Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

Early voting started in Florida today. Tomorrow is primary election day in Alaska and Wyoming / It looks like officials in Auglaize Co. Ohio may have some problems responding to a new law suit that was filed today. They are accused, in part, of artificially swelling the voter rolls just to get a bigger piece of the HAVA funds pie./ Zogby will release a new poll tomorrow that shows that 92% of Americans Oppose Secret Vote Counting...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

Franklin Co. Ohio is planning on putting the results from each of their voting machines on-line for anyone to see. This will happen after all vote counting takes place and after the final canvass. They are also asking the County BoE for funds to do an independent hand-count of the paper ballots. Is this another attempt to discredit the vvpat and will Election Sciences Institute (ESI) do that hand-count? / ...

Guest Blogged by Winter Patriot

Your cold and humble blogger presents an assortment of clips from the war in Lebanon --- and on the home front --- since last weekend.

(And NO, I don't expect you to remember this, because some of it happened before they arrested what's-his-name? ... you know ... the guy who claims he ... um ... well ... you know what I mean, don't you?)

Saturday, August 12, 2006

BBC: Bush links Hezbollah and 'plot'

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

"There's a lot to be concerned about here," said Maryland Gov. Ehrlich recently about the state's Diebold TS voting machines. "I think the system is fabulous," said Linda Lamone, administrator for the state Board of Elections. "It's probably the most secure system in the country." / "Is it even possible to ensure the trustworthiness of the hardware and software in a voting system? My opinion is no," said David Dill, a professor of computer science at Stanford University and a critic of electronic voting. / "Basically, all election officials say, 'We're as pure as the driven snow, and nobody has ever cheated,' " said John Washburn, a Milwaukee software analyst. "It's the same as if you're a bank and you say, 'OK, I'm going to assume that my tellers will never steal money from the till.' "...

Guest Blogged by Winter Patriot

Still breathless after my appearance on the Peter B. Collins show
I might not be able to write much over the next day or two
The most recent open thread is a few days old
And it's not getting any younger
So ... here you go:

It's Open Thread Blogging At Its Best

Down By The BRAD BLOG
Down by the sea
On the green and yellow blog, baby
That's where I'll be ...

Oops! I almost forgot: I've got something musical for you to read. It's from the New York Times and the headline is kind of preposterous, but it's worth reading anyway. You can find it here ... or if that doesn't work, click here.

PS: I've got one more cold photo for you, here.

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

A recount was done in Georgia and, guess what? The results on the Diebold TS machines were the same the second time they were run-off as the first. It goes to show that computer memory does not change all by itself. That is all it proves because no one knows that these were really the people's votes; only the machines. / The ACLU filed a lawsuit in Missouri against the state's VoterID law. / Was the ESI/Cuyahoga Co. report just a sham to make the voter verified paper audit trail printers look as bad as possible? If so, some seem to believe that. ...

Guest bloged by Winter Patriot

If you've never heard a nearly frozen voice coming out of your radio --- or better yet, coming out of a series of tubes --- your chance is coming soon.

Your humble and very cold blogger will be speaking with Peter B. Collins this afternoon, beginning at 5pm Pacific time (that's 8 Eastern, 7 Central, 6 Mountain, and so on). I'll be filling in for Brad (who usually visits with Peter on Friday afternoons) and talking about "the thwarted alleged British-Pakistani simultaneous airline bombing plot".

I've written four articles for The BRAD BLOG about this alleged plot since last Thursday; here are the links in case you missed them the first time:

If you're in (or near) Monterey, Sacramento, Eureka or Phoenix, you can listen via broadcast radio. Otherwise you'll have to tune in to a streaming "tube-cast". Either way, click here for more details.

Peter's shows are archived, so if you can't catch us live you will be able to do so later. I'll keep you posted on that. But if you can join us live, we'd love to hear from you. Give us a call at 888-5PeterB ... that's 888-573-8372. And have a good question ready!

UPDATE: An audio record of my talk with Peter is now available online. In consideration of those readers with slow connections, I've broken the segment up into three files. Each is about 6 megabytes and plays for about 6 minutes. I hope you'll be able to download them without difficulty; I'll check the comments thread in case anyone has trouble.

Here you go:

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Regular BRAD BLOG readers will remember reading about Election Science Institute (ESI) and the report they prepared on the May 2 primary in Cuyahoga (Cleveland) County, because John Gideon blogged about it on Wednesday.

Also on Wednesday, at the Columbus Dispatch, Public Affairs reporter Mark Niquette and Senior editor Joe Hallett wrote about it too: Cleveland study questions accuracy of Diebold voting machines.

We have a few excerpts below the fold. We also have another piece, written by Mr. Niquette, which appeared on the front page of the Dispatch on Thursday, and in which the Dispatch asked for comments from readers.

I think Mr. Niquette and Mr. Hallett and their colleagues should hear from 6 or 7 green-and-yellow bloggers.

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

I did quite a bit of reading yesterday (British time) and I want to share some of the highlights (and lowlights) with you.

On the British news scene, everyone seemed to have new and different revelations, all from unnamed sources, and all presented in a manner which (if you'll pardon my French) exuded an aroma reminiscent of a seafood market.

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Jill Lawrence, writing in USA TODAY, looks at some hotly-contested races for positions that were once largely ignored: Top vote counter becomes prize job...

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Today (Thursday), in Detroit, a federal judge ruled that the illegal covert spying program put in place by the Bush administration is unconstitutional and ordered the administration to stop it immediately. But the administration has given every possible indication of its unwillingness to comply.

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

The big news today is still the ESI report on Cuyahoga Co. Ohio. Diebold claims the only flaws are in ESIs report. Democrats are asking for a complete investigation. Even the Republican candidate for SoS is asking for a complete inventory of Blackwell's office. / A press conference was held in Arizona yesterday with Congressmen Holt and Grijalva discussing future legislation on voting rights and vote administration / There may be a recount in the Nevada Republican 2nd Congressional District primary. It will be interesting to see how this turns out especially because the winning candidate is the SoS so the recount would be against him. ...

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

The next Ned Lamont is just across the Connecticut border in Massachusetts, where voting rights leader John Bonifaz is similarly taking on the Democratic Party establishment in his grassroots campaign for Secretary of State. Bonifaz, a Democrat who sued George Bush on the eve of the Iraq war on behalf of soldiers, families of soldiers and members of Congress trying to prevent the illegal invasion, squares off against the incumbent, Bill Galvin, on September 19.

But the Lamont connection runs even deeper. Bill Hillsman, the media guru who produced the winning ads for Lamont and Paul Wellstone, is eager to jump into the race on the Bonifaz campaign, which could be the final ingredient that puts John over the top. What John needs now is the financial support to make the Hillsman addition a reality --- and if he can raise $25,000 by August 23, it will happen.

Meeting this goal would lead to Hillsman joining the campaign through the primary and the production of ads that would be used on the air, on the web and as tools for further fundraising success. Please go to John’s web site today to help make this winning combination possible. Your contribution is vital. We must support Democrats who stand up against entrenched interests and stand up for our rights as voters.

Guest Blogged by John Gideon

Tonight Lou revisits the world of electronic voting in Ohio, where the evidence points to voting machine problems, but the vendors, especially Diebold, and the state want everyone to believe that the poll and election workers are just too dumb to do the work and all of the problems are their fault. For more on this story see the recent BRAD BLOG article regarding the Cuyahoga County investigation.

Here's a quick sample from the text transcript:

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

The text-transcript of tonight's segment on Lou Dobbs Tonight follows in full...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

Nearly 10 percent of Cuyahoga County's official ballots in the May 2 primary were "destroyed, blank, illegible, missing, taped together or otherwise compromised," according to a group hired by the county to investigate. But even when the paper receipts were legible in the May 2 primary, more than three-quarters of them listed vote tallies that did not match the electronic record in the touch-screen machines. ...