Congrats to all who have been working on this issue so tenaciously!

Brad, your work rocks, and is having a real impact. Citizens, your voices are critically important.

Of course, we all know that ES&S ain't no picnic, and we've got a lot of work left to do.

Black Box Voting

You tell the Brad Dad from me, he has a very Patriotic son

The lobbyist is looking for the secret funding from Soros, or something to Swiftboat you with

Charles Lindbergh has been dead for 31 years, but the "Spirit of St. Louis" lives! Hallelujah!

This is great news along with North Carolina!

As for the Dieblod lobbyist poking around here - FO&D

Or come back and get educated!

how much money is diebold losing by pulling out of north carolina (or any state for that matter)? thanks in advance for the information. happy holidays.

It IS odd --- to put it mildly --- that a company would prefer to lose millions of dollars in income rather than comply with state law and submit to inspection.

In another thread here, somebody wrote that the Las Vegas gambling establshment openly submits to inspection as a condition of business in that state. Why wouldn't Diebold? Have they given any plausible explanation that actually stand up to logic?

No one is asking them to post their so-called "proprietary secrets" on the web or in the newspaper, are they? My understanding was that there would be a select group of experts, sworn to honor trade secrets (or something like that) who would examine the code. Have they given any explanation as to why that isn't good enough?

Hey, what the hell is wrong with paper ballots? We use them here in Oregon and, to the best of my knowledge, we have pretty honest elections.
Oh, I get it, it's just too hard to get away with rigging elections with them.

Robert Mills -

I think your comment was well intended
but you need to do some research on
Lindy's politics.

Ah, it appears Lou Hamilton, Diebold's "purported representative" is yet just another Republican in sheep's clothing. The kind of clueless Democrat that dances with Republicans in the wrecking of this country. That ilk just can't conceive that there are some people who are actually altruistic and rise to a higher civic-minded and patriotic level that demands truth, and the notion of fair and honest elections where every vote is accurately cast and accurately counted. Life is more than selling out and making money for dubious enterprises--it's about the common good. Cheers to your father, and, cheers to you Brad! You've been a beacon during this dismal year and digging up the truth. Your work is outstanding.

According to DIEB-THROUGHT high level Diebold employees know about the fact their machines are hacked and intend to keep them that way, along with Clint Curtis code and so on.

I just want to see justice and convictions period. These slimes need to be off the streets, then ES&S can be dealt with and put in appropriate safeguards eliminating election fraud.

Doug

TXGIRL "It IS odd --- to put it mildly --- that a company would prefer to lose millions of dollars in income rather than comply with state law and submit to inspection."

VERY MILDLY for a smoking gun ...money talks ...and the dog didn't bark...

Excellent article. We're making progress thanks to BradBlog and BBV. Keep up the good work. You have made my Christmas holiday better. That deserves a financial contribution to your site! Peace.

Can anyone tell me--Does HAVA require electronic voting machines for the disabled at each polling place?
We have a small county--only 300 voters, on average, at each of 42 polling places. Yet, our county is purchasing ES&S optical scanners with AutoMark which we can't afford.
The county clerk & the local board of elections say we CAN'T use paper ballots & hand counting anymore because HAVA requires the electronic machines for the disabled, & they are so expensive that we need to use them for all voters since we can't afford to use 2 different systems.
I called the Illinois state board of elections & couldn't get a straight answer. I called the commission that oversees HAVA (the same commission that the GAO report complained about) & they said the same as the county clerk.
Does anyone have the scoop?

When in doubt, call on Ron Popeil. Ronco can design a "set it and forget it" system that will accurately tabulate votes, all while roasting a turkey and steaming veggies. Yumm-ay! Comes with a ginsu too i think.

RLM-

I doubt Grennels knew he was upbraiding the author of a book on Lindbergh. Interesting info.

I found the decision by the City of St.Louis to sign with Deibold kind of humorous. As a 45-year inhabitant of St. Louis, I'd say the city government isn't exactly reknowned for honesty or intelligence, so perhaps it was a 'birds of a feather' kind of decision. Yet, a quandary exists: how on earth is Diebold going to deliver St.Louis to the Republicans?? I mean, is there an elected Republican ANYWHERE in the city government??

We here in St. Louis County thank you and your father for your commitment to fair and balanced voting. We want nothing like the fiasco that surrounded the 2000 vote in St. Louis City, which probably cost John Ashcroft his seat in the Senate (and made him available to serve as Attorney General).

We want our votes counted fairly so we can keep electing conservatives like Jim Talent and Todd Akin.

Derek #19

It matters not the candidate, what matters for the purpose of this movement, is the vote handling.

Your candidate deserves to have all votes cast for him or her counted exactly, fairly, openly, and honestly. The same for my candidate.

It is not "may the best man win", it is "may the best election on the face of the planet take place".

And "best" is described NOT by who won, but instead by "who played fair, honest, and openly".

It is a fit for the reputation Americans were once known to have.

That is what we want.

Greaqt article, as always. But it wasn't until I was well into the post that I knew whether you were talking about the St. Louis county in Missouri or in Minnesota. And that was only becasue of the mention of the newspaper and St. Louis the city. Many states have counties, and even towns, with the same name. Can you include the state when you mention locales so there's no ambiguity?

I've always had concerns...

Diebold lose the contract... ES&S (aka Diebold II) pick them up.

Weren't these two companies linked through certain staff or founders?

You are doing a great service to our country. Now on yhe other hand, don't any of you see the connection between es&s and diebold. Just happens brothers control both companies and more?

CHARLENE #14 asked, "Can anyone tell me--Does HAVA require electronic voting machines for the disabled at each polling place?"

This is one of the most important posts on this website.

The answer is NO!

Electronic voting machines for the disabled are NOT a requirement of HAVA. Disinformation has been spread widely on this subject, whether intentionally or not.

The EAC has confirmed in writing that HAVA does NOT require any machinery at all. They go so far to say that paper ballots are acceptable, when used in conjuction with a method that makes the ballot-marking accessible to the disabled. Votersunite.org have information about such a device that is HAVA compliant without requiring the use of any electronic voting machines at all.

The AutoMARK is a compromise, in that it uses electronics but it only marks a paper ballot--it doesn't count them. (So the counting can be done by hand to avoid the risks of using optical scan machines which can be easily hacked.)

If you go onto BBV and use the Advanced Search feature you should find some links to the EAC text where they formally clarified what HAVA does, and does not, require. Or if someone else reading this can supply the link that would be most helpful.

We need people like you to take the EAC text to the state and county Boards of Elections, together with the info from VotersUnite, so that election officials are informed about HAVA's requirements and the very broad range of ways they can be met.

By the way, most of the electronic equipment that is being bought, supposedly because of HAVA, is actually not HAVA compliant! (More about that is at BBV.)

Cathrine A #24

I think this is The Document you are refering to.

For Grennels: My "Spirit of St. Louis" remark was merely a reference to the name of Lindy's plane, not to his politics.

For the record, he was not a right-winger in the modern sense of the word. An isolationist, yes, but no Nazi. Lindbergh was very naive to allow himself to be duped by the Third Reich into praising their air machine in 1936, and his free associations with Alexis Carrel and Henry Ford makes it easy to view him as an anti-Semite. I don't believe he was. Anne's 1940 book, "The Wave of the Future," is responsible for much of the anti-Semite talk, but she was motivated more by pacifism than politics in writing it.

It's easy to forget how strong American sentiment against "bailing out Europe again" was in the 1930s.
The Lindberghs' positions only seem radical using hindsight. In "The Lindbergh Syndrome" I point out that F.D.R. let Chamberlain handle Munich alone in 1938. How risky would it have been to send a few American diplomats, so that Hitler would know we were at least aware of things? F.D.R. sat it out, knowing how isolationistic the American mood was at the time, yet history has recorded him as a hero of World War II while Chamberlain is remembered as the great "appeaser." Very unfair, I say.

Both Lindberghs were pacifists at heart. In "Of Flight and Life" (1948) Charles wrote, "The bombing of Hiroshima was as close to real science as the Inquisition was to the Sermon on the Mount."
He opposed the Vietnam War, and became a rabid envrionmentalist late in his life. I promise you, Grennels, if Lindbergh were alive today, he'd be no friend of the neo-cons or of George W. Bush.

JustMatt - My apologies for leaving the word "Missouri" out errantly, I'll go back and fix that. I usually name the state, but this time, likely overlooked it since I'm a former St. Louisan and probably took it for granted

Charlene - Hope you received the answers to you questions from the other commenters above! I'll try to drop you an email just to make sure, however.

John McCullough - Yes, as I've tried to point out, ES&S is certainly not off the hook. But we only have resources at BRAD BLOG to focus laser-like on one step at a time. There are many stones in this wall, and I'm aware of all of them, and intend to focus on each as best I can given the lack of manpower/time/money, etc. available here. We're fighting a financial goliath in Diebold and the others, so not able to do as much, all at the same time, as I might otherwise like.

But suffice to say, *nothing* and *nobody* is escaping my attention.

A path is built one stone at a time...

Catherine-

Technically, it should not and CAN NOT be HAVA compliant if it does not accomodate the disabled- period.

So far only paper ballots & AutoMark really handle every disabled person fairly so there should be NOTHING ELSE IN USE FOR HAVA is my belief until the investigations are complete.

Just get rid of the voting machines.

Doug

"Just get rid of the voting machines" sounds great to me. Canada doesn't use them, and it counts all the votes within a couple of days. Election fraud isn't a problem there.

It might take a couple of weeks here to count paper ballots, but the Electoral College doesn't meet until December. Fraud is still possible with paper ballots, as Rep. Jerrold Nadler pointed out at the Conyers hearing in D.C. on 11/8/04. But at least the corporations would be out of the mix.

That might be the sticky wicket. MacPherson's change of heart in California might reflect just how politically powerful voting machine companies are. Our best hopes in this area are Debra Bowen and the class-action suits against Diebold, which will assert the power of civil law over political influence.

Doug,

It's also my impression that only paper ballots (with special aids for disabled voters that already exist), and AutoMARK are truly HAVA compliant.

Robert LM #28

There are quite a few postings at BBV about cost and timing of counting paper ballots in US elections. It's not an obstacle. The time, personnel and cost factors are easily quantified, so you hire the number of people you need to count depending on the number of elections and issues on the ballot. Do the counting in the polling place. A few hours should be all that's needed.

The procedures for doing this exist. It is not rocket science. It would cost considerably less than any of the electronic options.

It's the electronic machines that are giving us weeks without election results, dodgy election results, and results about which we can never be confident.

Hand-counted paper ballots would be faster, cheaper and far more reliable.

The question is, do legislators from either main party actually want elections that reliably express the will of the voters? So far the answer seems to be No.

Bluebear 2 #25

Yes and No. The Mythbreakers is one of the most important documents re: HAVA. And IIRC in an appendix they have info about devices that can help disabled voters fill out a standard paper ballot, thus satisfying HAVA.

I was hoping to find the link for Charlene where the EAC explicitly stated that paper ballots can be HAVA compliant (e.g. no electronics are required by HAVA). This, together with the info in Mythbreakers, is what Charlene needs to show her local election officials.

Thanks again Brad

"These wars in Europe are not wars in which our civilization is defending itself against some Asiatic intruder... This is not a question of banding together to defend the white race against foreign invasion." Building on his belief that "racial strength is vital," Lindbergh published an article in Reader's Digest stating, "That our civilization depends on a Western wall of race and arms which can hold back... the infiltration of inferior blood."

Maybe not a Nazi but hardly a progrssive icon.

"These wars in Europe are not wars in which our civilization is defending itself against some Asiatic intruder... This is not a question of banding together to defend the white race against foreign invasion." Building on his belief that "racial strength is vital," Lindbergh published an article in Reader's Digest stating, "That our civilization depends on a Western wall of race and arms which can hold back... the infiltration of inferior blood."

Maybe not a Nazi but hardly a progrssive icon.

Lou Hamilton's hamiltoninc.com site is no longer up, but it's still archived at the wayback machine.

http://web.archive.org/web/*hh_/hamiltoninc.com/