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Maddow Picks Up on The BRAD BLOG's Story on Iowa GOP's Photo ID Hypocrisy
PLUS: Straightening out a point that her Republican guest, RNC Comm Dir & IA GOP Advisor, Doug Heye, got wrong...
w/ Brad & Desi
TODAY: We're back! With oil & gas earthquakes in OHIO!; Fed court blocks EPA's new pollution rules; BP vs. Halliburton; PLUS: Saddle up for what's in store for 2012...
Previous GNRs: 12/22/11 - 12/20/11 - Archives...
GOP Allowing Photo ID-Free Registration & Voting on Hand-Counted Paper Ballots in IA
A review of the remarkable hypocrisy. PLUS: Tips on what folks can do on the ground in IA to try and ensure an accurate count!...
CORPORATE TV: WHAT 5,000 OCCUPY PROTESTERS AT THE ROSE PARADE?
Nothing unusual happened at the 123rd Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, at least according to corporate TV coverage...
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HAND-COUNTED PAPER BALLOTS FOR IA GOP CAUCUS-GOERS!
Great news for voters! But, um, Hypocrisy, thy name is GOP...
HYPOCRISY: GOP REQUIRES NO PHOTO I.D. TO VOTE IN IOWA CAUCUSES
Though the GOP sets all the rules for their own caucuses, the party is placing no Photo ID restrictions on their own voters. Go figure...
Newt: Massive 'Voter Fraud' 'Just a Mistake'
Maddow Show on the hypocrisy of 1500 fraudulent signatures by Gingrich after he'd decried ACORN's massive (if non-existent) 'voter fraud' years prior...
GINGRICH ADMITS CAMP COMMITTED MASSIVE 'VOTER FRAUD' IN VA
(By GOP/Fox 'News' ACORN standards, anyway)...
THE BRAD BLOG'S RECOMMENDED #OWS 'DEMAND'
All citizens 18+ get to vote. Period. And on hand-counted paper ballots...
VIDEO: 'Rise of the Tea Bags'
Brad interviews American patriots...
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Wisconsin 2011 Supreme Court Election Debacle...
It Isn't Journalism: Woeful MSM Coverage of Wisconsin's Supreme Court Election 'Recount'
Corporate media fails to tell story of massive irregularities, e-vote failures...
Japan Quake/Tsunami/Nuke Emergency...
6/4/11: Fukushima Radiation at Highest Level Since Crisis Began
Germany announces plan to dismantle all nukes by 2022...
5/12/11: TEPCO Admits Unit 1 Reactor 'Meltdown', Fuel Rods Exposed
Radiation believed leaking through hole in bottom of containment vessel...
3/30/11: AUDIO: Brad on KPFK w/ Fukushima News and More...
Joined by the lovely Desi Doyen of the Green News Report...
3/29/11: 'Maximum Alert': Crisis Continues, TEPCO Prez Hospitalized
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3/29/11: 'Green News Report' - Special Coverage: Japan Fallout
Fukushima's nuke disaster leads to political shift in Germany; Congressional concerns about US nuke evacuation plans...
3/27/11: TEPCO 'Very Sorry': Radiation Spikes, Work Remains Perilous
Plant operator apologizes, again; AP reports they 'all but disregarded 3,000 years of geological history' in designing safe-guards'...
3/25/11: 'Grave And Serious': More Comparison to Chernobyl Levels
Rupture feared; Workers contaminated; New evacs 'recommended'...
PLUS: German study uses French data to corroborate findings from Austrian, U.S. scientists, suggesting Fukushima disaster should be reclassified as 'level 7' accident, on par with Chernobyl...
3/25/11: Brad on 'Randi Rhodes Show' on Disaster, US 'Fallout'
Breaking developments and speculation on the supposed 'nuclear renaissance' previously scheduled for the US...
3/24/11: 'Step at a Time & a Few More Steps': Disturbing New Science
Stabilization continues, as new data suggests 50% of radioactive cesium released by Chernobyl already released by Daiichi's reactors...
3/24/11: 'Green News Report'- Special Coverage: Japan Disaster
Death toll rising; Tap water warning lifted in Tokyo, spreading elsewhere; Radiation hospitalizes workers; Support for nukes drops in US; PLUS: Struggling to maintaining tradition amidst disaster...
3/23/11: Brad's KPFK Intvw w/ VOA's Steve Herman in Tokyo
'Neutron beams', water 'panic', black smoke and the public responses from TEPCO, the government and the people of Japan, LIVE from Tokyo...
3/23/11: Setbacks: Black Smoke, Evacuations, Tokyo Tap Water
'Panic' reported as stores run dry of bottled water after government says iodine in metropolitan water unsafe for infants...
3/22/11: 'Razor-Thin Margins', Positive Progress at Fukushima
Control room re-opened as some power returns, workers attempt to restore cooling systems; U.S. NRC offers mixed signals...
3/22/11: 'Green News Report' - Special Coverage: Nuclear Crisis
Fukushima on edge; Japan's wind farms to the rescue; New US nuke reviews; PLUS: Oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico...
3/20/11: 'Closer to Bringing Situation Under Control': Sun & Mon
Stabilization precarious; UPDATED: Gray smoke forces evacuation...
3/19/11: Some Reactors 'Stabilized' as War Breaks Out Elsewhere
PLUS: Radiation detected in food, water; New Gulf oil slick discovered; War protesters arrested; Slow news week continues...
3/18/11: 'Renewed Nuclear Chain Reaction Feared': Friday Fukushima
Spent fuel rod danger; Fallout detected in S. California; Wind 'saving Japan's ass'; Coulter: Radiation 'good for you'; PM's office tweets...
3/17/11: Brad Interviews Palast: TEPCO Plans for New Nukes in TX
Govt fraud investigator on "bankrupt, corrupt, criminal" nuke companies...
3/17/11: 'Green News Report' - Special Coverage: Crisis in Japan
Compounding natural, humanitarian and spiraling nuclear disasters - desperate measures to hold off a nightmare...
3/17/11: VIDEO: Close-up Aerial Footage of Crippled Plant
TEPCO offers most detailed view yet of ravaged Fukushima reactors...
3/16/11: Desperation: Helicopters Drop Water On Hot Nuke Reactors
Def Minister: 'We could not delay further'; Four risky drops on Unit 3; Water said in Unit 4 fuel pool; Water cannon trucks next | VIDEO...
3/16/11: Dozens of Countries, Not U.S., Tell Citizens to Leave Tokyo
UK, Germany, France more worried than us. Who ya gonna believe?...
3/15/11: SMOKE BILLOWS FROM FUKUSHIMA'S REACTOR 3
Workers evacuated as radiation levels rose quickly; Govt's chief spokesperson says smoke believed to be radioactive steam...
3/15/11: 'Green News Report': Japan on Brink of Nuclear Disaster
Natural, humanitarian and now man-made disaster, as 50 nuclear plant workers stand in the way of nuclear meltdown...
3/14/11: PM: RADIATION DANGER, EVACS WIDENED, 'STAY CALM'
Explosions at Reactors 2 & 4; Fuels Rods at Unit 2 'Half Exposed';
All but 50 workers evacuated from plant...
3/13/11: EXPLOSION AT FUKUSHIMA'S NUKE REACTOR UNIT 3
U.S. 7th Fleet repositioned after exposure to radioactive cloud
Sunday live blogging 2nd EXPLOSION at Fukushima...
3/13/11: VIDEO: From Within the Tsunami, a Town Engulfed
Watch as a town disappears in minutes...
3/12/11: EXPLOSION ROCKS FUKUSHIMA NUKE REACTOR UNIT 1
Cooling System Fails at Unit 3 | Govt: 'Partial Meltdown' Under Way Saturday day, night live blog following 1st EXPLOSION at Fukushima...
3/11/11: NUCLEAR EMERGENCIES AT 5 REACTORS
Friday day, night live blog until EXPLOSION at Fukushima reactor...
3/11/11: 'Big Government Tyranny' Saved Countless Lives
Strict building codes in Japan likely impossible now here...
3/11/11: 8.9 QUAKE, TSUNAMI STRIKES JAPAN - VIDEO
Unprecedented disaster strikes, towns washed away in seconds...
WikiLeaks / Julian Assange...
More Special Coverages Pages...

December 16th, 2011


TONIGHT: Getting the stories straight! All of 'em! From Rightwing disinfo to Democratic smokescreens! PLUS: A big War on Democracy update and Much More!
LIVE! 9p-Mid ET (6p-9p PT), Call-in#: 877-520-1150

[Now UPDATED with audio archives below...]

We're drafted into duty tonight, once again, to guest host the nationally syndicated Mike Malloy Show! (We'll also be filling in next Friday and the Thursday and Friday after that.) Hope you can join us tonight!

As usual, we'll be BradCasting LIVE 9pm-Mid ET (6p-9p PT), coast-to-coast and around the uprising globe from the studios of L.A.'s KTLK am1150 in beautiful downtown Burbank. Join us by tuning in, chatting in, Tweeting in and calling in! Our LIVE chat room will be up and rolling right here at The BRAD BLOG, as usual, while we are on the air. Please stop by and join the fun while you're listening! (The Chat Room will open at the bottom of this item a few minutes before airtime, see down below, just above "Comments" section.)

Scheduled tonight (so far):

  • LOTS TO CATCH UP ON! I've got too many stories and not enough time to list them all here. But we'll try to get the stories straight on everything from the Budget Compromise (heading to a deadline tonight), the controversial NDAA bill, the nonsense on the Keystone XL pipeline from last night's idiotic GOP Debate on Fox "News" to a bevy of voting and election related stories, from the Recall Walker effort in WI to the amazing story of Venango County, PA's disturbing discoveries from their landmark forensic analysis of their 100% unverifiable ES&S touch-screen voting systems! We'll also have the latest news on whether Clear Channel will allow progressive Green960 to stay on our public airwaves in San Francisco.
  • A FEW FRIENDS Our own DESI DOYEN of the Green News Report will be joining us to sort some of this all out! And we'll also be checking in for a special simulcast with Thom Hartmann's producer JACOB DEAN, host of Filter Free Radio and one of many hosts from Nicole Sandler's RadioOrNot.com network's 24-hour OccuThon, kicking off tonight in support of the Occupy Wall Street movement!
  • PLUS! Your calls over your public airwaves at 877-520-1150 and your tweets to @TheBradBlog!...

The Mike Malloy Show is nationally syndicated on air affiliates across the country and also on SiriusXM Ch. 127. You may also listen online to the free LIVE audio stream at affiliate GREEN 960 in San Francisco or at WhiteRose Society or via MikeMalloy.com.

* * *

POST-SHOW UPDATE: Tonight's show flew by! At least for me. Buckle up and see if it does for you as well! The commercial-free audio archives (as well as the chat room archives) are now posted below! Enjoy!...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---

By Brad Friedman on 12/16/2011 4:15pm PT  


November 23rd, 2011


TONIGHT: Catherine Crier (formerly of CNN & CourtTV); Election Flipped in UT; News out of PA County E-vote audit...
LIVE! 9p-Mid ET (6p-9p PT), Call-in#: 877-520-1150

[Now UPDATED with audio archives below...]

It's our last night guest hosting the nationally syndicated Mike Malloy Show this week! Hope you can join us. I promise a BIG show tonight!

Once again, we'll be BradCasting LIVE 9pm-Mid ET (6p-9p PT), coast-to-coast and around the uprising globe from the studios of L.A.'s KTLK am1150 in beautiful downtown Burbank. Join us by tuning in, chatting in, Tweeting in and calling in! Our LIVE chat room will be up and rolling right here at The BRAD BLOG, as usual, while we are on the air. Please stop by and join the fun while you're listening! (The Chat Room will open at the bottom of this item a few minutes before airtime, see down below, just above "Comments" section.)

Scheduled tonight:

The Mike Malloy Show is nationally syndicated on air affiliates across the country and also on SiriusXM Ch. 127. You may also listen online to the free LIVE audio stream at affiliate GREEN 960 in San Francisco or at WhiteRose Society or via MikeMalloy.com.

* * *

POST-SHOW UPDATE: On our last show before the Thanksgiving break, I'm thankful to the Malloys and all of their listeners for welcoming me so warmly each time I'm able to sit in. Thanks to you all. We had a helluva show tonight, with some very important news, interviews and calls. They all follow below in the commercial-free archives...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---

By Brad Friedman on 11/23/2011 4:39pm PT  



'We're doing recounts of recounts of recounts,' says candidate announced as 'loser' on Election Night
UPDATE: Hand-count finds ORIGINAL tally correct...

After the Municipal Council elections in Provo, Utah on November 8, residents had been told that Gary Winterton had narrowly defeated Bonnie Morrow for the District 1 seat --- by just 9 votes.

The margin was close enough that Morrow was allowed to ask for a recount of the paper ballots which were tallied on Election Night by the city's optical scan systems made by Diebold Election Systems, Inc. (Following years of failure of Diebold's voting systems, the company changed their name to Premier, only to see the assets of the failing company finally purchased last year by Dominion Voting, a Canadian firm which now services the machines.) The same optical scan systems are used all over the country, and are set once again for use in the New Hampshire's "first in the nation" GOP Presidential primary to be held in January.

The first "recount" of Provo's Municipal Council District 1 ballots --- carried out on the same op-scan systems that tallied them in the first place --- was held yesterday, only to be abruptly called off when the results were found to be "extremely in favor of the opposite candidate."

As reported by the Daily Herald this morning...

County officials recounted the ballots cast for the Provo Municipal Council District 1 Tuesday morning, but the discrepancy between the recount total and the total from election night became so large that officials stopped the counting process.
...
"They did a recount and the numbers came out so extremely in favor of the opposite candidate that there appears to be something wrong with the machine," said Helen Anderson, spokeswoman for Provo city.

Yesterday's tally, the paper reports, were "coming out overwhelmingly in [Morrow's] favor," so officials planned to begin a hand-count --- as per "Democracy's Gold Standard" --- for today...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---

By Brad Friedman on 11/23/2011 3:50pm PT  


March 26th, 2011


VIDEO BONUS: Maddow: 'You can't vote them out if you can't vote'...

The GOP voter fraud epidemic continues unabated. The latest alleged felon? Outgoing U.S. Ambassador to China, former Utah Governor --- and potential 2012 GOP Presidential candidate --- Jon Huntsman Jr.

Teddy Partridge at FireDogLake charges (accurately) that Huntsman "Pulls a Coulter," as The Salt Lake Tribune reports:

Jon Huntsman Jr. is still registered to vote as a resident of the Utah governor’s mansion even through he resigned his office some 19 months ago to become the U.S. ambassador to China.

In fact, Huntsman voted by absentee ballot for last year’s general election using the state-owned mansion on South Temple as his Utah residence — months after Gov. Gary Herbert settled into the historic building and Huntsman purchased a home in Washington, D.C.

Of course, Huntsman is a Republican, so different "voter fraud" laws apply to them, in general, than to other Americans.

"It is generally illegal for voters to cast ballots using a residential address where they no longer reside," the Tribune notes before giving Huntsman a pass. "But state and federal law seem to back Huntsman’s ability to still vote using the governor’s mansion as his home because that was his last address before he left for Beijing to serve as an employee of the U.S. government."

Despite that, as the very same article notes, "Last June, Huntsman purchased a $3.6 million home in a tony D.C. neighborhood." So while he may have had cause to specify his last U.S. address as Utah prior to last June, one wonders why officials are overlooking the fact that he owned a D.C. home well prior to last November's general election, when he voted using a registration at a residence where he hadn't lived for more than a year and a half.

One doesn't have to "wonder" for long, however...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---

By Brad Friedman on 3/26/2011 2:52pm PT  


November 5th, 2010


Voters forced to an hour to vote, some simply left...

Well, it's a good thing last Tuesday wasn't a Presidential Election with really huge crowds of voters in Utah County, UT. As polls opened at 7am, digitally encoded cards used by voters to begin the voting process on the state's oft-failed, easily-manipulated, 100% unverifiable Diebold AccuVote touch-screen voting systems didn't work at all 110 polling locations across the county. A programming error was blamed.

Voters were forced to wait in line for up to an hour while technicians struggled to figure out how to correct the failure. Many voters simply gave up, walking away and becoming disenfranchised in the bargain when they couldn't hang around to wait that long to vote on a work day. As usual, the wide-spread failure (county-wide, in this case) was marginalized by the media as little more than a "glitch". Of course, had the county used paper ballots, nobody would have been disenfranchised, or had to wait on line for an hour to cast their vote. Voters across the entire state are now forced to vote on the Diebold touch-screen systems on Election Day.

Separately, and to make matters worse, the Vote.Utah.gov website for looking up voter polling locations crashed, multiple times, throughout the day. Here's Tuesday's report on those "glitches" from KSL TV 5:


It was also in Utah County were, as we reported a week before Election Day, the easily-manipulated Diebold voting machines had been found left unattended in the lobby of an office building.

* * *
Please support The BRAD BLOG's fiercely independent, award-winning coverage of your electoral system, as available from no other media outlet in the nation, with a donation to help us keep going (Snail mail, more options here). If you like, we'll send you some great, award-winning election integrity documentary films in return! Details right here...

By Brad Friedman on 11/5/2010 7:05am PT  


October 28th, 2010


County clerk misleads public about dangers of tampering...

From Utah's Daily Herald today...

Nine voting machines were left unsecured in an office building overnight in northwest Lehi.

"There are hundreds of locations that they go to, it's not unexpected that this would happen," said Utah elections director Mark Thomas. He said there was a case about two years ago when voting machines were left unattended for a few days at the Utah State Capitol after an election.

"There are a lot of moving parts, a lot involved," he said of preparing for Election Day.

Phil Windley, who served as chief information officer for former governor Mike Leavitt, saw the machines loaded on two push carts in the lobby when he left from his Kynetx work office in Thanksgiving Point Business Park on Tuesday.

"This morning, I went to lunch and they were still there," Windley said during a phone interview on Wednesday. "I was surprised."

He photographed the unprotected machines and posted the photo online.
...
Windley said he later called the Utah County Clerk's office to let them know about the machines left in the lobby. "'We just drop them off; the building is in charge of locking them up,'" he said was the clerk's response.

What could possibly go wrong?!

Well, nothing, according to Scott Hogenson, the either clueless or misleading (or both) Utah County chief deputy clerk-auditor...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---

By Brad Friedman on 10/28/2010 9:41am PT  


March 8th, 2010


Spate of Anti-Choice Laws Put Pregnant Women in Legal Jeopardy...

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

The March 3, 2010 segment of Democracy Now is so shocking that it is best seen. In Utah, lawmakers have approved a measure that could potentially expose a pregnant woman to murder charges if she is stuck in an abusive relationship, is beaten and miscarries. When one of two twins is a still birth, the mother is charged with murder because she refused a C-section. In Iowa, a woman is arrested when she miscarries after a fall down the stairs.

All this amongst efforts by the health insurance cartel to treat spousal abuse as a pre-existing condition.

Perhaps we should post signs: Warning: Pregnancy will place you in legal jeopardy.

UPDATE, 3/10/10: Democracy Now reported that Utah's Republican Governor Gary Herbert signed the anti-choice measure into law. "The...bill would allow women to be charged with murder if they commit 'an intentional or knowing act' that causes a miscarriage. The bill initially included language that would have also punished women for 'reckless' acts. But despite the revision, critics still say the measure could target women for all kinds of actions, including staying with an abusive partner."

* * *

The 01/04/10 Democracy Now! segment, Utah Abortion Bill Could Punish Women for Miscarriages, Domestic Violence follows below...

By Ernest A. Canning on 3/8/2010 1:16pm PT  


November 29th, 2007


Fear 'Train Wreck' in Upcoming Presidential Primary Election as Cost of Move to Electronic Voting Translates to 40% Fewer Voting Booths...

Blogged by Brad Friedman from the Kansas/Colorado border...

Salt Lake City Weekly covers the state's recent electoral woes in the wake of moving to Diebold touch-screen voting machines. They even use a word we reference often here at The BRAD BLOG in regard to upcoming elections: "train wreck."

Meanwhile, in Salt Lake County, election officials are trying to figure out how to persuade voters not to come to the polls. With the switch from punch cards to touch-screen voting, the county ended up with 40 percent fewer polling booths. A large turnout will overwhelm the setup, says county Clerk Sherrie Swensen.
...
The presidential primary in February might be a good test of what is in store next year. Utah is participating in Super Tuesday with Mitt Romney on the ballot, and Swensen expects at least 40 percent turnout. If the vote goes anything like the recent city election, it could be a train wreck.

Utah, of course, was the home of one of the most notorious touch-screen voting system investigations in the country when Emery County Clerk Bruce Funk allowed renowned computer security expert Harri Hursti and e-voting watchdog group BlackBoxVoting.org to examine the new Diebold touch-screen systems forced on him for use by the state.

Their startling vulnerabilities revealed in the Diebold systems by the study were described at the time as a "major national security risk" and "the most severe security flaw ever discovered in a voting system" by Election Integrity, Voting System and Computer Security experts.

For his diligence on behalf of his voters, Funk, the 23-year elected County Clerk, was subsequently locked out of his office and removed from his job with the support of the very state officials who had gone into business with Diebold to create the mess the state now faces.

By Brad Friedman on 11/29/2007 8:35am PT  


February 23rd, 2007


Nice Going Guys!
(Guess You Shouldn't Have Enjoyed so Many Dinners With Those Diebold Salesmen...)

Utah wants to hold a Presidential Primary Election. But they seem to have run into a new snag...

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. has pushed for a Western States Presidential Primary to be held on Feb. 5. Arizona and New Mexico will also hold a primary election on that day and other Western states are considering it.

The Legislature has previously set aside $850,000 to cover the costs. With the new electronic voting machines, that bill has ballooned to $3.4 million.

Oh, well. What was that they were saying about these systems saving the taxpayer money?

(Hat-tip to the Utah Election Official who brought this to our attention. Bless you. And good luck.)

By Brad Friedman on 2/23/2007 10:05am PT  


December 19th, 2006


Sticker Shock May Force Jurisdictions to Revert to Hand Counted Paper Ballots Next Year...

If you needed any more evidence to counter the argument that it would be "too expensive" to dump all the shitty, unreliable, inaccurate, hackable, disenfranchising touch-screen (DRE) voting systems in favor of paper ballots, just take a look at Utah. They're the state which pushed out heroic 23-year Emery County Election Clerk Bruce Funk because he had the temerity to allow independent computer security experts to test the Diebold touch-screen systems the state was forcing him to use. (The experts found massive security flaws described as "the most severe" ever discovered.)

Well, now Utah has finally discovered that their switch from punch-cards to shitty, unreliable, inaccurate, hackable, disenfranchising Diebold touch-screen systems has doubled the cost of their elections. And then some. Get a load of this from the Salt-Lake Tribune...

"I'm not sure any of us realized how much it is going to cost to own and operate this system," said Michael Cragun, elections director for the Lieutenant Governor's Office.

Those costs are so prohibitive that many Utahns in next year's local elections will revert to a voting style used for generations: checking a box on a paper ballot.
...
City leaders are worried, having heard rumors they may have to triple their election budget if they go with the touch-screen machines.
...
in August 2005, [Lt. Gov. Gary] Herbert signed a contract with Texas-based Diebold Election Systems for $24.5 million. He paid the tab with a federal grant issued through HAVA.

In return, Utah received about 3,000 voting machines and the technical support to run statewide elections this year and in 2008.

But it is now becoming clear that was just the start of the costs.

"We are not sure everyone understood what happened when they flicked that first domino over," Cragun said.
...
Salt Lake County Clerk Sherrie Swensen says she had to double the pay for poll workers because of the necessary training. She now spends $12,000 per month storing the bulky machines. And all of the memory cards, batteries and other essential machine accessories cost her office an extra $138,000 this year.

These costs will continue to accrue as Swensen and other county clerks say they need more machines for the 2008 presidential election.

Unbelievable. I love how they're running around and saying "we had no idea!"... Idiots.

Have I mentioned lately how important it is that you --- and everybody you know --- sign this petition to demand Congress require a paper BALLOT for every vote cast (and get rid, once and for all, of all the shitty, unreliable, inaccurate, hackable, disenfranchising Direct Recording Electronic touch-screen voting systems in the bargain)?! As they say...Don't wait! ACT NOW!

(Hat-tip John Gideon)

By Brad Friedman on 12/19/2006 10:05am PT  


November 7th, 2006


Smartcard Encoders Reportedly Not Working...Paper Ballots Not Available Everywhere...

From Salt Lake Tribune in Utah, the state which ran the 23-year elected Emery County, UT Election Administrator, Bruce Funk out of a job when he dared allowed independent investigators to test the new Diebold touch-screen systems forced on him by the state...

Utah County voters planning to cast their ballots on the way to work were stymied by technical problems with the state's new voting machines, while some in Salt Lake City also saw delays at the polls.

Robert Nelson was among those in Provo and other locations in Utah County who were unable to cast their votes using the new voting machines when the polls opened. After arriving at his polling location at 7 a.m., Nelson said he spent an hour and a half hoping the machines would be fixed.

"The workers were earnestly trying to get the machines to work, but not a one in our precint worked," Nelson said. "I work in Salt Lake City, so I couldn't wait for the machines to work."

Similar reports came in from other areas in Utah County, including Lindon. The clerk's office said the problem had been solved and the machines were up and running as of 8:55 a.m.

In Salt Lake City, some locations only had one machine up and running when the polls opened at 7 a.m.

No voting machines were initially operational at Highland High School, although some 25 people were already waiting in line to vote when the location opened.

The local ABC affiliate is reporting the Lt. Governor (a big supporter of Diebold, as we recall) says the problem is in the voting card encoders...

Utah's Lt. Governor Gary Herbert says voting machine encoders, used to program individual user cards have been incorrectly programmed, causing delays for many voters, primarily in Utah County.

Herbert says the problem is associated with voter card encoding machines, which have failed to function properly.
...
Many voters have experienced delays, and have been told to come back later.

Some voters have opted to use paper ballots, which are also available at most, if not all polling locations.

Herbert says the primary encoding machine problem has not been fixed, but provisional systems have been put in place and no one should be turned away.

Too late, Lt. Governor. Nice going.

By Brad Friedman on 11/7/2006 12:17pm PT  


June 12th, 2006


Emery County's Bruce Funk is Stunned by San Diego County Procedures Allowing Diebold Voting Machines to be Sent Home with Poll Workers Prior to last Tuesday's Special Run-off Election for the U.S. House
23-Year County Clerk Who Allowed a Security Analysis Uncovering the Most Alarming Diebold Vulnerability to Date Sends a Letter to The BRAD BLOG...

Bruce Funk, the 23-year Emery County, Utah county clerk who allowed computer security experts Harris Hursti and Security Innovation to examine the Diebold AccuVote TSx voting systems forced on him by the state last March --- which led to the discovery of a massive security vulnerability in all Diebold touch-screen systems, as originally broken by The BRAD BLOG, and subsequently followed up by New York Times, NEWSWEEK, NPR and many other MSM outlets --- writes in with his concerns about the results of last week's special election in San Diego between Francine Busby and Brian Bilbray to replace Randy "Duke" Cunningham in CA's 50th U.S. House congressional district.

(All of our reports on that race, so far, in which San Diego county blatantly defied the CA Sec. of State's own security mitigation requirements, not to mention common sense, by sending the voting machines home with poll workers days and weeks prior to the election can be read here.)

As reported recently by the Salt Lake Tribune, since allowing the security examination in Utah, Funk has been pushed out of his job by state officials, in apparent collusion with Diebold officials. (My radio interview with Funk about all of this, from my recent Guest Host stint on the Peter B. Collins Show, is here.)

In the letter on the Busby/Bilbray matter, Funk writes...

Brad,

After reading your articles on the Busby/Bilbray Election, I am in shock! The security vulnerabilities I know to be associated with the Diebold touch screen voting machine would makes this unimaginable. Utah (and Diebold themselves) accused me that by my allowing Black Box Voting security expert Harri Hursti having access to two machines in Emery County that I had jeopardized the elections for the entire state of Utah. The analysis was all, of course, supervised and video taped to document anything done by Mr. Hursti.

You just don't let these machines go outside established security procedures. Inappropriate access [to the Diebold touch-screen systems] for example; loading on a macro program can happen within minutes and will go undetected on the machine. You can access the machines as I recall even if the front doors are sealed. These security seals, that they talk about as the answer, will probably be taken off by these same poll workers and so who will even notice?

I would worry at every stage of the deployment of the machines even by those who might transport or set them up at polling locations.

I believe that people need to keep the security issues of these machines on the front burner and talk it up with everyone. My worry is that when we as people give up and get tired of the fight, then they have won. Corporate America needs to come clean about the vulnerabilities, clean them up, and let an independent group verify it. If these machines are so great why didn't they use them in the Iraq Elections?

I just can't believe San Diego would permit such a thing in such an important election. Or any election for that matter!

Bruce

By Brad Friedman on 6/12/2006 1:32pm PT  



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