As several folks have requested, here is my “Special Comment” on “Democracy’s Gold Standard” in the wake of Wisconsin’s Supreme Election Debacle from my final night of the week guest hosting the Mike Malloy Show last Friday night. It’s presented here in quick and dirty video form in hopes that it’ll get a few more eyes and ears than just the audio would by itself…
Please see this article for more on “Democracy’s Gold Standard.” And here is Nancy Tobi’s book: Hands-On Elections: An Informational Handbook for Running Real Elections, Using Real Paper Ballots, Counted by Real People
A text transcript of the “Special Comment” follows below…
in the Wake of Wisconsin’s April 5th, 2011
Supreme Court Election debacle
As heard on the Mike Malloy Show,
guest hosted by Brad on April 8, 2011
Transcribed by Emily Levy of VelvetRevolution.us
BRAD FRIEDMAN: Yeah, that’s what they keep tellin’ me. Democracy is coming to the USA. They tell us that every year, every two years. But if we learn anything from Wisconsin and the Supreme Court election, we don’t yet have a real democracy. At least not a citizen-overseeable democracy, in this country. We learned once again this week in Wisconsin when suddenly, out of nowhere, with almost no explanation, at least no plausible explanation, Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus announced 14,000 votes that she didn’t know about previo-, well, she knew about them, but nobody else knew about them, and suddenly a race with 1.5 million votes cast which had a 204 vote margin suddenly has a 7,500 vote margin, or just over 7,500 votes.
Interesting number in that 7,500 votes is just about 0.5% in the gap between Justice David Prosser, who is a supporter of the Republican Governor, Scott Walker, and Assistant Attorney General Joanne Kloppenburg. It may put an automated state-sponsored recount just out of reach. Joanne Kloppenburg would have to pay for that recount herself.
The question is why does there need to be a recount in the first place? And why do we use the word ‘recount’ when the ballots have not actually been counted at all? Yes, they have paper ballots in most of Wisconsin. That’s the good news. But they run ’em through optical scan machines made by Diebold (you know the name), Sequoia (you know the name), ES&S (you know the name), Populex: systems that are often failed, systems that are very easily manipulated. The paper runs through the systems and tells us what the result is and nobody bothers to check it. Nobody bothers to oversee it. In Wisconsin you can’t have a hand count unless you go to court to get a court order for a hand examination of the ballots.
Now, with this news that Kathy Nickolaus came out with, this Republican activist who is the County Clerk who oversees the elections in Waukesha County, that she suddenly found these votes out of nowhere — and, by the way, she used to work with Justice David Prosser in the Republican Assembly there — she was given…she would not be charged with criminal charges back in 2001 when they were investigating some pretty bad doings there inside the Republican Caucus. And, in fact, they had to put the Republican Caucus out of business because they were doing politickin’ on office time. She was let off the hook in exchange for her testimony.
These are the people that we are told we should trust. People like Kathy Nickolaus. People like Kathy Nickolaus who keep the election results on their own computer in their own office where nobody else can oversee the process. Election results of paper ballots that have been scanned by computer systems where nobody can see the process. Nobody can tell if they’ve been counted accurately or not. These are the people that we are told we should just trust. Oh, “just trust, just trust in the process.”
Now, we have some evidence today, as we spoke a little bit about earlier in the show, that in fact those 14,000 votes that suddenly appeared out of nowhere may not have appeared out of nowhere. That in fact there was a newspaper, a small local paper in Brookfield where these votes were said to have appeared, a report by Lisa Sink of the Brookfield Patch, and she in fact posted on election night, a little bit after midnight on April 5. It would have been the morning of April 6, — 10,859 votes for Prosser, 3,456 votes for Kloppenburg. That’s 3-4-5-6 for Kloppenburg. The exact same numbers that Kathy Nickolaus announced yesterday. There was no change.
These numbers were posted and published and you can go to BradBlog.com and you can see the link to the article. They were posted on Tuesday, Tuesday night. Lisa Sink says that she got these numbers, she told me — because I contacted her today to confirm this — she told me that she got the numbers straight on election night at City Hall from the City Clerk’s office, typed it up at City Hall and posted the story at 12:24 a.m. and that’s why it says April 6 instead of April 5. She says she didn’t get any results from the County or AP because she only needed the Brookfield city votes for her report.
Well, that’s good. It gives some confirmation of these numbers. She said what was or was not included in the county-wide totals that Nickolaus gave to AP on election night, “I have no idea”. That’s according to Lisa Sink. Only Nickolaus and maybe AP have that info. Why don’t we? Why don’t we, the people have this info?
Well, Kathy Nickolaus determined that she did not want to include the municipalities in her totals on election night, that she sort of bunched everything together so nobody noticed, nobody knew what was real, what was not, and that was her decision. She made that alone. It made it impossible to have citizen oversight. We are supposed to trust Kathy Nickolaus.
I don’t think we should have to trust anybody in an election. Our system was not built on trust. It was built on checks and balances and the greatest election officials in this country like Ion Sancho, who we had, from Florida, Leon County, Florida, who we had on this show earlier this week, he will tell you, “Don’t trust me. There’s no reason to trust me. There’s no reason to trust anyone in an election. If you can’t see it, there’s no reason that you should accept it.”
I agree.
I’ve been talking about these stories here on the Mike Malloy Show, on Stephanie Miller’s show, all over the radio. At BradBlog.com we have thousands and thousands of pages on this stuff, trying to make this point over and over and over and over. And yet, we still keep these same stupid secret proprietary systems and we allow our election officials to tell us that we don’t have to see what’s going on, that we should trust them.
Back in October of 2005 I was on the air talking about this on my friend Peter B. Collins’ show — I was on the air with the 13-year Registrar of Voters in Monterey County, California with his new voting systems made by Sequoia. (Audio of full interview here, text transcript here, Court TV’s Catherine Crier picked up on our reporting of this in a video editorial here.) He was quite proud of those systems, the systems that were 100% unverifiable and have since been decertified in the state of California, thankfully.
But when I was asking him questions about this system, this 13-year election official, Tony Anchundo, the Registrar of Monterey, California, well, here’s the question and his answer from October of 2005…
[Audio clip from interview with Anchundo on 10/24/2005][end of audio clip]BRAD FRIEDMAN: It sounds like Mr. Anchundo is suggesting that the vote count will actually be taken from the cartridge. So, in other words, when one votes, and you see that result on that piece of paper, how does a voter or anyone else know that what is actually marked on the cartridge is the same as what’s on the paper?
TONY ANCHUNDO: How will the voter know? They won’t know, obviously, at that time. There is obviously going to have to be some trust and faith in the elections official, and in this case it’s me.
“There obviously has to be some trust and faith in the election official, in this case it was me.” That’s Tony Anchundo, the well-respected 13-year Monterey County Registrar of Voters back in October of 2005.
A few short months after that interview, in July of 2006, Tony “Trust Me” Anchundo was charged with 43 criminal counts including charges of forgery, misapplication of funds, embezzlement, falsification of accounts, and grand theft of nearly $80,000 of County money. Remember, you have to have trust and faith in your election officials, “In this case it would be me,” said Tony Anchundo.
In December of 2006 Anchundo pleaded no contest to all 43 criminal charges.
I am sure Tony Anchundo was a very nice fellow. He seemed very nice. I have no idea, as a matter of fact, what party he was even from. I don’t know if he was a Democrat, a Republican, I don’t really care. All I know is that after spending all of these years writing thousands of pages at BradBlog.com and seeing these same situations happen over and over and over and over again where we have no idea who won an election, where we are told we are supposed to simply trust in the computers that count these ballots, that we are supposed to simply trust in the election officials, election officials like Tony Anchundo who pled no contest to all 43 criminal charges, election officials like Kathy Nickolaus, who says, ‘Nothing to worry about, I’ll keep the computers that have the election results in my office so that nobody else can see it. Because it’s more secure that way if only I see it.’ Security by obscurity.
And then when she finds 14,000 votes in one of the most important elections in the state of Wisconsin in years, we’re told, ‘Oh, it’s just an accident. I forgot to hit the save button.’ But there is no save button in Microsoft Access. But we’re supposed to trust her. And we’re supposed to trust these machines that count our paper ballots.
A lot of people say, ‘Well, there’s paper ballots. There is nothing to worry about.’ — Yes. There. Is.
If citizens can’t oversee it, they can’t trust it. If they can’t see inside a computer counting these optical scan ballots, there is no reason to trust it. I have been saying this over and over and over for years. Do we really need another 2000 election debacle to hit us in 2012, in 2014, in 2016? 20? When? When is it enough?
There is a Gold Standard for Democracy. In the closest elections, when we have no idea who won because it’s so close, what do we do? We hand count the paper ballots in front of the citizenry. In front of the public. In front of the video cameras. So there is no question about who won or lost that election. That is, presuming if the chain of custody for those paper ballots has been secure. And on that, we generally have to – what? – trust the election officials that the chain of custody has been secure.
Enough.
This is our democracy. This is the life blood of this nation. If we can’t figure out how to run an election in this country that the supporters of both the winner and the loser believe, when they walk away, that the winner and loser can both believe that the results are accurate, then we don’t have a democracy. We need to be able to oversee the counting of our own ballots in our own elections. That is self-governance. That is what is envisioned in our Constitution. And when we are cut out of that process then our democracy has been taken away from us.
Enough.
Enough.
Of course, I can’t do it alone. There are a lot of great election integrity advocates out there, but there are not enough. There are not nearly enough. You are needed.
And I’m not going to tell you that hand-counted paper ballots at the precinct on election night in front of the people. with the results posted at the precinct before the ballots move anywhere, I’m not going to tell you that that is going to work everywhere every time. I don’t know. I’m not going to make the mistake that the voting machine companies made when they came in and said, ‘Trust us. This will work.’
But I know it works in New Hampshire. I know that in New Hampshire quite often where, in 40% of the towns where they do count by hand, the totals are often done, completed, overseen by everybody in the community without question before the Diebold towns have their results in. I know they can do it in New Hampshire. So I know we can do it elsewhere in this nation.
We need pilot programs. Hand-counted pilot programs. And you can go to BradBlog.com, look up “Democracy’s Gold Standard,” and learn more about this and take action. And look for Nancy Tobi’s book on this (Hands-On Elections: An Informational Handbook for Running Real Elections, Using Real Paper Ballots, Counted by Real People
We don’t need to trust our election officials. I don’t care if they’re Republican, if they’re Democratic, if they’re independent. I don’t care. It’s not about trust. It’s about checks, balance, and oversight. This is not about right and left, it’s about right and wrong. I continue to say it for years. I hope you will join me in saying it out there in your local community because I can’t do this alone and there’s not enough of us fighting this fight.
This is what matters. This is what matters. Democracy matters.
Please, go out, educate yourself. Go to your county official. Ask them, “Can we have a hand-counted paper ballot pilot program in this county?” Do it in a small election. Don’t ask too much all at once. Let’s learn how to do this. But we need to be able to have transparency, transparency, transparency, oversight, oversight, oversight for true self-governance in this country.
Enough of these supreme debacles like the one we’re seeing in Wisconsin and that we seem to see now in each and every election.
Enough.
Democracy’s Gold Standard. It’s there. Let’s get it.
You’re listening to Brad on the Mike Malloy Show.
Brad’s landmark commentary should be broadcast, and re-broadcast, on every major news outlet in the U.S.
I agree.
brad ty for everything you say and do
on another article bev commented,
i thought it pointed out very well the crime was when “they” concealed part of the voting process from us…any additional problems(impossible numbers,glitches,inaccurate results)are a second crime,not the first
now i wanna be clear ;crime; is my descriptive word not bevs but is it not a crime when most of the country is denied open and transperent elections?
Why is it a “debacle”? Ah, yes, because Brad’s preferred candidate lost!
suddenly, out of nowhere, with almost no explanation, at least no plausible explanation, Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus announced 14,000 votes that she didn’t know about previo-, well, she knew about them, but nobody else knew about them
That’s carrying dishonesty to an extreme, isn’t it? Anybody paying any degree of attention to this story knows perfectly well where the 14,00o votes came from.
The intent here is to delegitimatize the election process when it fails to give you the outcome you desire. That’s not a strategy which is going to work to the best long term interest of the left.
If we can’t figure out how to run an election in this country that the supporters of both the winner and the loser believe, when they walk away, that the winner and loser can both believe that the results are accurate, then we don’t have a democracy.
The losers have no interest in believing in the accuracy of the system. Even if they DO believe it is accurate, they will pretend to believe otherwise. The alternative is to admit they lost a fair election, and that is something the left can never admit.
SteveM said @ various:
I realize you’re new here, SteveM, and have been willing over the past week to jump in head first in making a fool of yourself, but as you’re new, allow me to help you out.
When I was helping the Joe Miller campaign in Alaska was it because he was my “preferred candidate”? How about all of the other hard right Republicans I’ve advised about Election Integrity. Also because they were my preferred candidate?
Guessing you didn’t bother to listen to the full video or read the full transcript, else you would have heard me speak to my lack of concern about Right/Left issues in matters of election integrity. You also wouldn’t have written this:
As I was one of the first ones to point out the Election Night reporting of the Brookfield votes last week (see this article from Friday), and I speak to it as well in the video above, and earlier in Friday night’s show as well, the only one who has a delegitimate interest here is you.
As I also note earlier in the week you were here leaving wholly unsourced comments about precincts with “more votes than voters”, back when you believed your candidate might have lost the election, it’s quite clear that your interests lie only in “delegitimiz[ing] the election process when it fails to give you the outcome you desire.”
Pretty pathetic there, Steve-o. But welcome to The BRAD BLOG! You might want to actually bother to read it before you mouth off and make a jackass of yourself with your wingnut horseshit here in comments, though I suspect you don’t much care. And thanks for stopping by!
SteveM,
Dude, what is your thinking? I’ve seen this time and time again. Individuals, like yourself, just so ready to jump on what appears to be a right wing hobby horse, and start shooting all over the place screamimg ,”YEAH HAH, YEAH HAH! GOT ME SOME FUCKING LEFTIES!!DANCE YOU FUCKING LEFTIES!!!” The shooting and screaming is then not infrequently accompanied by mindless fantasy based fact free rants. The ranting is invariably presented as if it is comprised solely of unassailable points of light and truth.
You don’t do your goddamn homework. Impossible to take you seriously because of that fact. Not only do your comments reveal astonishing ignorance of what Brad has been saying over and over again here for years and years, YOU APPARENTLY DON’T HAVE THE COURTESY TO EVEN BOTHER READING THE FUCKING PIECE YOU’RE CRITICIZING JUST INCHES ABOVE WHERE YOU’RE TYPING AWAY, SO FURIOUSLY “NAILING US”.
Fucking lazy with blinders on.
If you want to be part of the conversation, do a little goddamn homework.
News from the Great Orange Ostritch Haven:
Remember Ramona Kitzinger, the Dem Waukesha canvasser who vouched for Kathy Nickolaus’s “computer errors”?
Actually… not.
Kitzinger had not been informed of the nature or the scale of the error prior to the press conference.
All she had been told by Nickolaus was that there had been an error and had been shown some numbers on the computer that were supposed to show the error and its correction. She did not know the source of the numbers. Those numbers seemed to add up. And that’s what she said at the press conference while still trying to absorb what had happened… and there’s more:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/04/11/965947/-Ramona-Kitzinger,-member-of-Waukesha-Board-of-Canvassers,-Speaks-Up
With todays revelation by Ramona Kitzinger the scenario of Kathy double counting Brookfield votes is even more possible. Especially since Ramona was not informed of this major error until AFTER they had finished canvassing and certifying the vote totals from Waukesha county.
This article at Opednews seems even more of a likely explanation now.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/How-Wisconsin-GOP-and-Kath-by-Eric-Nelson-110409-822.html
#9
I just read that Daily Kos post . The poor lady did not verify. She is 80 years old and knows nothing about computers.
I can’t understand why a US Atty. did not just come in and impound the computers and everything related.
Why does a US Rep. have to request one, and such a delay? Time for them to cover their tracks?
Remember a journalist on Democracy Now stating that every time he is over seas and comes back to the states. His computers and phone ..everything is checked. Takes about 6 hours every time. And the agents aren’t all that nice about it.
It is plain to me that the justice system and election system is compromised.
You would think from MSM that the republicans are running everything. If the republicans had control of the WH and Senate….they would be running the show from there. Even when democrats had the house , senate and WH…they were still running the show.
Fascism.
Excellent Special Comment, Brad! You are such an important figure in investigating and exposing the criminal behavior that has been going on for years now with regard to these proprietary voting machines. Why the congress, the president, and the people accept the present system is beyond me until I remember that so few actually even know or care what’s been going on for years. What I’d like to see is your video comment on the six o’clock evening news (every station), and on all the cable stations. I need to see Rachel, Lawrence, and Cenk interviewing you. It’s time!!! And lastly, you are an immensely patient guy but I’m glad you took the repub troll (Steve M ) down so smartly. Facts will do them in every time.
Brad said “Yeah, that’s what they keep tellin’ me. Democracy is coming to the USA. They tell us that every year, every two years. But if we learn anything from Wisconsin and the Supreme Court election, we don’t yet have a real democracy. At least not a citizen-overseeable democracy, in this country.”
Without accountability there is no democracy.
Too big to jail or too big to fail are examples of the absence of accountability, which is the absence of democracy.
Honesty is required for accountability.
Notice how the official Japanese Nuke Public Relations language is catching up to the language protest blogs were using a month ago.
Officialdom resists honesty without realizing they are resisting democracy it would seem.
First, Kudos to all those concerned with this issue and trying their best to solve the problem!
I’m surprised, however, to see Brad still going on about what he seems to like to call the “gold standard” after I pointed out some of the problems with it here recently:
https://bradblog.com/?p=8459#comment-437265
https://bradblog.com/?p=8459#comment-437273
https://bradblog.com/?p=8459#comment-437324
Briefly, the issues are:
(1) Exposing marked ballots to groups of people — even when only one of these persons is involved in vote buying or coercion — allows such a person to recognize ballots that voters’ identify using obscure write-ins, combinations of contests, or other kinds of marks. (Brad seemed unaware of this issue.)
(2) Polling places in highly partisan areas may be threatening to voters or observers of different persuasions. This makes counting under the “gold standard” something that can be easily rigged. Furthermore, even precinct totals being published is an issue in this regard, as retaliation or rewards can be conditioned on whether the few dissenting votes appear. (None of these comments were addressed by Brad.)
(3) This so-called “gold standard” has been used in many of the countries where election meltdowns have resulted in loss of civil government and so it must be asked if there are better ways to conduct elections. (It would seem that Brad has never asked that, just dictated to his minions that the old way is the good way — and apparently justifying it by asserting that whats been sold in the US has been poor, which of course is no argument for establishingh what is an adequate or the best appraoch.)
(4) Those who advocate this alleged “gold standard” are in fact often receiving gold themselves as a result and therefore have an inherent conflict of interest — the never-ending battle for election integrity under this formula leads to lifetime employment for them at the expense of the public good. (Perhaps someone should look, for instance, at all the money that’s reported in the public non-profit tax filings that has gone to pay proponents of this alleged standard.)
(5) After a decade of “election reform” under the guidance of the current leadership, election integrity has not improved in this country and certainly not in the reset of the world. Perhaps it’s rational to, while promoting the best way we know, also look for a better way.
Trying to get the word out in my little way.
Thanks for hanging in there, Brad. Don’t know how you do it!
Judy, new thread – same readers. We’re onto you.
Simply reposting your ignorant rant from another thread after we’ve all addressed, debunked, de-constructed, and debilitated your silly argument (quite successfully) only makes you more silly.
Stop it. Move on.
HA!
a)I can HEAR that dull ax of yours a’ grinding, Jud. Got some beef with the HCPB peeps, huh?
b)Speak for your OWN life’s work, not ours, if you please.
(Which is…? Gonna go google you.)
c)That statement is an utterly laughable turd-ball.
Wisconsin was a debacle by any stretch of the imangination, even if it turns out to reflect the votes actually made (which, as Brad points, out, will be impossible to determine). It’s a debacle because of procedures (or lack thereof) that allowed the error happened in the first place.
What would have happened if this clerk had uncovered this number in favor of the Democrat? Would she have been as forthcoming regarding her error? This was THE election of national focus; how often do these errors occur out of sight of the nation, and how often are they just swept under the rug when they do not favor the home team? And I’m not even talking about intentional electoral mayhem.
As Brad said, it’s about confidence. I’ll never forget the 2008-2009 market crash, but stocks go up and down. What ensured that I’ll never trust the stock market again was the day (several months after the bottom, about mid-2009 as I recall) that the market lost ten percent of its value in less than one hour, for which I still haven’t found an adequate explanation.
That was a great special comment, Brad.
Rep. Tammy Baldwin asking Justice Dept. to investigate WI Supreme Court election:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/11/tammy-baldwin-eric-holder-wisconsin-supreme-court_n_847736.html
Well, this one’s getting some media play!
Let’s roll.
Hey Jude!
Granted, you may not be using your real name, but GOOGLING you only pulls up your recent, weirdo BRADBLOG posts of yours re: WI…and nothing else.
Whattaya know.
You are clue-less, link-less, evidence-challenged, ill-sourced, prone to hyperbole, all output no input, all Hat and no Cattle – and un-Googleable.
Interesting to me that Judy misspelled “rest” as “reset”. We have a great blogger here in Utah that came up with a truth about internet trouble makers on our site – and we have some pretty good ones. When they have been debunked thoroughly, they come back later and it’s like they’ve pressed a reset button, starting all over with the same argument.
It’s a job, I guess. 🙂
Judy Jolins, clearly a glutton for failed arguments, tried again, after nice people here explained to “her” patiently how ill-informed “her” arguments were. Sadly, I was kinda busy last week, informing people while “Judy” was busy back here disinforming them, so didn’t get to play along much. But now I’ll offer my fair share.
“She” said, in trying to argue how citizen oversight and self-governance via counting ballots in public at the precinct was not a good thing:
This argument was so silly, when first made, I thought Judy must have been making something up. Turns out “she” wasn’t! She was arguing that the thing CA SoS Debra Bowen (arguably one of the nation’s most informed SoS’ when it comes to EI) said was not a problem.
But if it is, I suppose “Ms. Jolins” is similarly arguing that absentee ballots should be illegal, and that recounts should never ever be allowed to happen (accept maybe secretly by government officials with no oversight.)
Silly argument when initially made, still silly argument even when it’s retyped.
Good point! Much better to have the election officials in those highly partisan areas count the ballots in secret instead and just tell us what they said. Brilliant!
Really? Now you’re arguing that we should never even know the precinct totals? Ever? We know you’re too cowardly to put your real name behind your words here, but now you want to argue that the citizenry shouldn’t even know anything but who won and who lost at the end of an election for fear of some fake fear that somehow someone would be retaliated against??
Better plan: Judy Jolins, with “her” fake name, tells us who will rule us. We shall comply. Thanks, Judy! Your plan is sound!
Really? Which many countries where election meltdowns occurred and resulted in loss of civil government? Feel free to let us know. Do try to be specific, please. Thanks!
Before I respond, I’ll wait for your citing the “many of the countries” of which you speak. Be careful now, because this is where you may well make even more of an ass of yourself than you already have. Proceed with caution, “Judy”!
Who? And what’s the conflict of interest? I’m running out of patience with you already, so please be prepared to come back with some answers that rise above the level of bullshit if you’d be so kind.
BTW, if your charge is that I’m receiving such gold, a) I wish! and b) We all know how I “make a living at this” (or don’t, as the case may be). Why is it that you have yet to tell us who you are and how *you* make a living, dear? Just curious, of course.
Su-weet! Where do I sign up? I must be doing something terribly wrong!
Good idea! The Election Integrity racket is a total windfall! Hard to believe all those citizen non-profit groups around the country begging for $5 and $10 donations are making so much money at it! (Patience. Wearing. Thinner.)
Which, of course, is why every voter in the nation now votes on a 100% unverifiable touch-screen voting machine, as envisioned as of 2002! Oh, wait, that’s the opposite of the truth. My apologies. Your nonsense was beginning to wear off on me, I guess.
Wow. All those words and just one sentence that had any credibility to it! I’ll agree with that one. So, tell us, what is that “better way”? I am, as I have been for about a decade, all ears on the subject.
Before you answer that, be sure to answer the other questions as well, or you will be considered a disinformation troll who is no longer welcome to participate in the conversation here. So, as cautioned above, proceed with caution, “Judy”, or you will not be welcome here for long.
Larry Bergan @ 15 said:
Thanks, Larry. Really appreciate that.
Clean living. Or the opposite of clean living. One or the other.
Thanks, amigo. 😉
Judy Jolins@14,
What are you doing?
The claims which you site and repeat again were addressed thoroughly on the previous thread you link to.
Your next step, if you want to take it, is to RESPOND to the thorough rebuttals you’ve received.
Stating your already refuted points again as if the refutations didn’t occur, or like somebody isn’t getting them, doan a makea no sense.
They were understood and rejected with evidence, reason, and questions for you to answer.
… Brad said…
Now taking bets that Judy’s idea of a better way is corporate-controlled EVMs counting ballots prepared with as-yet-nonexistent but still corporate-controlled Ballot Marking Devices and audited by the as-yet-uninvented economically feasible audit that can’t be easily gamed…
In other words Holts’ corporate-mandated fiasco of a bill spiced with Dopp’s gameable audits… now taking bets.
ZAPKITTY:
I haven’t forgotten the quick education you gave me when I tried to tell this blog that Orrin Hatch may be interested in voting integrity. I hadn’t yet made the connection that “voter fraud” was a code term for not allowing poor people to vote. If I recall correctly, agent 99, who was overseeing the blog warned you to stop attacking other bloggers.
Boy, were you ever right!
I think that was before John Fund wrote his nefarious book on the subject. I never liked Hatch from the moment he arrived in Utah, but I guess my desire to believe Utah elections had a chance got the better of me. Being told we were the reddest state in the union after the 2004 “election” was not very comforting to me and I don’t believe it to this day.
DREDD is still here!
I learned so much from you people. I often attack people who don’t use their real names on blogs, but never if they make sense and don’t seem to be trying to wreck the conversation out of malice to our democracy.
What a cast of characters have come though here. Shakespeare couldn’t put a coherent book together if he tried.
ZapKitty @ 25 said:
Close. But not quite. BMDs, but “open source”. Wait for it. 🙂
(That is, if “she” decides to answer at this point. I wouldn’t.)
ZAPKITTY and DREDD:
The internet is a beautiful thing – so far.
I just typed “bradblog orrin” into Google and found the thread where zapkitty nearly got kicked off the blog. He called me an “ignorant slut” after, (sort of), saying something nice about Orrin Hatch at comment #48. Funny stuff.
Poor Rep. Rush Holt had just responded to the BradBlog with a comment we couldn’t quite understand and we were – sort of – trying to be nice, but after having two major presidential elections stolen at the time, were fairly “passionate”, I guess you might say.
The whole thread is a joy to read. Who can blame Holt for being scared off, but then who can blame us for being so angry either.
Oops, forgot to link to the thread about Holt.
Ah, the nonexistent magic of open source e-voting… the “magic” part, that is.
Open source code exists, of course, and is a major player in software development but it is not a magical cure for the fatal flaws of e-voting.
Open source e-voting was originally an understandable response to the outrage of corporate-owned code controlling our elections but one that wasn’t thought through.
Open source code is just as vulnerable to electoral fraud as corporate-owned code in that the voter cannot tell what code was running on a machine before they cast their votes, nor what code was running as they cast their votes nor what code was running after they cast their votes.
And open source code can be subverted and exploits developed by hackers just as with corporate-owned code… check the list of patches for the linux kernel in the past six months.
And of course Ballot Marking Devices controlled by the e-voting code are subject to the same vulnerabilities. The promise of truly independent voting for the disabled is a false one in that the most that e-voting can do is to force the disabled person to trust whoevers code might be controlling the device at the time votes are cast… as opposed to trusting a friend or relative to assist them.
In a way open source e-voting suffered the same fate as the “paper trails” retrofitted onto DREs… at first the were thought to be a solution but upon closer examination turned out to be no more secure than the DREs they were bolted onto.
In its appropriate place open source code is great and I use almost exclusively myself… but controlling our elections isn’t an appropriate place for it.
Wonderful post Brad. And it sure is nice to see all the same olds again, but anyone heard anything on Flo? I haven’t seen anything for quite a while, and last I did see he had had some major surgery. Here’s hoping he is fine! And as usual KARENFROMILLINOIS, really great comment @ #3! Sorry the last time I typed you in I didn’t capitalize; no slight was intended.
Truly, with the voice of the majority of people being ignored by both parties, when will people wake up to this issue? This should be the grassroots issue that overrides all divides!!!!!!
Dorrie Seinhoff on FB Election Integrity:”
Appears Waukesha County had a 97.63 voter turnout in November 2004 despite the rain & drizzle of the day. Daily Kos has a good diary on this: “Waukesha voting irregularities go back to 2004…”
http://www.waukeshacounty.gov/uploadedFiles/Media/List_Documents/County_Clerk/2004_Official_Election
http://www.waukeshacounty.gov
E&l2a0o7c067F(s0p16.66h3T&a00L SUMMARY REPORT NOVEMBER GENERAL ELECTION WAUKESHA COUNTY, WISCONSIN NOVEMBER 2, 2004 RUN DATE:01/08/08 02:11 PM
I couldn’t help myself and had to write this:
See, Nate Silver, what a true investigation can come up with? Next time, don’t assume incompetence. Assume malfeasance. You should know by now that election fraud is systemic; it requires a bogus historical recorded vote count that is perpetuated into the future with the help of a complicit media. It’s what mathematicians call a recursive function: Vote (i) =f(Vote(i-1): the current election is dependent on the prior – and the next election is a function of the current. The fraud is cumulative; it builds on itself. The rigged baseline enables the pre-election Llikely Voter polls to be right on the money. They feed right into the complemetary bogus exit polls in which bogus “adjustments” are necessary to match a bogus recorded vote count. The charade is a never-ending spectacle. And the election fraud goes on and on…forever. https://spreadsheets1.google.com/ccc?key=tpsLLEzC1Ccb7FsEN-EgZhQ#gid=0
Speaking of the golden rule, the Bush v Gore epitome of the missing golden rule may be revisited in the US Supreme Court:
A Revival of Bush v Gore?
hi ancient,
you can always call me anything you want!!
i miss flo too,his links were always informational,i too hope he is well
jeanie dean (xxxooo)isnt it crazy that no one in the justice dept has taken that computer yet?
i mean the gal has been involved in criminal IT activities before..she has pulled this late reporting couple times before(altho 29 hours is a new record i think)…and then she finds an 80 year old dem(that she misleads) to back up her story and o btw she has a ballot producing machine…i’m telling you girl that is a comedy sketch waiting to happen
i do disagree with bev about one thing tho as she has told me she is not pushing for a hand count in wis because the chain of custody is compromised…i still say OPEN THE BOXES,HAND COUNT WHAT WE HAVE IN PUBLIC VIEW,maybe it wont change the outcome,no one knows at this point but i still think milwaukees vote is suppressed enough that klopp still has a good chance of winning if she can get the boxs opened and even if it doesnt change the outcome what is wrong with a lil test in democracy,was the machine count within that half of 1 percent rate that is the law?
http://gab.wi.gov/node/1707
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/04/11/965994/-Waukesha-voting-irregularities-go-back-to-2004
i found this link @ bbv.org
from the diary,
i would correct the author on one thing this is an impossible result,or 3 impossible results which is not a sign of fraud..it is fraud..right out in the open..this is why “they” no longer report ballots cast…still after 7 days we have no idea what the turn out number really was in wis
Dear Karen,
With the passage of time there may now be additional factors that might override this but I’m remembering a warning(I think from Nancy Tobi)from a few years ago during one of those NH recounts. She said she used to be all for them. But after seeing them done in various half-assed ways–too limited in scope, chain of custody problems, etc.–and coming up with nothing, she changed her mind. When the result is nothing is found, it only gives our side, which nobody wants to hear anyway, even less credibility. She continued to advocate for PROPER AND THOROUGH recounts, but warned to be wary of wishing for the partial ones. Every time inadequate searches come up with nothing it makes it that much easier to see us as wolf criers.
Dave
i respect nancy and bev very much
and i want the entire state counted
i understand the chain of custody prob but even when recounts are done that the msm saying didnt change anything…as in new hampshire after the primary…some patriot like jeanie dean comes along and videos butch and hoppy racing away at nearly 90 mph(so the ladies can not watch the pick ups)or jd videos them using guard dogs to block the windows as the sos “prepares” for hours after dark for the next days “box opening”
those 2 things alone could be out of a stalin playbook…and i didnt know that about new hampshires sos before,so i learned something
when we look,we learn,if we stop looking “they” have won
look at that link i posted from a kos diary @ #36…20 thousand more votes than voters and it only took someone 6 years to look
Dave – Nancy’s warning about NH’s chain of custody played over and over in my head in a haunting loop while I was there. She was absolutely right, of course.
I would never presume to speak for Nancy, but what we found in NH *BECAUSE* of Bev’s /BBV’s chain of custody investigation yielded TONS of data / information / dirty back room tricks, strong arm tactics (“HEllo there, nice Police Doggie! I’mma not gonna hurt youuuu…”) that we didn’t have before.
I seem to remember that we were all (Nancy, karenfromillinois, Bev and me) were constantly shocked…yes, even we can still shock…by the truly bizarre, almost comically orchestrated events we witnessed and filmed.
Oh, and as karenfromillinois and I slogged through the stats and all the possible explanations for so many (what we were calling at the time) “inflated vote totals” and “negative vote totals” – which we didn’t really fully get, yet, ourselves…we caught what she calls “math tags”, or “tells” that she / we could track in real time, in as much as she could hunt down the variables she needs for the tabulation.
Tragically, she got really really good with her ‘tags’ – we saw them all through out the 2008 Primaries…and it killed us. Moving numbers…up and down, back and forth…late results…and BAM! Whattaya know…more votes than voters in x county. More voters than votes in Y.
NH showed us what to look for when state wide hand recount vs. diebold count takes place. I would be *so* curious to hear Nancy weigh in on that, because that was a ground breaking investigation on their part. What the NH documentation stressed, in addition to confirming all the warnings Nancy stressed…
… was the need to have Bev Harris, the Nancy Drew of Election Forensics, chasing down the bad guys.
Literally.
(Typed fast. Forgive errors.)
(Oh! Adding Vicki Karp to that group of hero friends! Didn’t mean to leave her out!)
Dear Karen and Jeannie,
Thanks for the responses. I checked out the dailykos link from Karen’s #36 and was shocked. I don’t know how I can still be “shocked” but I am. That this shit seems to be going on all the time in the PLAIN FUCKING LIGHT OF DAY!!!!! And WE’RE the CRAZY ones???????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The facts that have emerged subsequent to Brad’s eloquent “Special Comment” are more troubling now then when Brad spoke about them during the Malloy show.
Ramona Kitzenger says she’s 80 years old; doesn’t know jack about computers. She participates in the canvass during which no mention is made of a 15,000 vote error in Brookfield.
The unsuspecting senior citizen is told to be present but not to speak at a 5:30 p.m. news conference, during which Nickolaus reveals her 15,000 vote “error” for the first time.
Kitzenzer says:
During the press conference, the confused Kitzenger said that “the numbers jibed.” Where the MSM ran with this as a confirmation by the Democrat on the canvassing board, Kitzenger now tells us:
Don’t feel too troubled, Ms. Kitzenger, no one else has ever been “shown anything that would verify Kathy’s statement about the missing vote.”
Jeannie Dean @16 said all that needed to be said about Jolly Judy Jollins and her mindless mumblings, to wit:
Further responses to “fact-free” Judy are unnecessary.
I hope that a more friendly reception and more reasoned discussion can be offered by this group — which would help the group and its cause by allowing it to better understand input and bring in as many concerned citizens as practical.
Let me try to respond to the comments as some have requested I do (and ignore those who seemed to threaten against a response):
(1) I tell you to vote Bush and write in Kranopanvits for Judge or I’ll burn down your house; if no such ballot is present, I burn down your house. What part don’t you understand?
(Saying, as has been repeated twice on this site’s only response, that this must not be a problem because Deborah Bowen approves of such systems, is first of all not “fact based,” a principle often raised here, and secondly absurd for a site that is supposed to be all about not wanting to rely on election officials.)
(2a) You and your significant other are the only registered democrats in a republican precinct who actually dare show up and vote. Two ballots are for Gore; your cat is brutally killed. Or, no democrats dare show for the counting and your ballots are substituted, invalidated, or destroyed. Again, is there some part of this that you don’t understand?
(This aspect of my comments has not been addressed yet; if you believe it has, please point out where.)
(2b) Towns in Mexico routinely vote for the party that they believe will win, out of nothing but fear of reprisal and desire for continued patronage.
(This aspect of my comments has not been addressed yet; if you believe it has, please point out where.)
(3) Egypt has had a revolution recently because its elections have been repeatedly rigged — but they’ve been conducted using the “gold standard”! Is some aspect of this unclear?
(Again, this portion of my comments has not been addressed yet; if you believe it has, please point out where.)
(4) Black Box Voting, as just one example, has reported hundreds of thousands of dollars of income in its IRS filings that are a matter of public record; there are many other examples, but no effort at transparency for this kind of information by the transparency “advocates.”
(None of the various comments pooh-poohing this issue hold up in view of the magnitude of the numbers. Research the facts, post them, and then discuss.)
Let’s try to “play together nicely with others” and constructively address what is certainly a tricky and emotionally-charged yet extremely important issue.
*The Number of Ballots Cast do not reflect all results, only those electronically sent.
(Ballots cast will not be equal to official votes cast)
http://www.waukeshacounty.gov/defaultwc.aspx?id=38109
that first sentence is a copy/paste from kathys official website…its new today
so you see it doesnt matter if its last week or 5 years earlier,evidently how many people showed up to vote is just none of the damn publics business
and here is one more reason to hand count..prosser doesnt want it
Brad, How come you and I have never saw, let alone received, any of that “gold” that Jollins, whoever he or she may be, says is out there for the taking for those who advocate Democracy’s Gold Standard?
Karen wrote @45:
Yeah, he doesn’t want it now that Kathy says he’s the winner. But would he have said that if the official numbers had him losing?
Judy Jolins tried yet again with…
Then I’ll take that as a “yes” that you are in favor of outlawing all absentee ballots and all public hand counts of elections in all situations (including cases such as Franken/Coleman, FL 2000, WI April 5, or any other race at all, ever.) Got it. We’ll have to agree to disagree on that one, as your arguments are particular unconvincing here. To say the least. But thank you for trying to express them. And good luck elsewhere with them.
Nothing to do with relying on election officials. Just telling you that the CA SoS looked at that issue precisely when deciding whether or not to allow the release of ballot scans in Humboldt County as the election official there wished to do to help increase transparency and citizen oversight. She examined the concern you mention, and found (as I did, when speaking with cyber security and election experts about it) that the argument is without merit when some 40% of ballots are already cast via mail, if the concern is truly about buying/selling votes.
Yes. Why you wish to allow terrorists to win and subvert our system of from a representative democracy of the people, by the people, and for the people, into an autocratic regime where one person or group decides who will rule and who will not, in secret.
Good thing we have citizen oversight and federal laws to help assure that sort of thing doesn’t happen here. Or, at least we *try* to assure such oversight and laws. Clearly, you’re more interested in bowing to the terrorists, trusting in them more than in your fellow citizens.
Really? They hand-count all ballots at the precinct, on election night, with all parties present, video cameras rolling, and results posted decentrally at the precinct before ballots are moved anywhere, so they can be verified by all interested parties at any time? Hadn’t heard about that. Got a link with evidence to support your claim?
Huh? You just said that they “reported hundreds of thousands of dollars of incomine in its IRS filing”, but you say there is “no effort at transparency”? Am I missing something? Or will this be just another question that I’m giving you that you simply fail to answer? Again.
“Judy”, dozens of folks have already done that with you in note after note. You have refused to answer direct questions asked of you, and simply ignored answers to your points that you didn’t like. It’s a one-way conversation with a fake persona.
Respond as if you’re not a fake persona, to those who have had the courtesy to reply to you, and we will have a constructive conversation. If you refuse to do so, you will not be here much longer, as I’m getting *really* tired of your unsourced, unevidenced, propaganda and outrageous allegations. Thank you.
Ancient~! I’ve been worried about Flo, too! I remember the mention of surgery, then…nothing.
He was so regular, it left me concerned.
Miss his insights and links…
He’s a link-MASTER.
(KarenfromIllinois – GREAT link at #36. Christ on a stick. Can someone please direct the Kossaks over here, so their diarists can stop apologizing for excellent, fact-based research that “might” hint at impropriety? I canceled my account with them years ago for that very reason.)
So glad Judy pointed out how dangerous un-concealed vote counting in public can be for your cat!
Hey, let’s be nice to the cats, JD.
My cat, Archie, got a credit card in the mail for Archie Canning with a $5K limit. When my wife called to cancel, the woman on the other end of the line insisted that only the cardholder could cancel.
We had to be passed through to the woman’s supervisor in order to explain why Archie couldn’t come to the phone.
Me-e-e-ow!
This free speech blog and the people on it are the best! Wish I could read and type as fast as the rest of you. I’m not getting any younger.
This place even has the best trolls, but they’re always outnumbered!
Nice deconstructing again, Brad.
I’d like to add a comment about Judy J’s #44.
Judy is using a debating technique that has become quite popular but that for me seems incredibly weird. I see it again and again. I don’t get it. Or why it’s accepted as normal, reasonable, and something that deserves a reasoned response. Brad gave her a good one, but I’d love it if we got into the habit of asking something like,”What exactly are you talking about? What world are you referencing?” And by asking, reject the premise, if it’s crazy.
The person making this kind of argument is against something, could be anything. Let’s say it’s gay marriage. Then a narrative is made up—What if a gay couple comes to your town and moves in next door? What if your daughter sees them holding hands one afternoon on her way home from school and asks you about it? What if she’s young and doesn’t really understand your answer? What if her grades dramatically fall off? What if in subsequent weeks she becomes increasingly depressed and leaves town to join the circus, without telling anyone? What if lonely and afraid she befriends an elephant who she feels will at least protect her from what has become an increasingly unpredictable world? What if she marries that elephant and then dies in childbirth because her human/elephant baby is just too big? DO YOU WANT THAT TO HAPPEN TO YOUR CHILD? WHO WANTS THAT TO HAPPEN TO THEIR CHILD???
Then this narrative is treated as if it’s a normal, possible, or even likely scenario that we really have to guard against. And respond in a defensive way to these questions. No, no, I’m not for social security or Medicare if it means my child is going to marry an elephant and die in childbirth. Here let me take protecting social security and Medicare out of the debt ceiling negotiations.
Isn’t that sorta the way it’s been going?
It always comes back to:
1. certain types of narratives are offered.
2. media accepts and repeats them.
3. we’re off and falling down increasingly weird rabbit holes.
4. the double mind fuck comes in when the ones creating, validating, and repeating the divorced from reality narratives then complain loudly and repeatedly that this is what’s being done to them by everyone else.
Welcome to the monkey house.
Judy = Paid Troll
LASAGNA – HAHaHAHAHAHAHaaaaaaaaaaaa (breathe) HHeeee!! Oh, your delicious posts just caused me to giggle-seize. Thank you.
Yes, that’s exactly what’s going on.
Hi All,
We need to keep plowing…don’t give up.
For all you folks who live in Wisconsin…you
can help by observing the recount process and
take notes.
Also both camps are looking for workers…here’s
contact info:
Prosser website: http://www.justiceprosser.com
Kloppenburg email: kloppenburgvolunteer@gmail.com
I don’t care which camp you work for…but a good
way to observe the recount process is to actually
work at the recount.
Thanks and Good Luck,
Frank Henry
Cottonwood, Arizona
Tel: 928-649-0249
e-mail: fmhenry4@netzero.com