubstantiated concerns about voter fraud, is the issue. ...

Voter ID news dominates today’s election news. Lawmakers in Mississippi are trying to figure out a way to revive a bill that the State Senate let die. In Oklahoma legislative hearings will be held next week. And in Texas members of the State Senate will be debating a bill next week. It appears likely that proponents of a Voter ID law will be using reports of voter impersonation from a 2008 Hidalgo Co. school board election as evidence of the need for a voter ID law. However opponents have found that these reports may have been manufactured and the state’s Attorney General may have been hiding these records so the proponents could use the evidence without any argument from the opponents. The AG has previously made statements about wide-spread voter fraud and voter impersonation but when these charges were investigated by the AG’s office they failed to find any but very technical violations and nothing at all that could be considered to be wide-spread.

Don’t forget to set your clock ahead for Daylight’s Savings Time tonight....

The large majority of this evenings news is, again, from Minnesota. This is a story that just keeps on giving. A month or so ago some were predicting a final decision as to whom is the Senator from Minnesota would not be made until sometime in April. It looks good for that prediction. Have A Good Weekend!...

A Diebold/Premier spokesman, Chris Riggall, has finally spoken about the California Secretary of State’s report on the discovery of violations of the accuracy standards required by federal law and violations of the voting systems standards. In our featured article Riggall shrugs off their violations by minimizing the report.

"I think it's fair, from our perspective, to say that the report editorializes in a number of ways that don't reflect the sort of even-handedness that one would like to see," Riggall said, adding that he sees the software error simply as a "contributing factor" to Humboldt County's inaccurate election results. "To say it caused it and to solely attribute that discrepancy to the software is, in our judgment, not accurate and not objective."

I say balderdash. Diebold knew they had a problem back in 2004 and they issued "work arounds." If they had a problem and knew it why did they not recall the software and provide good software in its place? Why did they not provide warnings and instructions in their operator’s manual? Why did they only send an email with a two paragraph attachment that didn’t even have the company’s logo on it? What did/does the company have to hide? How many elections nationally were affected before Diebold discovered the problem? How many elections were affected after Diebold sent their unofficial "work around"? ...

On the heels of yesterday’s announcement of a letter to the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) and a full report on the findings of an investigation by the California Secretary of State’s office, we have articles from Kim Zetter in her blog for Wired Magazine and one from one of the principles of the “Humboldt County Election Transparency Project,” Mitch Trachtenberg that is posted on The BRAD BLOG.

Yesterday I mentioned the letter sent by the Secretary of State to the EAC. In that letter is a request by Bowen that the EAC “consider requiring that, for every voting system certified by the EAC, the voting system vendor report any and all flaws and problems with the system to the EAC and to the elections officials in the states where the system is used when such flaws are discovered.” This morning I was reminded by a member of the EAC staff, who receives DVN, that in the “Testing and Certification Manual” the EAC already requires what the Secretary has suggested they require....

Yesterday, the California Secretary of State released a letter [PDF] to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) and a report of their findings with regards to the problem discovered in early December, in Humboldt Co., with disappearing ballots on the Diebold GEMS v. 1.18.19 voting system.

The letter actually challenges the EAC to take action in “requiring that, for every voting system certified by the EAC, the voting system vendor report any and all flaws and problems with the system to the EAC and to the elections officials in the states where the system is used when such flaws are discovered.” And Secretary Bowen has taken the action herself by sponsoring legislation in California that will do what she has challenged the EAC to do.

The report is amazing in that it reveals why our voting systems are failing. The issues with the GEMS software go much deeper than just the fact that the system may lose votes. The state also found readily apparent violations of the federal voting system standards. These violations seem to have been ignored by federal test labs, by the National Assoc. of State Election Directors (NASED), and their consultants who qualified the voting system for use, and by-passed CA Secretaries of State and their consultants.

The big question is, will the EAC, staffed by people who were involved in the original NASED “rubber-stamp” of GEMS 1.18.19, take any action? Will they post the letter and report it in their “clearinghouse?” We certainly hope so. The present CA Secretary of State, Debra Bowen, and her staff deserve congratulations and appreciation for a job well done so far. It will be interesting to hear what follow-up actions will now be taken on the federal and state levels....

Lots more from Minnesota today. The Coleman lawyers have rested and now it is the Franken camp’s turn to present their case. They claim they will not take as much time as Coleman’s side. Time will tell....

It has been a very slow news weekend. Hope it was good for you....

It appears that Florida is going to join the growing list of states that are thinking about using Internet voting for their military and overseas voters. This is a terrible idea that will end-up costing the tax payers of the state millions of dollars to stand-up the scheme and then millions more each year for licensing. One vendor’s proposal of the scheme would cost WA State’s 39 counties up to $570 per affected voter per year. So, any state falling for these con-jobs will end up paying millions of tax payer dollars for an insecure means of getting ballots back from UOCAVA voters. There are low-tech solutions that should be investigated before we go high-tech....

What is it about Sequoia’s spokesperson that she sits in court in New Jersey and then writes blog items about her opinion of what happened in court and those opinions are far from what really happened? Perhaps it is alright for her to spin the truth into something else in order to try to save the company from well deserved embarrassment? You always know when the disingenuous have no defense for the facts because they do all they can to attack the person who has the facts on their sides. Yesterday Sequoia posted another false blog item on their website and today, in our ‘Featured’ article, Professor Andrew Appel responds with the facts. ...

Was the 2006 RTA election in Pima Co. Arizona hacked? Did someone in local government actually get into the machines and change the vote totals? We may never know but the local Democratic and Republican Parties have joined forces in court along with some Election Integrity groups. They want to know the answer. The ballots have now been turned over to the state Attorney General’s office. The parties want a recount of those ballots. Will the AG do that? ...

EAC Commissioner Rosemary Rodriguez has tendered her resignation and will return to Colorado to be the State Director for Senator Michael Bennet. Commissioner Rodriguez joins ex-Commissioners Soaries and Martinez who resigned before their term was up and not, like ex-Commissioner Hunter, to take another job in DC.

Lawmakers in New Jersey have taken the state backwards as the State Senate agreed with the House that the state should scrap plans to provide any verifiability in their elections. A requirement signed into law a few years ago should have required a "Voter-verifiable Paper Audit Trail" [VVPAT] on all of the state’s Direct Recording Electronic [DRE] voting machines over a year ago. Instead the deadline has been a moving target and will now, with signature of the Governor, go away...