Voting Fraud News

Monday 5/12/2008

Voter ID Battle Shifts to Proof of Citizenship 5/12/2008 NYT: "The measure would allow far more rigorous demands than the voter ID requirement recently upheld by the Supreme Court, in which voters had to prove their identity with a government-issued card. Sponsors of the amendment — which requires the approval of voters to go into effect, possibly in an August referendum — say it is part of an effort to prevent illegal immigrants from affecting the political process. Critics say the measure could lead to the disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of legal residents who would find it difficult to prove their citizenship. Voting experts say the Missouri amendment represents the next logical step for those who have supported stronger voter ID requirements and the next battleground in how elections are conducted. Similar measures requiring proof of citizenship are being considered in at least 19 state legislatures. Bills in Florida, Kansas, Oklahoma and South Carolina have strong support. But only in Missouri does the requirement have a chance of taking effect before the presidential election."

Wednesday 5/7/2008

Drug pilot, election exec killed on CIA plane 5/7/2008 Mad Cow Morning News: "The downed plane's relevance to the ongoing story of vote fraud in America involves the identity of it's passenger, Jose Alfredo Anzola, a 34-year old founder of Smartmatic, a Venezuela-based election company whose American subsidiary counted one in every three votes in the 2004 Presidential election, while engaged the whole time in heated controversy over allegations the firm counting America's votes had hidden ties to—of all people— Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez. The connection between last week's plane crash and the ongoing saga of CIA Drug trafficking begins with 43-year old Mario Donadi Gafaro, the veteran drug pilot at the controls of the twin engine plane."

Monday 5/5/2008

1.1 Million Purged from Indiana Voter Registration Rolls According to State Data, Says BBV - ALSO: Unverifiable, Decertified, Virus-Prone, Failed E-Voting Systems Set for Use in Hoosier State Primary Tomorrow… 5/5/2008 Brad Blog

Sunday 5/4/2008

One million purged - The Incredible Disappearing Indiana Voter Rolls 5/4/2008 Black Box Voting: "One quarter-million of them come from just two northwestern Indiana counties: Lake and Porter. Lake County reports purging 137,164 voters and neighboring Porter County cancelled out 124,958 voters. Lake County, the home of Gary, Indiana, has spawned the Jackson Five and a great old musical (The Music Man) and and has been referred to as "the second most liberal county in America." Lake County has one of the heaviest concentrations of African-American voters that you'll find anywhere in the USA. Nearby Porter County, the home of Valparaiso, is 95% white and went solidly for Bush in the 2004 election. It also has a lot of college kids."

Wednesday 4/30/2008

FACING SOUTH EXCLUSIVE: D.C. nonprofit aimed at women voters behind deceptive N.C. robo-calls 4/30/2008 Facing South: "First, a quick recap: As we covered yesterday, N.C. residents have reported receiving peculiar automated calls from someone claiming to be "Lamont Williams." The caller says that a "voter registration packet" is coming in the mail, and the recipient can sign it and mail it back to be registered to vote. No other information is provided. The call is deceptive because the deadline has already passed for mail-in registrations for North Carolina's May 6 primary. Also, many who have received the calls -- like Kevin Farmer in Durham, who made a tape of the call that is available here -- are already registered. The call's suggestion that they're not registered has caused widespread confusion and drawn hundreds of complaints, including many from African-American voters who received the calls. The calls are also probably illegal. Farmer and others have told Facing South the calls use a blocked phone number and provided no contact information -- a violation of North Carolina rules regulating "robo-calls" (N.C. General Statute 163-104(b)(1)c). N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper further stated in a recent memo that the identifying information must be clear enough to allow the recipient to "complain or seek redress" -- something not included in the calls."

Monday 4/28/2008

As Election Nears, Supreme Court Upholds Repressive Voter ID Law 4/28/2008 Alternet: "The Court's 6–3 opinion in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, widely considered the most important voting rights case since Bush v. Gore, recognized that ID laws may have negative impact, even when there is not sufficient evidence to find them unconstitutional. As six Justices agreed, Indiana's law places a heavier burden on some eligible citizens, particularly elderly and low-income persons who could be blocked from voting without the proper documentation. The Brennan Center urged lawmakers to heed the disenfranchising impacts of ID laws acknowledged in today's decision."

Thursday 4/24/2008

'Daily Voting News' For April 24, 2008 4/24/2008 Brad Blog: "What happened in Pennsylvania and what can be done about it? All indications, outside of the main stream media, are that there were problems all over the state with voting systems. There were many anecdotal reports of vote flipping and other machines failures that never made it into the media. State election officials from the Secretary of State on down seem to have misrepresented the facts as they talked about the “scattered” problems and the media reported that propaganda. The state needs to do an honest appraisal of their voting systems and decide whether the status quo is more important than the voter’s voices."

PA's Primary Results Website Listed Obama Three Times, With Three Differing Totals on Election Night 4/24/2008 Brad Blog

Wednesday 4/23/2008

Dirty Tricks" We know who really won....… 4/23/2008 Blog on BarackObama.com: "Six of ten machines were down at a busy Delaware County polling site. It took 103 people 8 hours to vote in Upper Darby, which is heavily populated by immigrant and first time voters. Many of those freshly-minted voters had difficulties using the six machines that still functioned. "Hell of a day for six of the machines to go down," said one poll worker. In South Philadelphia, voting machines were broken at 4th and Ritner, smack dab in the middle of a Obama strong hold. "The dirty tricks have begun," said John Lucas, spokesman for the election board, who sees a conspiracy… At these two sites, election judges, clerks and inspectors, all nominally paid volunteers, initially were unable to print out verification that the voting machines had been set at zero. A technician was dispatched to each location and helped to properly set up the machines,upon further inspection machines had been manipulated and set with 500 to 1500 votes calibrated to Clinton. Only 30 people in Banksville and several more in North Braddock could use emergency paper ballots to cast their votes, "30 ballots for an entire district" If that's not fraud, i don't know what is. Heavily black districts didn't have any ballots at all just broken or defective machines that didn't work."

Hillary Clinton: The Luckiest Woman in the World 4/23/2008 Brad Blog: "Well...not necessarily "dramatically", since election integrity organizations observing and fielding calls from voters yesterday in PA reported that "problems with voting machines and inaccurate voter registration rolls caused countless eligible voters to be needlessly refused the right to vote." But "countless" doesn't necessarily translate into one-tenth of a percent! So the computers reported that she won --- whether dramatically or not --- beyond a shadow of a doubt in both states! Well...beyond a shadow of a doubt may be an overstatement, since in Pennsylvania, it's not as if the officials there could actually prove that any vote cast yesterday for a candidate on the ballot on any of the 85% of the states votes recorded on electronic machines, was actually cast or recorded as any voter intended. But still...even with a 100% dearth of actual evidence to prove that Clinton won, much less by a comfortable, well, a one-tenth of a percent margin large enough to quality as "double-digit" for the most of the media...well, you must admit that she's a very very lucky woman, and you can't prove otherwise either!"

Sunday 4/20/2008

Election Fraud in Pennsylvania? 4/20/2008 Scoop, New Zealand: "Citizens want to know that the candidate taking office is the same candidate who won a majority or a plurality of the votes. A 2006 Zogby poll of 1018 registered voters nationwide found that 92% believed that they, as citizens, have the right to witness vote counting for the election of their paid public servants. That will not be the case in Pennsylvania any more than it was the case in Florida, Ohio, California, South Carolina, and most other primary states. Almost all states bar any real inspection of vote counting, the process that determines the election result. Even if they did allow you to watch the count, all you would see is a whirring third-rate computer system run by a private company that won't allow anyone to take a comprehensive look inside. Post election audits are either absent or randomly selected by the people who run the election. Recounts require an exceptionally close election, less than a 1% difference typically. And citizen recounts after the election, where paper records exist, are barred by law in Florida and Virginia and barred almost everywhere else by bureaucratic fiat."

Tuesday 4/15/2008

How Republicans Quietly Hijacked the Justice Department to Swing Elections 4/15/2008 Alternet: "Jim Crow has returned to American elections, only in the twenty-first century, instead of men in white robes or a barrel-chested sheriff menacingly patrolling voting precincts, we are more likely to see a lawyer carrying a folder filled with briefing papers and proposed legislation about "voter fraud" and other measures to supposedly protect the sanctity of the vote. Since the 2004 election, activist lawyers with ties to the Republican Party and its presidential campaigns, Republican legislators, and even the Supreme Court -- in a largely unnoticed ruling in 2006 -- have been aggressively regulating most aspects of the voting process. Collectively, these efforts are undoing the gains of the civil rights era that brought voting rights to minorities and the poor, groups that tend to support Democrats."

Monday 3/31/2008

Texas Prosecutes Little Old Ladies for Voter Fraud 3/31/2008 Alternet: "State's Attorney General has prosecuted Democrats who help seniors vote by mail while ignoring documented Republican ballot box stuffing."

Thursday 3/20/2008

E-voting vendor's Web site hacked - Sequoia's e-voting machines have come under fire from N.J. election officials 3/20/2008 Computerworld

Tuesday 3/18/2008

Voting-Machine Maker to Princeton Researcher: ‘Hands Off’ 3/18/2008 WSJ: "Princeton Professor Edward Felten astonished Congress and increased doubts about electronic voting two years ago when he showed a House committee how easily he could open a Diebold touch-screen machine, insert new software and alter vote totals. Now, Sequoia Voting Systems, the other large voting-machine maker, has sent Felten an email suggesting legal action if he tries the same thing on its equipment. Felten, a computer scientist, said the Constitutional Officers Association of New Jersey approached him after about 60 Sequoia voting machines across the state seemed to malfunction during the state’s Feb. 5 primary. ...Voting equipment makers have frequently used proprietary-rights arguments to prevent researchers from testing the security of their equipment."

Friday 3/7/2008

Statewide trend lifts Clinton - She overcomes Obama's strength in urban areas 3/7/2008 Cincinnati Enquirer: [some of the voting patterns described here are considered suspicious and indicative of fraud.]

Tuesday 3/4/2008

Will Ohio have its own 'Butch & Hoppy Show'?  3/4/2008 Black Box Voting

Rep. Heather Wilson Accused of Felony Vote-Buying in New Mexico; Reporter Quits After News Director Scrubs Story  3/4/2008 Brad Blog: "New Mexico's ABC field producer and KKOB afternoon drive news reporter, Laura MacCallum, a 32-year news veteran, has quit her job after her story on an alleged vote-buying scheme by Republican Rep. Heather Wilson at the recent delegate nominating convention in Bernalillo County, New Mexico was scrubbed from her station's website by the News Director after allegedly pressure from Wilson."

Reports Emerge of Diebold Failures in Montgomery County, Ohio  3/4/2008 Brad Blog: "The ever-necessary caveat: Most problems and failures with election systems don't fully begin to reveal themselves until the night of, and more often, the days and weeks following the elections."

Tell us if you have voted and what the experience was like.  3/4/2008 Dayton Daily News: "Arrived at 6:35 AM at Harrison Twp voting precint D to vote. About 40-50 people in line and 1 of the voting machine were down. Waited to 7:00 AM and the line didn’t move 3 more machine went down, now 4 0f the 8 machine not working. The poll worker didn’t offer paper ballot and seemed overhelmed by the process. Let get rid of these Diebold machines and get something that works! I will be back tonite to vote, hope the machines are working by then.Go Obama!"

Monday 3/3/2008

KKOB Radio News Anchor Laura MacCallum Quits After Station Pulls Stories About Alleged Republican Vote-Buying Efforts 3/3/2008 F-Brilliant

Diebold Receives a Takeover Offer 3/3/2008 NYT: "The United Technologies Corporation made public on Sunday an unsolicited $3 billion bid for Diebold, one of the largest makers of automated teller machines and voting machines. United Technologies, which first approached Diebold two years ago, initially made the offer in private on Friday. The bid amounts to $40 a share in cash, or a 66 percent premium over Diebold’s closing price on Friday of $24.12, United Technologies said." [UTC is a defense contractor.]

Saturday 2/16/2008

NY Times: 0-bama at as Many as 80 'Heavily Black' New York City Precincts  2/16/2008 Brad Blog: "For the moment, the New York Times offers little evidence for anything, even while it draws a bead on those big nasty lever voting machines (NY is one the last places in the country to still use them), as somehow the root of the problem, as exacerbated by "human error", of course. It's worth noting here that Election Integrity folks in New York have been in the midst of a pitched battle with the state, NYC, and even the Dept. of Justice as they try to ensure that NY's move to "upgraded" voting systems will include paper ballot systems. Notable then, is a graphic that runs along with the Times article (reposted at bottom of this article) explaining how tallies are collected from NY's lever machines and then --- for some reason --- collected on a computer. Those tallies are then given to Associated Press (instead of to election officials), which demonstrates that yes, computers do come into play in NY's system, and could as well be the root of the problem, along with human error, bad lever machines, or anything else."

Unofficial Tallies in City Understated Obama Vote  2/16/2008 NYT: "Black voters are heavily represented in the 94th Election District in Harlem’s 70th Assembly District. Yet according to the unofficial results from the New York Democratic primary last week, not a single vote in the district was cast for Senator Barack Obama. Counting the Results That anomaly was not unique. In fact, a review by The New York Times of the unofficial results reported on primary night found about 80 election districts among the city’s 6,106 where Mr. Obama supposedly did not receive even one vote, including cases where he ran a respectable race in a nearby district. City election officials this week said that their formal review of the results, which will not be completed for weeks, had confirmed some major discrepancies between the vote totals reported publicly — and unofficially — on primary night and the actual tally on hundreds of voting machines across the city. In the Harlem district, for instance, where the primary night returns suggested a 141 to 0 sweep by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, the vote now stands at 261 to 136. In an even more heavily black district in Brooklyn — where the vote on primary night was recorded as 118 to 0 for Mrs. Clinton — she now barely leads, 118 to 116."

Harlem Mystery: Did Rangel's District Go for Barack Obama?  2/16/2008 The Nation: "No one is suggesting that Rangel did anything wrong. There are many explanations for why vote counts are off, and there are many players in the process -- and Rangel is one of the more honorable of the lot. What New Yorkers should be asking for, however, is a complete review of the results in New York City, with a heavy focus not just on the 80 election district where Obama supposedly received no votes but also on those where it appears that his vote was far below the level of support that he received in surrounding districts -- and that might reasonably be expected."

Thursday 2/14/2008

Obama's Biggest Opposition is not Clinton: It's Overcoming Voter Suppression 2/14/2008 Black Commentator: "Is California the “new” Florida? That’s what many voters are asking after the nation’s largest state, California, was engaged in a massive voter dispute around “Decline To States" (DTS) voters (what the rest of the nation commonly refers to as Independent voters) in last week’s primary election. While the political pundits and delegate “bean counters” called the state for Clinton 20 minutes after the polls closed, it was learned that hundreds of thousands of California’s independent voters were not being counted. California has over 700,000 “decline to state” voters – some 94,000 who voted in Los Angeles County alone, and were allowed to vote in the state’s Democratic Primary. It was disclosed at the end of Election Day that if DTS voters failed to punch a bubble at the top of their ballots, their vote wouldn’t count. Well, there was only one problem with that - most poll workers didn’t inform voters that it was necessary to do so. Invariably, most did not (including myself). Now they’re telling us our vote won’t count - not in 1868, or 1968 - but in 2008. I don’t think so… Funny how when change shows up so does oppression and repression. Or in this case, suppression."

Tuesday 2/12/2008

No more dirty tricks! Join Courage Campaign, the New York Times and the Netroots in opposing the right-wing theft of the White House on June 3, 2008 2/12/2008 Courage Campaign: "By signing below, I am adding my name to thousands of citizens across America who oppose the so-called "Presidential Election Reform Act" and the Swift Boat-style dirty tricksters using it to steal the White House. This dangerous initiative, if passed on June 3, 2008, would dictate that California divide up its electoral college votes by congressional district, resulting in the Republican theft of at least 20 electoral votes in November's general election -- the equivalent of Ohio."

Monday 2/11/2008

When is a Delegate Not a Delegate? Lessons for Barack Obama 2/11/2008 Counterpunch: "Take Alabama. On February 5, Super Tuesday, Obama won that primary in convincing fashion by a margin of nearly 20 points. But when the dust settled, he and Hillary Clinton ended up with an equal number of pledged delegates from the state. Why? The delegates were proportioned according to the votes in the state's 7 congressional districts and like all such political real estate in the USA, these districts have been gerrymandered to corral the black vote in as small a number of districts as possible. Result, Obama won 83 per cent of the black vote, but the those numbers were concentrated in two or three districts so even though Obama ran up 70-30 triumphs and Hillary battled to 55 to 45 margins of victory, the count at the end of the day gave them the same number of delegates each."

Sunday 2/3/2008

Fraud reports 2/3/2008 Black Box Voting: numerous reports of possible fraud

CBS: Little e-voting accountability on Super Tuesday 2/3/2008 Raw Story: "Democratic House Representative Rush D. Holt, Jr. (NJ-12) talks to CBS about the lack of accountability put on electronic voting machines whose results are impossible to verify. As California, Colorado and Florida join Ohio in plans already in place to abandon touch-screen voting machines, Rep. Holt proposes appropriating $500 million to states that wish to convert either to paper ballots, or electronic machines that also leave a paper trail. While it's too late for such a change to take place for Super Tuesday's vote, Holt would like for such an option to be available in time for the final presidential vote this November."

Wednesday 1/30/2008

How Easily Offices Are Stolen in the US by Pat LaMarche 1/30/2008 Common Dreams: "My Green Party running mate David Cobb and I didn’t recount Ohio because we thought maybe they would find enough votes to prove we had won. (Though it’s pretty awe inspiring to lose by 58 million votes to a man who shot his friend in the face.) No, we recounted Ohio because voter tampering took place and ordinary people had their most precious democratic possession stolen from them: their right to vote."

Saturday 1/26/2008

Democrats Pass on Challenge to Secret Vote Counting in South Carolina 1/26/2008 People's Voice: "Article II, § 1 of the Constitution of South Carolina states, “the ballots shall not be counted in secret.” No one can see a computer count, and therefore, computers count in secret and using computers to count votes in secret violates South Carolina’s Constitution! "

Thursday 1/24/2008

New Hampshire Sec. of State Appears to Lie to Media About Kucinich Hand Count 1/24/2008 Brad Blog

How did Hillary steal New Hampshire? 1/24/2008 Ryter Report

Wednesday 1/23/2008

'Funds Ran Out': Kucinich Hand Count Stops in NH; Republican Albert Howard's NH Hand Count Set to Begin Thursday 1/23/2008 Brad Blog: "We've confirmed with Kucinich campaign rep David Bright, who was in Concord this morning, that they have indeed stopped counting as of today, after only a single county, and not even fully at that. We're trying to learn more, and will reserve full comment until we do. Suffice it to say that given the many miscounts being discovered, the horrendous shape of NH's "chain of custody", the refusal of the SoS to allow for the counting/reconciliation of unvoted (blank) ballots, the Diebold memory cards which seem to be missing and/or destroyed since the election (in violation of federal law), it would be disappointing, at best, if Kucinich failed to finish what he so appropriately began."

Kucinich Letter Cites Miscounts in NH, Requests State Carry Out 'Complete and Accurate Recount of All Ballots' 1/23/2008 Brad Blog: "Democratic Presidential Candidate Details 'Significant Percentage Variances,' from 4 to 10%, Discovered So Far During Hand Counts as Paid for by His Campaign. SoS Downplays Mistallies After One County Counted: No Changes 'As Far as Where the Candidates Finished'…"

Tuesday 1/22/2008

NH Election Contest Update: 7.5% Vote Count Discrepancy Found in Nashua, Ward 5 for Clinton, Edwards 1/22/2008 Brad Blog

Monday 1/21/2008

Speak Out Now To Protect the Integrity Of Our Democracy! 1/21/2008 John Laesch for Congress, Illinois: "Representative Rush Holt (D-NJ) has introduced the "Emergency Assistance for Secure Elections Act of 2008". This act will help election authorities using e-voting to convert to paper ballots, offer emergency paper ballots or convert audits by hand counts. We want to make sure that every vote is counted, that every election result is verifiable. According to Holt, there are six states that have no verifiable paper trail and counties in 16 other states have the same problem. That means 20 states cannot fully verify their votes in the primaries or the November Presidential election. This is no way to run a Democracy. This legislation needs to be passed immediately to protect our elections! Our democracy can only be as strong as the integrity of our elections. It is critical that we support Rep. Holt?s legislation. Citizens need to know that their vote will be counted, and that they can trust our electoral process. The one click form below will send your personal message to all your government representatives selected below, with the subject "Pass The Emergency Assistance for Secure Elections Act of 2008." At the same time you can send your personal comments only as a letter to the editor of your nearest local daily newspaper if you like."

Sunday 1/20/2008

Obama campaign cites Nevada vote irregularities 1/20/2008 AFP

Saturday 1/19/2008

Weather, Voting Machine Issues Dog SC  1/19/2008 AP

Obama Camp: Nevada Caucuses "Discredited"  1/19/2008 Huffington Post

Bill Clinton says he witnessed voter suppression  1/19/2008 Politico

Friday 1/18/2008

Md. to abandon touch-screen voting 1/18/2008 AP: "The state will abandon the touch-screen voting machines that have sparked years of protests and replace the system with devices that permit a manual recount. Maryland purchased the machines in the wake of the 2000 Florida election. They have been criticized as unreliable and susceptible to tampering. Gov. Martin O'Malley has proposed $6.8 million to buy optical-scan machines, which can read paper ballots filled in by voters with pencil or pen. But the new machines will not be available until 2010. That's too late for this year's presidential primary or general election."

Thursday 1/17/2008

NH Recount Finds Vote Count Errors 1/17/2008 Alternet

Wednesday 1/16/2008

RON PAUL: SOUTH CAROLINA PRIMARY IS ALREADY STOLEN  1/16/2008 CNN Lou Dobbs: "Those voting machines do not have a paper trail."

The Winning Ticket: Hillary and Diebold in 2008  1/16/2008 Global Research: “The Diebold ballot printing plant at the time we got records on the overages (that is, more ballots than needed for election; MW) was being run by a convicted felon who had spent four years in prison on a narcotics trafficking charge. No, not New Hampshire's voting machine programming exec Ken Hajjar, who cut a plea deal in 1990 for his role in cocaine distribution. This was another convicted felon, John Elder, who ran the Diebold ballot printing plant; he's now an elections consultant.”

GOP Figure Contracted to Deliver E-Voting Machines in Maryland  1/16/2008 Wired: [Highlights chain of custody issue which has not received the attention it merrits in the NH primary.]

Tuesday 1/15/2008

It’s Culinary vs. everyone else in labor spat 1/15/2008 Las Vegas Sun

Monday 1/14/2008

Hillary Clinton's Dirty Campaign Tactics  1/14/2008 Alternet: "But on the ground in the presidential season's opening states, there is a darker narrative: that Hillary Clinton will not just fight hard, but fight dirty, to win. And her tactic of choice is attempting to suppress the votes of her rival's supporters. The latest example is from Nevada, where the Nevada State Education Association is widely seen as filing a suit on Clinton's behalf to stop Las Vegas' most powerful union, Culinary Workers Local 226, from caucusing inside downtown casinos after the union endorsed Barack Obama. The tactic foments a split along racial and class lines in arguably the strongest union city in America."

Voter ID Scam Is the Real Fraud  1/14/2008 Baltimore Sun: "The GOP-led campaign to pass stringent voter ID laws is a greater injustice than the prosecutions of the Jena Six, more significant than the incarceration of Michael Vick, more damaging than the insulting rants of Don Imus. This is a frankly brazen effort to block the votes of thousands of people of color who might have the temerity to vote for Democrats. And it’s un-American. As happened in several states, including Georgia, the then-GOP-dominated Indiana legislature pushed through a rigid law in 2005 requiring state-sponsored photo IDs at the ballot box. While the Republican spin machine has worked mightily to portray this as an effort to curb voter fraud, it is no such thing. There has never - never - been a single case of “voter impersonation” at the ballot box, with a fake voter using an electric bill or phone bill to pretend to be a valid voter."

European press: It wasn't a miracle - Hillary won via a rigged vote  1/14/2008 Global Research: "The mainstream Italian media are reporting both the rigging of the New Hampshire primary for Senator Hillary Clinton and the official demands for a swift, accurate and impartial recount. In an article written by Marcello Foa, one of Europe's most respected journalists, it appears that vote tallies for all Democratic candidates as well as Republicans were reduced by Diebold vote-counting machines. In an analysis of the hand-counted ballots, the influential Milanese newspaper - Il Giornale, reports that all Democratic candidates except Senator Hillary Clinton made gains when the New Hampshire ballots were manually tabulated, while Senator Clinton made inexplicably large gains where ballots were tabulated by computerized scanners. According to the report, Ron Paul should have finished third in the Republican primary rather than fifth. Thus, it would appear that both Barack Obama and Ron Paul were the primary targets of vote-rigging operations in New Hampshire."

Friday 1/11/2008

On top of all the NH vote anomalies, this is the WHOPPER  1/11/2008 Buzzflash: "Analysts at the Election Defense Alliance (EDA) have confirmed that based on the official results on the New Hampshire Secretary of state web site, there is a remarkable relationship between Obama and Clinton votes, when you compare votes tabulated by op-scan v. votes tabulated by hand: The percentages are exactly opposite and match to within .0001%. Optical Scan Clinton 91,717 52.9507% Obama 81,495 47.0493% Total 173,212 Hand Counted Clinton 20,889 47.0494% Obama 23,509 52.9506% Total 44,398"

More Questions About Diebold Voting Machines - Did Hillary Really Win New Hampshire?  1/11/2008 Counterpunch: "That is what some people are wondering, after looking closely at the totals in the votes for surprise Democratic primary victor Hillary Clinton, and for Barack Obama, who placed instead of winning as all the polls had predicted he would. And thanks to candidate Dennis Kucinich, we are likely to find out. Kucinich today filed a request, and a required $2000 fee, to order up a manual recount of the machine ballots cast in the state."

The Voter ID Fraud  1/11/2008 The Nation: "The case is called Crawford v. Marion County Election Board. It tests an Indiana statute, passed in 2005, requiring voters to present a government-issued ID before they can cast a ballot. The law is aimed at alleged fraudulent voting by unregistered or noncitizen voters. Republicans insist that these voters pose a major problem, despite the fact that every systematic study of the question has concluded that this kind of fraud–called “voter impersonation”–is all but unknown in the United States right now. In fact, authorities in Indiana could not point to a single case of voter impersonation in the state’s history."

Thursday 1/10/2008

Kucinich stepping into trap … 1/10/2008 Black Box Voting: ""We have no control over the ballot chain of custody and we have learned the pain from the 2004 Nader recount, in which only 11 districts were counted, chosen by a highly questionable person, and then nothing showed up. Now all we hear is how the Nader recount validated the machines." As Tobi says, "A candidate asking for a recount may well be a tool used to 'prove' everything was okay and then that candidate will be further discredited." I'll go further than that. The only way a recount makes any sense at all in New Hampshire is AFTER an assessment is made of the chain of custody issues. If the chain of custody isn't intact the recount won't be worth a cup of warm spit."

Monday 1/7/2008

Silvestro the cat / NH voting 1/7/2008 You Tube: Silvestro programs 81% of the NH primary, sole source contractor, chain of custody non existent.

Thursday 12/20/2007

Kobach admits to coordinated voter supression 12/20/2007 Blue Tide Rising: "Earlier today Kris Kobach, chairman of the Kansas GOP, sent out a self-congratulatory litany of accomplishments. Among them was one particularly eye-catching item: To date, the Kansas GOP has identified and caged more voters in the last 11 months than the previous two years!"

Tuesday 12/18/2007

Pima County Dems get to see electronic election records, judge rules 12/18/2007 Arizona Star: "Pima County Superior Judge Michael Miller said the county must release records requested a year ago, including copies of the Diebold GEMS databases for the 2006 primary and general elections. That means means the democratic party will have a chance to inspect the records for potential security flaws."

Sunday 12/16/2007

Anonymous Blogger Offers Evidence-Free Claim That 'Left-Wing Activist' Academics and SoS Brunner 'Cooked Up' Report Results Showing All Buckeye State E-Voting Systems Vulnerable to Failure, Fraud, Easy Tampering… 12/16/2007 Brad Blog

STUDY: VOTING SYSTEMS VULNERABLE 12/16/2007 Ohio Secretary of State

Thursday 12/13/2007

Voter fraud fraud 12/13/2007 Boston Globe: "IT MADE for a tantalizing news story: Thousands of people who cast votes in the 2004 presidential election in New Jersey were actually dead. Newspapers wrote articles with grabber headlines like "GOP Sees Dead People" and "Dead Man Voting." Except that a more careful analysis of the allegations found flaws in the match between the voting rolls and death lists, and none of the claims was ever substantiated. more stories like thisNew Jersey's state Republican Party also claimed that 4,397 people had voted twice in 2000, and another 6,572 voted both in New Jersey and in one of five other states. But a systematic review by the Brennan Justice Center at New York University Law School found most of the matches ignored different middle names, dates of birth, or other discrepancies. All told, the center found that eight of the 3.6 million New Jersey voters in 2004 intentionally cast invalid votes - a "fraud rate" of four ten-thousandths of one percent. These fraud alarm bells - even if they are false alarms - distract Americans from real problems in the democratic process, from electronic voting machines that leave no paper trail to campaign tactics that confuse or intimidate voters. Also, supposed fraud is often used to build support for stiffer voter requirements, such as government-issued IDs, which would almost surely drive down participation among poorer, older, and less-educated voters. "The voter fraud phantom drives policy that disenfranchises legitimate voters without a corresponding benefit," the Brennan Center's report concludes."

Saturday 9/1/2007

Meet Kathy Diebold 9/1/2007 Count the Vote: published 5/23/04 - "When I first heard that a folder called "rob-georgia" was found on an unsecure FTP site run by Diebold, I was intrigued. I wrote to Cathy Cox's office and was told by staffer Kara Sinkule that "We were aware of the Diebold FTP site, but Georgia never used it." Later, after Rob Behler (of "rob-georgia" fame) was located and confirmed the fact that he had indeed downloaded and installed software patches from the FTP site, patches which he believed to be uncertified, Ms. Sinkule wrote me that "The patch prior to being installed was examined by the state's certification experts at KSU and discussed with the national testing labs." Later still, when asked, Cathy Cox claimed that the patch was only examined after the election due to time constraints. Further, I requested copies of any and all certification documents for the soft and firmware on Georgia's voting machines and was told by SoS lawyer Clifford Datum that "no records exist in the Secretary of State's office regarding a certification letter from the lab certifying the version of software used on Election Day." That certification is required by state and federal law."

You Forgot Diebold 9/1/2007 Welcome to Pottersville: "The report co-written by Ms. Wang was sat on until it got leaked out just before the midterm elections; on 3/21/05, a tax-exempt group of GOP operatives who’d helped Bush steal both presidential elections testified before a congressional committee headed up by an Ohio congressman now wearing orange jumpsuits about voter fraud in Ohio in ’04 and the message in both the EAC’s creative rewriting of the originally commissioned report and the Ney hearing is: Blame the voter for corrupting the election process and try to stack the deck against minorities in a subversion of the Voting Rights Act of 1965; and any and every agency that could possibly investigate real election fraud at its root, the EAC and the DOJ, for example, is infested with partisans who have nothing to gain and everything to lose by actually doing their fucking jobs. It was a massive, multi-fronted diversionary tactic, one designed to take our attention away from Diebold's unbelievable corruption and the complicity of GOP Secretaries of State and state elections officials. They didn't want you to know that a patch was found on a Diebold FTP site openly called "rob_georgia" that essentially rewrote thousands of files without a trace of its presence."

Friday 8/31/2007

NAACP challenges Louisiana voter purge 8/31/2007 Anniston Star: "The NAACP filed a civil rights lawsuit challenging a purge of Louisiana voters believed to have registered in other states following Hurricane Katrina. In the federal court action, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People contends that the purge has already begun without the necessary pre-approval of the U.S. Department of Justice."

Friday 8/17/2007

Commerce, Treasury funds helped boost GOP campaigns 8/17/2007 McClatchy

Wednesday 8/15/2007

They Can Count on the Democrats - Why the Neocons Won't Miss Karl Rove 8/15/2007 Counterpunch: "The counties have responded to critics with an absurd array of "dog ate my homework" excuses reminiscent of Rove's laptop during his lighter moments. Some of the ballots were ruined by a coffee pot, says one county. Flooding hit others, they say. In one county, recyclers were to blame. In another, counterfeit ballots have been discovered. In short, the excuses for destroying Ohio's election records are every bit as credible as Rove saying he's resigning to "spend more time with my family." But far from reacting with outrage, the Democrats have merely shrugged, much as they've done with the continuation of the Iraq War and the shredding of the Constitution. Ohio's Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner has told the media she sees "no evidence" this mass deep-sixing of official records was done "purposefully" by nearly two-thirds of the state's counties."

Sequoia Voting Systems Responsible for 2000 Presidential Debacle? 8/15/2007 Wired

Saturday 8/11/2007

Shape of Things to Come? 8/11/2007 Brilliant at Breakfast: "If we were to depend on AP, we’d never know that Diebold machines were being used in Romney’s stunningly predictable “victory” in Iowa. (Free Market News has more on the Republican fuckuppery that AP and other news outlets will be too chivalrous to mention.) Ron Paul, who actually tried to poach votes by telling people to take advantage of Romney’s buses to the straw polls and paying the $35 registration fee so they could vote for him, is hopping mad so don’t think that this will gently go into that good night. They can't even have a one party straw poll without poking and slapping themselves like Moe, Larry and Curly. This is going to be a wild and wooly presidential election so make sure you bring seat belts to the polls next November."

Tuesday 7/31/2007

State: Fla. voting machines can be hacked 7/31/2007 Miami Herald: "Reversing an unofficial policy of denial, the Florida Secretary of State's office has conducted an elections study that confirmed Tuesday what a maverick voting chief discovered nearly two years ago: Insider computer hackers can change votes without a trace on Diebold optical-scan machines. The study by Florida State University found that, despite recent software fixes, an ''adversary'' could use a pre-programmed computer card to swap one candidate's votes for another or create a ''ballot-stuffing attack'' that multiplies votes for a candidate or issue."

Monday 7/30/2007

In Violation of Federal Law, Ohio's 2004 Presidential Election Records Are Destroyed or Missing 7/30/2007 Alternet: "In 56 of Ohio's 88 counties, ballots and election records from 2004 have been "accidentally" destroyed, despite a federal order to preserve them -- it was crucial evidence which would have revealed whether the election was stolen."

Friday 7/20/2007

Overhaul Plan for Vote System Will Be Delayed 7/20/2007 NYT: "But critics say that while billions have been spent to improve voting since the disputed presidential election in 2000, the compromise would leave a patchwork and somewhat jury-rigged system that would still be vulnerable to tampering or computer malfunctions in next year’s elections. Many experts have criticized the add-on printers, which use thin rolls of relatively fragile paper, as too prone to paper jams and smearing to ensure that every vote is counted."

Tuesday 7/17/2007

Bush Government to Poor Voters: We Don't Want You to Vote 7/17/2007 Alternet

Tuesday 6/19/2007

Dems Push for Voter Suppression Probe 6/19/2007 AP: "Senate Democrats urged the Justice Department on Monday to investigate whether one of its former prosecutors led attempts to suppress Florida voter turnout during the 2004 presidential election. The request by Sens. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island is the latest facet of Congress’ ongoing inquiry into whether politics played a role in the firings of eight U.S. attorneys. One of the fired prosecutors, Bud Cummins in Little Rock, Ark., was replaced on an interim basis by Tim Griffin - a protege of presidential political adviser Karl Rove who worked at the Republican National Committee in 2004. The two senators Monday pointed to two e-mails to Griffin - titled “caging” and dated August 2004 - listing nearly 2,000 potential voters in Jacksonville, Fla. The e-mails were posted on a political Web site critical of the Bush administration, but a White House spokeswoman said the Democrats did not doubt their authenticity. “Caging” refers to efforts to disqualify voters who fail to sign for registered campaign mail sent to their houses. In theory, the practice identifies homes where voters no longer live."

Sunday 6/17/2007

Election 2004: The Urban Legend 6/17/2007 Global Research

Tuesday 6/12/2007

Civil Rights Enforcement - Who Is Hans von Spakovksy? 6/12/2007 CivilRights.org: "During his tenure in the U.S. Department of Justice, Hans von Spakovsky made it harder for Americans to vote. Now the Bush administration has nominated him to the Federal Elections Commission. If confirmed by the Senate, he could influence election law in this country for the next three election cycles, a prospect that should alarm all who care about the right to vote. As an attorney in the civil rights division of the Justice Department from 2001-2005, von Spakovksy did everything in his power to minimize the vote, particularly of minorities and Democrats."

Sunday 6/3/2007

Rove’s Mini-Me Tim Griffin Resigns after Evidence Ties Him to Alleged Voter Suppression 6/3/2007 Pensito Review: "Palast recently obtained hundreds of emails sent by White House officials to Bush-Cheney operatives during the 2004 campaign. Among these were emails containing caging lists sent by Griffin, apparently in his role as communications deputy. Late last week, Palast agreed to show Griffin’s emails to Rep. John Conyers, chairman of the Judiciary Committee. On Thursday, Griffin abruptly announced his resignation in Little Rock, citing an urgent need to work in the private sector. (Some sources say Griffin is in negotiations to join Fred Thompson’s presidential campaign; while one wag suggests Griffin resigned “to spend more time in jail.“)"

Thursday 5/31/2007

Conyers Requests Palast's "Vote Caging" Evidence 5/31/2007 TruthOut: " Experts have concluded the caging lists were designed for a mass challenge of voters' right to cast ballots. The caging lists were heavily weighted with minority voters, including African-American homeless men, students and soldiers sent overseas. Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee investigating the firing of US attorneys, met Thursday evening in New York with Palast. After reviewing key documents, Conyers stated that, despite Griffin's resignation, "We're not through with him by any means." Conyers indicated that he thought it unlikely that Griffin could carry out this massive caging operation without the knowledge of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Rove."

Wednesday 5/23/2007

Goodling Says Dep. Attorney General 'Incomplete or Inaccurate' in Regard to 'Vote Caging' Allegations About Karl Rove Aide - Says DAG Paul McNulty Withheld Knowledge of Tim Griffin's Involvement in Challenging Minority Voter Registration in 2004 5/23/2007 Brad Blog: "From Monica Goodling's opening statement to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee this morning [emphasis added]: Despite my and others' best efforts, [Deputy Attorney General, Paul McNulty]'s public testimony was incomplete or inaccurate in a number of respects. As explained in more detail in my written remarks, I believe that the Deputy was not fully candid about his knowledge of White House involvement in the replacement decision, failed to disclose that he had some knowledge of the White House's interest in selecting Tim Griffin as Interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, inaccurately described the Department's internal assessment of the Parsky Commission, and failed to disclose that he had some knowledge of allegations that Tim Griffin had been involved in vote "caging" during his work on the President's 2004 campaign."

Friday 5/18/2007

Will Al Gore Face His Inconvenient Truths About Our Stolen Elections? 5/18/2007 Common Dreams: "Gore’s actions on the 2000 recount might be discounted as a stategic failure. But they were followed by something much much worse. In January, 2001, the Black Caucus of the US House demanded a Congressional dialogue on the seating of the Florida delegation to the Electoral College. This procedure had been established in 1887, in response to the stolen election of 1876. It required the signature of one Representative and one Senator. Tragically, Gore prevented this from happening. As the presiding officer over the joint session of Congress gathered to ratify the election, Gore repeatedly gaveled down those Representatives demanding a discussion of the theft of Florida’s decisive electoral votes. This very ugly, politically catastrophic moment is forever memorialized in Michael Moore’s Farenheit 9/11. Staff from the office of the late Sen. Paul Wellstone have said Gore told those Senators inclined to join in that he would not recognize them if they tried. Senator Hillary Clinton told the Free Press Editor that Gore “begged” her not to sign on to such a challenge. The result: there was no Congressional challenge on the theft of the election of 2000. Ironically, with Dick Cheney presiding over Congress, there was indeed such a session on the stolen election of 2004, facilitated by Sen. Harry Reid. But following the cave-in of 2000, it again lacked the full weight of the Democratic Party and its presidential candidate."

Thursday 5/17/2007

Greg Palast, Author of Armed Madhouse, on How Rove May Have Already Stolen the 2008 Election 5/17/2007 Buzzflash: "By sending letters to the homes of soldiers, marked "do not forward." When they came back undelivered, they said: Aha! Illegal voter registered from a false address. And when their ballot came in from Fallujah, it was challenged. The soldier didn’t know it. Their vote was lost. Over half a million votes were challenged and lost by the Republicans -- absentee ballots. Three million voters who went to the polls found themselves challenged by the Republicans. This was not a small operation. It was a multi-million dollar, wholesale theft operation. They’re right that I’m a British reporter, because I put this story on British TV, not on American TV, which won’t touch it. [BuzzFlash note: Palast writes for British papers and reports on the BBC, but he is a product of the San Fernando Valley and the University of Chicago, 100% American.] But our election was a complete, total fraud. This is grand theft -- no question. It’s not a dirty trick; it’s a felony crime."

Tuesday 5/8/2007

France : élections présidentielle & législatives 2007 - Machine à voter, machine à truquer 5/8/2007 Reseaux Voltaire

Monday 5/7/2007

RFK: Rove And Rove’s Brain, ‘Should Be In Jail,’ Not In Office 5/7/2007 Greg Palast: “Timothy Griffin,” said Kennedy,”who is the new US attorney in Arkansas, was actually the mastermind behind the voter fraud efforts by the Bush Administration to disenfranchise over a million voters through ‘caging’ techniques - which are illegal.”

Vote Fraud in France 5/7/2007 Wayne Madsen: scroll down to May 7, 2007 - "The French election, from the start, has been plagued by election fraud -- bogus polling data, false exit polls, and electronic voting machine and machine counting irregularities were hallmarks of the first presidential election round. ES&S's I-Votronic machines were used in both elections across France. Only Sarkozy's party was supportive of the machines, with all the other political parties calling for a moratorium on their use. Turnout in the French election was 85 percent. With large turnouts historically favoring the left in France, the exit polling and actual polling were at odds with the turnout -- an indication of massive election fraud. Similar polling irregularities were experienced in recent elections in Scotland, Wales, and England. In Scotland, 100,000 ballots, thought to mostly be cast for the pro-independence Scottish National Party, were declared "spoiled" in Scotland's election. That "glitch" cost the Scottish Nationalists a larger majority in the Scottish Parliament. Irregularities in Wales and England similarly affected larger margins for Welsh and Cornish nationalists. As the Bretons and Corsicans will soon discover with Sarkozy, regional nationalism is anathema to the globalist neo-con agenda, particularly the international bankers who want strong centralized control and minimal devolution of power to local and regional governments. The electoral malfeasance of neo-cons in manipulating elections in France, Britain, Canada, the United States, Italy, Australia, Peru, Costa Rica, Mexico, and other countries will remain a problem until the people, acting through the power of progressive, anti-globalist, and anti-capitalist governments, seize control, via whatever means necessary, of the media, the voting and vote counting process, and the opinion polling mechanisms."

Sunday 5/6/2007

A French e-voting "catastrophe" - Paperless direct-recording electronic (DRE) used in several cities 5/6/2007 Global Research: "Two types of machines were certified for use in France's election, both of which are of the paperless direct-recording electronic (DRE) variety now notorious (and hopefuly soon-to-be outlawed) in the States: an iVotronic model from American company ES&S, and another model from Dutch company Nedap." The following report published a week before the French presidential run-off elections on May 6 point to the use of e-voting machines in several French cities. The potential for electoral fraud in the run-off elections --in which Nicolas Sarkozy won with a four point margin-- cannot be dismissed and should be the object of an independent inquiry in the cities where e-voting was used."

Friday 5/4/2007

Breaking: RF Kennedy, Jr. Says USA Griffin Under Investigation 5/4/2007 Daily Kos: "Tonight in Montpelier, Vermont, Greg Palast announced that he received a phone call this evening from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. that US Attorney replacement Timothy Griffin, Rove's former assistant, is under investigation for election fraud."

Wednesday 4/25/2007

Don’t Fire Gonzales 4/25/2007 Greg Palast: "Griffin himself, after the December 7 firings, was appointed by Attorney General Gonzales, at Rove’s personal request, to one of the newly-vacated slots as US Attorney for Arkansas. The sleeper cell of Rove-bot US attorneys is now in place to bless voter suppression games in 2008. I’ve previously reported for BBC that Griffin was the Man in the Memos who directed the massive, wrongful purge of African-American soldiers in 2004 — the ‘caging’ list scam. Based on that expose, voting rights lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr., said, “Griffin and Rove should be in jail, not in office.” That, too is another story — But the important thing to pick up here is: 1. It’s all about the 2008 election. 2. It’s not about Gonzales. We’ve been here before. Gonzales is getting Libby’d. Takes the bullet for Karl Rove and the White House. If you wondered why the Republican jackals like the sinister Senator Specter piled on Gonzales — it’s because they were told to."

Tuesday 4/24/2007

Karl Rove's Jim Crow Voter Suppression Machine is Humming Along Just Fine, All Ready for 2008 4/24/2007 Buzzflash

Saturday 4/21/2007

Benton Harbor and the Persecution of Rev. Edward Pinkney - Travesties of Justice in a Black City in Michigan 4/21/2007 Counterpunch: "In the fall of 2004, Pinkney and BANCO circulated recall petitions for Yarbrough, using his failure to discipline the Police Chief as the reason. Once the recall election was put on the ballot for February 2005, Pinkney used his grassroots and BANCO network to get out the absentee vote. He knew that, with his limited resources, he could never hope to compete with the Yarbrough "machine" on Election Day. BANCO was successful. There was a 42% absentee voter rate and Yarbrough lost the recall by 54 votes. Yarbrough immediately swung into action. He went to the County Clerk complaining about the absentee votes. She referred him to the Prosecutor, who personally called the Sheriff to have an investigation opened. Within days, Yarbrough had "found" a young man named Mancel Williams, who alleged that Pinkney paid him $5 to vote for the recall. A week later the same Mancel Williams went to City Commissioner Etta Harper and made a tape recording, indicating that Yarbrough had paid him $10 to claim that Pinkney had paid him $5. The tape was turned over to Mayor Wilce Cook, who turned it over to the Benton Harbor Police. Nothing happened. The County Sheriff's investigation did not mention it. Mancel Williams is in prison on another charge and has refused to testify for either side, fearing retaliation by the police and Prosecutor."

Voter Fraud and Fired U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton 4/21/2007 ePluribus Media: "The ruling is one more in a growing body of circumstantial evidence that supports what 35-year veteran and once head of the Voting Rights Section Joe Rich alleges is a well-orchestrated partisan program to disenfranchise minority voters, who, as a general rule, tend to vote Democratic."

Thursday 4/19/2007

Arkansas U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins Was Fired Just After Reports Surfaced of Investigation into Law Firm of Top Level White House/GOP Operative and Close-Friend-of-Rove, Thor Hearne 4/19/2007 Brad Blog: "As BRAD BLOG readers know, Hearne is a top-level White House operative, a very close friend of Karl Rove's and the co-founder of the currently-back-underground "American Center for Voting Rights" (ACVR), the mysteriously-funded group behind all of the GOP's phony "voter fraud" claims and the accompanying push for disenfranchising "Voter ID" restrictions at the polling place. (See our Special Coverage page on ACVR scam here...) The first reports of Cummins' investigation into the Blunt/Lathrop Gage scandal were apparently in May of 2006. Cummins was removed from his position just afterwards in June of 2006 --- prior to all the other firings which took place later that year on the same day in December. He was replaced at that point with Karl Rove's personal aide Timothy Griffin."

Wednesday 4/18/2007

The Fraudulence of Voter Fraud 4/18/2007 In These Times: "The Bush administration purged U.S. attorneys for failing to prosecute crimes that didn’t occur "

Monday 4/16/2007

House to Begin Probe Into Fla. Election 4/16/2007 AP: "A House task force will take the first steps Tuesday in an investigation of a Florida congressional election decided by 369 votes amid complaints that voting machines failed to count thousands of electronic ballots. Republican Vern Buchanan was declared the winner of the election, a result Democrat Christine Jennings is challenging in Florida court."

Saturday 4/14/2007

Marjorie Cohn: U.S. Attorneys and Voting Rights: The New Watergate 4/14/2007 Buzzflash

Thursday 4/12/2007

75,000 voter registration cards found in trash bin in Atlanta 4/12/2007 Savannah Morning News

Tuesday 4/3/2007

Colo. elections IT mgr. selling "voter data" to GOP candidates 4/3/2007 e Pluribus Media

Thursday 3/29/2007

Bush's long history of tilting Justice 3/29/2007 LA Times: "By Joseph D. Rich, JOSEPH D. RICH was chief of the voting section in the Justice Department's civil right division from 1999 to 2005. He now works for the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law."

Wednesday 3/28/2007

Bush’s New US Attorney a Criminal? 3/28/2007 Greg Palast: "But the Committee missed a big one: Timothy Griffin, Karl Rove’s assistant, the President’s pick as US Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas. Griffin, according to BBC Television, was the hidden hand behind a scheme to wipe out the voting rights of 70,000 citizens prior to the 2004 election."

Friday 3/23/2007

Explosive New Vote Fraud Developments Continue To Rock Ohio and Florida 3/23/2007 Common Dreams

Tuesday 3/20/2007

Blowback from Ohio's 2004 Stolen Election is Escalating 3/20/2007 Common Dreams: "In a bold move "to restore trust to elections in Ohio," Ohio's newly-elected Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, has requested the resignation of all four members of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections. The two Democrats and two Republicans were formally asked to resign by the close of business on March 21. Cuyahoga County includes the heavily Democratic city of Cleveland. Brunner is a Democrat who was elected to be Ohio's Secretary of State in November, 2006."

Friday 3/16/2007

Plans by the White House to fire U.S. Attorneys was hatched in 2005 with a view to ensure the 2006 re-election of GOP Senate and House members through massive voter fraud 3/16/2007 Wayne Madsen: scroll to 3rd entry for March 16, 2007 - "Of particular interest was an assurance that newly-appointed GOP U.S. Attorneys, unconfirmed by the Senate, would aggressively pursue Democratic registration drives in certain states in order to drive down voter turnout, especially among minorities.. Rove's plan, with the support of a new cadre of politically-driven U.S. Attorneys, would be to scare new voters away from registering and voting with threats of arresting those who could not prove they were U.S. citizens and other forms of intimidation."

Thursday 3/15/2007

An Insider's Report from a New Mexico Election Attorney on the Firing of David Iglesias and the Rove/DoJ/Republican Efforts to Create a 2004 'Voter Fraud' Scare in the State… 3/15/2007 Brad Blog

Wednesday 3/7/2007

New Mexico Measures Impact of Domenici’s, Wilson’s Calls to Prosecutors 3/7/2007 CQ Politics: "But the sudden eruption of what might be the biggest controversy of Domenici’s political career — involving reports that he tried to pressure a federal prosecutor to speed up a corruption probe of a prominent Democrat during last year’s midterm election campaign — has put Domenici’s legacy in doubt and could drastically alter New Mexico’s political landscape. Domenici is dealing with allegations that he and another New Mexico Republican, Rep. Heather A. Wilson, pressured U.S. Attorney David C. Iglesias in late October to produce an anticipated indictment of former New Mexico Senate President Manny Aragon. The fact that Iglesias was one of eight U.S. attorneys fired by the Bush administration after the 2006 elections has added fuel to the political brush fire."\

Thursday 3/1/2007

Fired U.S. Attorney Says Lawmakers Pressured Him 3/1/2007 WaPo: "A political tempest over the mass firing of federal prosecutors escalated yesterday with allegations from the departing U.S. attorney in New Mexico, who said that two members of Congress attempted to pressure him to speed up a probe of Democrats just before the November elections. David C. Iglesias, who left yesterday after more than five years in office, said he received the calls in October and believes that complaints from the lawmakers may have led the Justice Department to fire him late last year."

Wednesday 2/28/2007

False Choices in the Debate on Voting Technology 2/28/2007 Alternet: "The bad news is that, while they've finally discovered there's a problem -- unreliable, inaccurate, hackable voting machines, which count our public elections with secret software created by private companies -- the politicians, specifically the Democrats, and many of their public advocacy groups, have gotten the solution wrong. The answer is not "paper trails," that will never be counted, attached to touch-screen voting systems. The answer is paper ballots that are actually tabulated, either by optical-scan or hand-count. Seems simple enough, I know. But apparently not."

Saturday 2/24/2007

Voting Machines Found Not at Fault in Fla. Election 2/24/2007 AP: "An audit of touch-screen voting machines at the center of a dispute in a congressional election found no evidence of malfunction, Florida's secretary of state said Friday. The audit was conducted after more than 18,000 ballots were cast in Sarasota County without a selection in the District 13 congressional race in November between Republican Vern Buchanan and Democrat Christine Jennings. Buchanan was the certified winner by 369 votes, but Jennings sued, alleging that the machines malfunctioned."

Monday 1/29/2007

Attention to Florida’s Disputed 13th District Wanes Even As Jennings' Inquiry Presses On 1/29/2007 CQ Politics: "Attention to November’s disputed election of Republican Vern Buchanan in Florida’s 13th District — amid charges of widespread electronic voting machine irregularities, lodged by Democratic nominee Christine Jennings — has faded. This is, in large part, because the leaders of the new Democratic majority chose to seat Buchanan, the state-certified winner, even though Jennings has continued her efforts in Florida courts and the House itself to overturn the result and force a new election."

Thursday 1/25/2007

2 election workers convicted in '04 tally 1/25/2007 Plain Dealer: "A jury found two Cuyahoga County elections workers guilty Wednesday of charges that they skirted Board of Elections procedures to thwart a countywide ballot recount after the divisive 2004 presidential election. The jury convicted Kathleen Dreamer, 40, of Cleveland and Jacqueline Maiden, 59, of Richmond Heights on one felony and one misdemeanor each. They each had been charged with seven counts and were exonerated on five apiece, including all charges that they knowingly conspired to break the law and violate their duties. Instead, they were found guilty of being criminally negligent."

Friday 1/19/2007

Do new Ohio recount prosecutions indicate unraveling of 2004 election theft cover-up? 1/19/2007 Colombus Free Press

Monday 1/8/2007

Major E-Voting Critic, Attorney Named to Key Voting Systems Oversight Role by New CA Secretary of State! 1/8/2007 Brad Blog: "It may not be a very good day in the corporate offices at Diebold, but The BRAD BLOG has learned some big news that may well indicate today is a very good day indeed for the voters of America and specifically in California. As incoming Sec. of State Debra Bowen was sworn in to her new office just moments ago, The BRAD BLOG can now reveal that one of the nation's top critics of unverifiable electronic voting systems --- and a key player across several states in the legal battles against voting machine companies such as Diebold, ES&S, Sequoia Voting Systems, and Hart Intercivic --- is today being named by the new California Sec. of State Debra Bowen as Deputy SoS for Voting Systems Technology and Policy."

Thursday 1/4/2007

U.S. Bars Lab From Testing Electronic Voting 1/4/2007 NYT: "A laboratory that has tested most of the nation’s electronic voting systems has been temporarily barred from approving new machines after federal officials found that it was not following its quality-control procedures and could not document that it was conducting all the required tests. Skip to next paragraph The company, Ciber Inc. of Greenwood Village, Colo., has also come under fire from analysts hired by New York State over its plans to test new voting machines for the state. New York could eventually spend $200 million to replace its aging lever devices. Experts on voting systems say the Ciber problems underscore longstanding worries about lax inspections in the secretive world of voting-machine testing. The action by the federal Election Assistance Commission seems certain to fan growing concerns about the reliability and security of the devices. The commission acted last summer, but the problem was not disclosed then. Officials at the commission and Ciber confirmed the action in recent interviews. Ciber, the largest tester of the nation’s voting machine software, says it is fixing its problems and expects to gain certification soon. Experts say the deficiencies of the laboratory suggest that crucial features like the vote-counting software and security against hacking may not have been thoroughly tested on many machines now in use. “What’s scary is that we’ve been using systems in elections that Ciber had certified, and this calls into question those systems that they tested,” said Aviel D. Rubin, a computer science professor at Johns Hopkins."

Saturday 12/30/2006

House Democrats to Object to Florida Election Outcome 12/30/2006 NYT: "Democrats said Friday that they would open the new Congress by formally objecting to the election result in Florida’s 13th District, in the hope that the Democrat who is contesting the narrow outcome there will ultimately take the place of the Republican whom the state has certified as the winner. The move will not prevent the Republican, Vern Buchanan, from taking office with the rest of the 110th Congress next Thursday. But Democrats say that because the House is the final certifier of House election results, they want to make certain that Mr. Buchanan’s swearing-in does not prejudice a legal challenge mounted by his opponent, Christine Jennings. The Democrats say that if they were to make no such objection, formally called a parliamentary inquiry, they would essentially be signaling the courts that the House agreed with the state-certified result. By contrast, their move will put the House on record as supporting Ms. Jennings’s challenge. That move requires no House vote, only the approval of the chair, presumably Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, who is to become speaker next week. “No one who’s in a disputed election like this should get too comfortable in the House of Representatives,” Representative Rush D. Holt, Democrat of New Jersey, said in announcing the new majority’s plan on Friday. “The evidence will show that a revote is necessary.” The race between Mr. Buchanan and Ms. Jennings, for a Sarasota-area seat held until now by Representative Katherine Harris, a Republican, was one of the closest in a Congressional election that featured several recounts and challenged outcomes. On Nov. 20, the Florida Elections Canvassing Commission, made up of Gov. Jeb Bush and two other Republicans, declared Mr. Buchanan the winner by 369 votes. But Ms. Jennings, and some voters, have complained of irregularities. Paperless electronic voting machines used in the district recorded a significant percentage of what are known as “undervotes”: some 18,000 ballots, or about 15 percent of the total cast in the district, registered votes in races for other offices but not in the House contest. In some counties in the district, there was an undervote of 25 percent or more, Mr. Holt said, and in one area an undervote of 38 percent. In contrast, he said, the undervote among absentee ballots was only 2.5 percent. “Something was wrong there,” the congressman said. Mr. Buchanan has criticized Ms. Jennings’s challenge as an effort to delay the elections process, calling it “frivolous,” “disappointing” and “regrettable.” A Buchanan spokeswoman did not return calls seeking comment Friday. Ms. Jennings has said she intends to take a seat that is rightfully hers, and she even attended freshman orientation for new House members in November. Legal filings on her behalf say she would have won by 3,000 votes if the tallies had been done properly. Her campaign suffered a setback Friday, however, when a Florida circuit judge ruled that she could not examine the programming code of the electronic voting machines used in the election. The judge, William Gary, said her arguments about the possibility of undervotes were "conjecture" and did not warrant disclosing the trade secrets of Election Systems & Software, a voting machine company. The Jennings campaign said it would appeal."

Friday 12/22/2006

Potential buyers can cast lot with Sequoia Voting Systems - Oakland-based firm to be sold due to a hostile environment 12/22/2006 Inside Bay Area: "Citing a hostile environment for foreign ownership of U.S. infrastructure, the parent company of Sequoia Voting Systems Inc. is selling the Oakland-based firm, one of the nations three largest suppliers of voting equipment. The Venezuelan owners of Smartmatic Corp. were expected to announce today that they are putting Sequoia up for sale. Almost a third of California counties use the firms voting machines, including Alameda and Santa Clara counties, and Sequoia is the largest seller of ATM-like touch-screen voting machines in the state. Smartmatic executives say the reason for the sale is a persistent controversy over foreign ownership of a U.S. voting company, which has included allegations of Smartmatic ties to the government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a critic of U.S. policies."

Wednesday 11/29/2006

Protect the Vote Locally 11/29/2006 Common Dreams

Sunday 11/26/2006

Electronic voting, counting machines can be troublesome 11/26/2006 Billings Gazette, Montana

Tuesday 11/21/2006

The GOP's dirty deeds of 2006 - Salon's guide to robo-calls, push polls, vigilantes and other murky dealings from this year's elections. 11/21/2006 Salon

Monday 11/20/2006

BREAKING: DIEBOLD WHISTLEBLOWER STRIKES PLEA DEAL ON FELONY CHARGES 11/20/2006 Brad Blog

FL-13: Election Contest Filed, State Certifies Race, Buchanan Claims Victory, Calls on Jennings to Concede, Says 'Special Interest Groups Have Hijacked Election to Advance Own Agenda' 11/20/2006 Brad Blog

Saturday 11/18/2006

Fixing The 2008 Election 11/18/2006 Alternet: "The mainstream media in its instant analysis has proclaimed the election system worked surprisingly well in 2006. While it is true that no single catastrophe of election administration grabbed headlines this year, it is quite dangerous to suggest that the problems voters encountered on Election Day were not serious. As over 25,000 callers from across the country to the 866-OUR-VOTE voter information and protection hotline confirm, these problems led to thousands of eligible Americans being denied the opportunity to cast a ballot."

Thursday 11/16/2006

Election Integrity Groups Call for Re-Vote in FL-13 U.S. House Race! 11/16/2006 Brad Blog

Counting the Vote, Badly 11/16/2006 NYT: "Fortunately, that may be about to change. With the Democrats now in control of both houses, there is an excellent chance of passing tough electronic voting legislation. Representative Rush Holt, Democrat of New Jersey, had more than 200 co-sponsors for a strong electronic voting bill before this month’s election, and support is likely to grow in the new Congress. In the Senate, Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who will be chairwoman of the Rules and Administration Committee, which oversees elections, plans to develop a similar bill. The problems with elections go well beyond electronic voting. Partisan secretaries of state continue to skew the rules to favor their parties and political allies. States are adopting harsh standards for voter registration drives to make it harder for people to register, as well as draconian voter identification laws to make casting a ballot harder for poor people, racial minorities, the elderly and students. Some states have adopted an indefensible rule that provisional ballots cast at the wrong table of the correct polling place must be thrown out. Congress has failed to address these and other important flaws with the mechanics of the election system. But this, too, may be about to change. Senator Feinstein is saying that providing fair access to the ballot will be among her committee’s top priorities in the coming year. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, plans to revise and reintroduce her “Count Every Vote Act,” which takes an admirably broad approach to overhauling the voting system."

Monday 11/13/2006

So Much for Karl Rove, Hacker - What Vote-Theft Conspiracy? 11/13/2006 Counterpunch

Friday 11/10/2006

Florida 'Missing' 18,000 E-Votes in Close Race 11/10/2006 IDG: "Government watchdog group Common Cause has called for an investigation of electronic voting machines used in Florida's 13th congressional district because of 18,000 missing votes. About 18,000 people who cast votes in other races in Tuesday's election failed to record a vote for either candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives. At last count, Republican candidate Vern Buchanan led Democratic candidate Christine Jennings by less than 400 votes in the race to succeed Republican Katherine Harris, who ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate."

Thursday 11/9/2006

Recount likely in Harris' House district 11/9/2006 AP: "The touch-screen voting machines Katherine Harris championed as secretary of state after the 2000 presidential recount may have botched this year's election to replace her in the U.S. House, and it's likely going to mean another Florida recount."

New Def. Sec. Gates Was Director Of Voting Company 11/9/2006 Scoop: "Gates was on the board of directors of VoteHere, a strange little company that was the biggest elections industry lobbyist for the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). VoteHere spent more money than ES&S, Diebold, and Sequoia combined to help ram HAVA through. And HAVA, of course, was a bill sponsored by by convicted Abramoff pal Bob Ney and K-street lobbyist buddy Steny Hoyer. HAVA put electronic voting on steroids."

Wednesday 11/8/2006

Election Theft Round-Up 11/8/2006 Alternet: "Robo-calls in Nebraska ... Colorado Latino voters threatened with arrest ... Maryland GOP hands out false ballots ... MoveOn offers $250,000 for voter fraud evidence ... Did FoxNews canvass for Lieberman?"

VIRGINIA, FLORIDATED 11/8/2006 Greg Palast: "Leading up to the election, the State of Virginia rejected more than 91,000 names submitted from voter drives, blocking their registrations. The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School says that Virginia’s methods of rejecting voters had a notably racial bias. Golly. Put the two numbers together — the 91,000 citizens questionably barred from voting and the teeny-weeny Senate vote margin, and Virginia begins to look a lot like Florida on the Potomac.The blockade of voters at the Virginia polling station doors followed on last year’s promise of Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman to mount a, “challenge to voter eligibility” in Virginia. Mehlman vowed, through an attack on the voter rolls, to “do whatever we can” to keep control of Virginia. And he did. Voters blocked (and other purged from voter rolls) received “provisional ballots.” The state only counts about 15% of these."

Tuesday 11/7/2006

CHAOS: Voting extension denied amid massive computer problems  11/7/2006 Denver Post: "As election officials scrambled to speed up the voting process, Denver District Court Judge Sheila Rappaport denied a emergency request from the Democratic Party to keep Denver's voting centers open for an additional two hours this evening due to the faulty computers. Attorney Mark Grueskin, representing the Democrats, had asked the court to extend the voting hours to 9 p.m., because voters were becoming disenfranchised from the numerous incidents of computers crashing and because of the abnormally long lines at the polls. But attorney Richard Westfall, representing the Republicans, countered that there had been no evidence that voters couldn't go elsewhere to vote or return to the same poll at a later time."

BEWARE OF EXIT POLLS  11/7/2006 GOP: "Election Experts Believe Exit Polls Give An Edge And Sway Towards Democrat Candidates. National Exit Polls Will Skew In Favor Of Democrats This Year, Due To Large Numbers Of Uncontested Democrat Seats In The House Of Representatives. Early Exit Polling Returns In 2004 Were Widely Inaccurate, Declaring Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) To Be The Next President Of The United States And Republicans Barely Holding A One Seat Majority In The U.S. Senate. In The 2002 Midterm Elections, Exit Polling Produced Unusable Data. In 2000, Exit Polling Malfunctioned And Incorrectly Projecting Vice President Al Gore As The Winner Of The Crucial Battleground State Of Florida."

Diebold Disaster Redux?  11/7/2006 Mother Jones: "Maryland's primary went so badly, the governor pleaded with residents to vote absentee. On Election Day, officials are cheery—not so the voters."

It's a Candidate Calling. Again. Republicans Deny Subterfuge as Phone Barrages Anger Voters  11/7/2006 Washington Post: "This year's heavy volume of automated political phone calls has infuriated countless voters and triggered sharp complaints from Democrats, who say the Republican Party has crossed the line in bombarding households with recorded attacks on candidates in tight House races nationwide. Some voters, sick of interrupted dinners and evenings, say they will punish the offending parties by opposing them in today's elections. But critics say Republicans crafted the messages to delude voters -- especially those who hang up quickly -- into thinking that Democrats placed the calls."

Monday 11/6/2006

How to Stop the GOP'S Deceptive Robocalls from Depressing Election Turnout [VIDEO/AUDIO]  11/6/2006 Alternet: "Here's how you can fight back: To find out about robocalls in your area go HERE and to find out what you should do if you get a robocall, go to G2geek's DailyKos diary HERE."

Justice department dispatches election monitors  11/6/2006 CNN

Dirty Tricks 2006: GOP Spends $600k on Late Night Attack Phone Calls  11/6/2006 DCCC

HOW THEY STOLE THE MID-TERM ELECTION  11/6/2006 Greg Palast: "Here’s how the 2006 mid-term election was stolen. Note the past tense. And I’m not kidding. And shoot me for saying this, but it won’t be stolen by jerking with the touch-screen machines (though they’ll do their nasty part). While progressives panic over the viral spread of suspect computer black boxes, the Karl Rove-bots have been tunneling into the vote vaults through entirely different means. For six years now, our investigations team, at first on assignment for BBC TV and the Guardian, has been digging into the nitty-gritty of the gaming of US elections. We’ve found that November 7, 2006 is a day that will live in infamy. Four and a half million votes have been shoplifted… Theft #1: Registrations gone with the wind… Theft #2: Turned Away - the ID game… Theft #3: Votes Spoiled Rotten"

A New Breed of Watchdog For Election Day  11/6/2006 Wall Street Journal: "When Americans go to vote tomorrow, a new breed of activist will be on guard, monitoring polling stations for everything from voting-machine glitches to long lines to registration snafus. Energized by disputed results in 2000 and 2004, they have left jobs as music conductors, real-estate agents and software engineers to form groups that expect to turn out thousands of volunteers who don't trust the country's ability to count its votes and have decided to do something about it. "This is going to be the most heavily watched election in history," predicts Marybeth Kuznik, who founded a group called VotePA after the 2004 election to monitor voting issues in Pennsylvania. Ms. Kuznik, a former arts educator, calls herself a "progressive," but says VotePA includes members of both major parties, two minor parties and independents."

Saturday 11/4/2006

This Time, the Election Will Not Be Stolen 11/4/2006 Alternet: [about the founder of Video the Vote - "His plan for action is what he works on when not promoting his new documentary film, "American Blackout," which looks at the disenfranchisement of the Black vote in America and voting irregularities in the 2000 and 2004 national elections. The film also traces what journalist Greg Palast calls the "political lynching" of Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., for openly questioning the Bush administration's policies involving Iraq and 9/11. "American Blackout" received a Special Jury Award at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. The San Francisco Chronicle called it "as much an indictment of liberal apathy as of conservative dirty dealing." Film Journal International called it a "paid advertisement for Cynthia McKinney." Inaba, 35, is a journalist for the Guerrilla News Network. He directed the music videos for "Mosh" by Eminem and "Time and Time Again" by Chronic Future. Inaba also contributed to GNN's book "True Lies," about black box voting. The former investment banker is now creating his own grassroots, citizen journalism from his home base in Berkeley… "We had 300 black youth in Chicago last week and it was amazing. I usually sit out in the hallway during screenings, and I'll see kids walk out to use the bathroom, and I'm always thinking, "What are you doing?" [Laughs]. But I have 16-year-old kids talking to each other, yelling, saying this film is made for us, this is our history, trying to inspire each other. I don't even have to say anything but just watch them organize on their own. When I made the film, I wanted to unite communities -- African-American working class voters and youth voters -- and I wanted them to organize."

Friday 11/3/2006

ELECTION 2006 - Let The Recounts Begin 11/3/2006 National Journal

Wednesday 11/1/2006

GOP 'robocall' tactics make me sick 11/1/2006 Philadelphia Inquirer: ""It's not us!" Only three recorded calls have been made on behalf of Murphy's campaign, including one from Gov. Rendell, which were sponsored by the Democratic State Committee. The rest? A "dirty trick" by the Republicans, said communications director Amy Bonitatibus. The calls, which begin by offering "important information about Lois Murphy," are designed to mislead voters into thinking the message is from her. Most recipients slam down the phone before finding out otherwise - and then call to complain. "We've got a ton of complaints, starting about two weeks ago," Bonitatibus said. Some of our biggest supporters have said, 'If you call me again, I'm not voting for Lois.' ""

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