Transcript of Lou Dobbs Monday, July 10

[Amaryllis]

No link. Got this in an email.

Tonight, the federal government is failing to protect our democracy from
an imminent threat. Electronic voting machines are open to fraud and can
be compromised by hackers. But the federal government cannot enforce
security standards for electronic voting machines. It hasn't set
specific standards yet. Kitty Pilgrim reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): More than half of all
American voters will vote on electronic voting machines in upcoming
elections. And watchdog groups want the federal government to be more
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MICHAEL WALDMAN, BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE: The federal government,
through the election assistance commission, should be training local
officials in how to do the right kind of audits of these voting systems.
That can happen right away. That doesn't need new legislation. It should
be the job of the federal government to do the kind of threat analysis
that private groups and computer scientists have done.

PILGRIM: Federal guidelines for designing and testing electronic voting
machines were drafted by a federal advisory board in 2005. But those
standards are voluntary and won't be officially into effect until
December 2007.

DeForest Soaries was the first chair of the Federal Election Assistance
Commission set up after the hanging chad controversy of 2000 to oversee
election reform. Soaries resigned April of last year.

DEFOREST SOARIES, FORMER CHMN, ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMM.: Well what's
wrong with the standards is they are not standards, they are
recommendations at best. I'm worried about electronic voting because
we've done such inadequate research that we don't know what we don't know.

PILGRIM: Computer engineers say the guidelines are not enough to
actually check the machine that is in place at the polling station.

JOSH WASHBURN, VOTETRUSTUSA: We don't know enough about the system in
front of you to know if it is or is not the same as the one that was
tested. So any statement about the tested system may or may not apply to
your system.

PILGRIM: Also watchdog groups say guidelines allow for an acceptable
failure rate for electronic voting machines that is too high.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PILGRIM: The Federal Election Assistance Commission says voting
guidelines have always been voluntary and left up to the states. Now the
Help America Vote Act sets minimum guidelines, but doesn't say what kind
of technology should be used or require how it should be verified. That
decision, Lou, is local.

DOBBS: It may be local, but this is a national issue for certain. The
idea that we can be a matter of months away from the upcoming midterm
elections and not have any assurance whatsoever that these machines
work, can't be tampered with or that fraud will occur is just mind boggling.

PILGRIM: No, the people that we talk to who watch this are absolutely in
shock over this. And they're very upset that local officials aren't
taking the energy to check and connect with people.

DOBBS: Well what in the world is the federal government doing?

PILGRIM: The federal government has basically dropped the ball on this, Lou.

DOBBS: Dropped the ball. Minor thing with our Democratic republic at
stake. Not that we don't have enough issues to deal with, the fact that
we can't even rely upon a vote. We'll continue with your excellent
reporting on this issue, very important issue. Thank you, Kitty Pilgrim.

[Patchuli]

1. This is exciting! I think a lot of conservatives

listen to him. I am grateful to RFK, Jr. for finally making the statement out loud in a big but cool mainstream media source : The Rolling Stone! Even rightwingers rock out... ;-)

[Zookeeper]

2. Well, good!

There are people watching that show that may never watch Olbermann. And even Olbermann has never made this into a crusade the way that Dobbs is likely to.

I know feelings about Dobbs are mixed, to say the least, but we should give him credit for taking on this issue because no one else in the corporate media seems to be willing to, even after two election debacles.

[Wilms]

3. .