BRAD BLOG: NEWSWEEK, NPR Cover Diebold Disaster! And Much More!

[BradBlog]

The big boys are finally jumping in to the E-Voting debacle in full force...With much more (we promise) to come... We welcome them, of course, to our previously-private hell...

Want to jump in yourself, but need a place to start? Drop us a line and we'll be happy to help get you off and running! We'll even leave the snark aside to do so. This is, after all, quite serious business. Brad

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DIEBOLD DISASTER: NEWSWEEK JUMPS IN, COVERS LATEST E-VOTING DEBACLE!
Company Spokesman/Dead-Ender David Bear Running Out of Spin

"If Diebold had set out to build a system as insecure as they possibly could, this would be it," says Avi Rubin, a Johns Hopkins University computer-science professor and elections-security expert.

Things aren't looking good for our friends at Diebold. Even NEWSWEEK is finally paying attention as Steven Levy files a report for this week's issue on the story we broke two weeks ago...

FULL STORY: http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002854.htm

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NPR's Weekend Edition Covers the Latest Diebold Security Issues
Reports from Pennsylvania During Last Tuesday's Primary
(Brad Consulted NPR a Bit on the Report)

This morning, NPR's Weekend Edition covered the latest trouble with Diebold's touch-screen systems. They went to Pottsville, PA during last Tuesday's primary election.

The producer on the story had contacted us last week, prior to the story, for some background information. The resultant report, aired this morning, was generally a good -- and for a chance, accurate! -- one, we think...

FULL STORY: http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002851.htm

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PA County Sues Voting Machine Company After Votes Lost in '04 Presidential Election
UniLect Patriot Machines Lost Votes in NC and PA on Election Night...And So What About OH?
URL: http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002850.htm

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FEENEY WATCH: Scalia Spanks Feeney for Attack on Judiciary
WaPo Reports Supreme Court Justice Tells Hapless, Desperate, Corrupt, 'Conservative' Congressman to Knock it Off...

Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL) has made such a jackass of himself, so frequently of late, in his desperate bid to save himself from a challenge to his U.S. House Seat in Florida's 24th district this fall, that we can't help but begin a new feature we'll call "Feeney Watch" for a while here at BRAD BLOG...

OUR FIRST REPORT:
http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002853.htm

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Plus for shits n' grins...
Martini Republic Interviews Brad About...Brad!
The Horror...The Horror...
URL: http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002848.htm

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---
Brad Friedman
THE BRAD BLOG - The uprising continues...
http://www.BradBlog.com
VELVET REVOLUTION - The revolution begins...
http://www.VelvetRevolution.us

[Peace Patriot]

1. "...wecome to our previously private hell." I love you, Brad!

Now that thousands more are dead, wounded or tortured, now that we have a $10 TRILLION deficit (and that's just the part we know about), now that we've had yet ANOTHER tax cut for the rich--unfrellingbelievable!!!--now that they have blackmail material on the entire nation, now that gas is over $3/gal, the U.S. Constitution has been chucked out the door, and the Supreme Court is packed with corporate shills, NOW they begin to wonder about THE most insecure, hackable, non-transparent, unverifiable, corrupt voting system ever devised by man!

Our previously private hell, indeed. A day has not gone by, since Nov. 3, 2004, that I have not been tortured in this secret Eastern European dungeon.

Stalin would be proud of the human vermin in Congress who devised this ROTTEN TO THE CORE VOTING SYSTEM: Tom Delay, Bob Ney, Christopher Dodd.

Now here's a very strange fact. Bear in mind that who I would want for president is John Conyers, if I had my druthers. (But I've been pushing lately for a Restoration Ticket: Gore/Kerry '08, because that's who the American people voted for, goddammit, and I want DEMOCRACY RESTORED and I want the American people to FEEL THEIR POWER again, and to be treated with respect as the ONLY sovereigns of this country.)

But anyway: When Delay-Ney-Dodd engineered the "Help America Vote for Bush Act" in the Anthrax Congress in 2002, only two U.S. Senators voted against it. And they were...

...drumroll...

...the envelope, please...

HILLARY CLINTON and Charles Schumer.

Surprised the hell out of me.

63 House members voted against, including Conyers and others. (Sensenbrenner voted no!) But MOST of the goddamned Democrats in the House and Senate voted to have Bushite corporations take over our elections with "TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY programming code and virtually no audit/recount controls, no control on partisan vendors, no control on lavish lobbying, virtually no oversight, secret industry "testing" of the machines, and not even a paper trail, let alone a real paper ballot.

Hillary! Ms. Corporate Shill, Sleeping-with-the-Dark-Lords, Clinton. Go figure.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Last Stand]

14. well stated. nt

[Stevepol]

2. K&R. Wish I cd give this 500 R's, and thx PP for your post.

[Peace Patriot]

3. Brad, you really need to post this at a reasonable hour. I don't think

there are enough people awake in the western hemisphere to kick it to prominence. It really should be given wide venue.

[Kurovski]

4. Thank you for everything you do Brad! I knew there was a reason

I was staying up so late...to recommend this thread.

And now, off to bed I go.

[Hissyspit]

5. Off to the Greatest Page! n/t

[DemReadingDU]

6. K&R, for Brad!

no matter what the hour is!

Great articles, Thank you!

[Kolesar]

7. These rounds of primaries will keep kicking the stories into the media

...every few weeks through the summmer. yay

[enough]

8. k&r

[No DUplicitous DUpe]

9. Thank You Brad!! K&R

Finally!

[Mandate My Ass]

10. Wowza!

That's fantastic. I hope the Dem leadership finally notices we have a problem and it ain't gonna fix itself. Paper ballots and public access hand counts, NOW.

K&R

[WiseButAngrySara]

11. Thanks Brad and PP. KNR! ....n/t

[AbbyR]

12. There's a mess in Arkansas

I'm not sure what company makes Ivotronic voting machines, but they are late getting them to Arkansas for the May 23 primary, the software was late, the software to run the scanners was late. The company that was to get paper ballots ready for absentee voting was late.

The whole vote has been a disaster in every way since these machines came in, and if the media doesn't take notice of it, we are so very screwed.

There will never be impeachment, there will never be a fairly elected person in Congress again.

How did an entire country become so oblivious?

[BradBlog]

17. Mess in Arkansas, Missouri, W. Virginia, Indiana, Penn., Texas, etc. etc.

The iVotronic is made by ES&S. They have failed in nearly 10 states so far to bring in equipment, ballots and touch-screen programming in time for the start of elections in each of those states and more.

Search BRAD BLOG for "ES&S Meltdown" and you'll get at least the tip of the iceberg.

Bottom line: These companies, all of them, but ES&S as much as anybody, has said YES to every contract they could get their hands on in light of the $3.8 billion in free tax-payer HAVA money available to them. Despite any ability to actually fulfill those contracts. Thus, there is one legal suit after another now coming at them in the bargain.

The losers, of course, as usual: The voters.

[Boomer]

20. iVotronic performed poorly in my precinct

I volunteered to be a pollworker earlier this month in the West Virginia panhandle, the first outing for our mandated iVotronic machines. Each precinct received one iVotronic machine, an option which was evidently mandated for accessibility standards. The remaining two stations were optical scan (please fill in the oval with the official black Bic pen).

The machine collapsed when we tried to set it up (very top heavy and unstable) and then when it was assembled it promptly announced a battery failure and shut down (even though it had an electric connection to a functioning outlet). A lot of precincts were reporting problems, so we didn't get a fix until nearly noon. Must admit that we did NOT go out of our way to encourage people to use it, although by end of day about a half-dozen people had given it a try.

But the biggest problem was logistics at the end of polling. Each iVotronic machine had to be checked to make sure it had been properly turned off, and the paper roll had to checked to make sure it matched the electronic tally. So hundreds of pollworkers were held up for this process, and several city streets had to be blocked off as a result of the lineup of cars waiting to drop off election materials.

All in all, a rather dubious premiere.

[Patsy Stone]

13. It always seemed

like this would be the final part of the puzzle to fall in place. It's a damn shame it's taken this long (although Levy's been writing about this for a long time), but I can't be angry. I have to be happy.

[icehenge]

15. good to know its being covered in some news areas

thanks for the post Brad.

[Nothing Without Hope]

16. K & R - thank you!!! n/t

[BrklynLiberal]

18. Another kick for more attention.

[annabanana]

19. (we shall bring this to Monday's cube rats!). . . . .eom

[kster]

21. K&R................ nt

[Kurovski]

22. Kick(nt)

[nolabels]

23. The word " incredulous" was passed up several light years ago

I am thinking some parts of these these two stories like this> "For there to be a problem here, you're basically assuming a premise where you have some evil and nefarious election officials who would sneak in and introduce a piece of software," said. "I don't believe these evil elections people exist."


and this match >
http://joejennydc.blogspot.com/2004_10_01_joejennydc_archive.html


Don't believe what your lying eyes tell you that they see, believe others that tell you how to look at it :crazy:

[Digit]

24. K&R

[garybeck]

25. Avi Ruben almost hit a home run

at the end they are still talking about how poll workers or election officials perpetrating the possible fraud, and how they would have to put "memory cards up their sleeve" or something like that.

Dr. Ruben failed to mention (at least on the broadcast) that it's not the election officials who have the real easy access; it's the PEOPLE WHO WORK AT THE VOTING MACHINE COMPANIES.