(HINT: It's not about Busby or Bilbray
or San Diego or even California!)
My reporting and the concerns expressed about the
Busby/Bilbray election
results as announced, have little or nothing to do with
Francine Busby or Brian Bilbray or even, in particular, the June 6th U.S. House
special run-off election in California's 50th congressional district.
It has only a tiny bit more to do with San Diego. And only
slightly more than that to do with California.
It has everything, however, to do with democracy. Across
the entire country. As opposed to any one race in any one area.
If I've not been clear on that until now, please allow me to set
the record straight.
The concerns I've reported — and will continue to report — over
the blatant disregard for the rule of law and clear illegalities endorsed and
encouraged by the SD County Registrar of Voters, Mikel Haas and allowed and
apparently-approved at this point by California's Secretary of State Bruce
McPherson have everything to do with the future viability of democracy in
this country in general and a perhaps-naive hope that there's a chance in hell
that acting now will help to salvage a shred of legitimacy for this coming
November's election.
That can only happen if action is taken now, however,
directly in regard to the Busby/Bilbray election results as
announced.
As far as I can see it, what happens in regard to Busby/Bilbray
will be America's last, best, and only hope of affecting any real
election reform prior to the November 7th general election. That's why, for me,
this has become "Line in the Sand Time."
Never, in the two-and-a-half year history of
The BRAD BLOG have
I set aside almost everything else in order to cover and raise attention
to a single story — to the exclusion of almost every other story — for such a
long period of time as I have done since my
original coverage of this matter the day after the June 6th election.
Since that time, I've stated in both written and spoken words,
many times that I don't actually give a damn who won the Busby/Bilbray race and
that I didn't even much bother to follow any of it prior to Election Day.
I've got no dog in the hunt and only care that the person who actually received
the most votes is the one that was declared the winner. At this point, there is
absolutely no way of knowing who actually won.
The fact of the matter is that just two or three months after
both the federal certification oversight body (NASED) and California's own
Secretary of State issued emergency "security mitigation requirements" in light
of newly discovered and massive vulnerabilities in Diebold's voting systems,
those security requirements were entirely tossed out the window when all of the
machines were
sent home with poll
workers for overnights in the days and weeks prior to
the election. In doing so, the machines themselves were effectively
rendered illegal and uncertified
for use in any California election and at the federal
level as well.
Unless something is done, the same thing is about to happen in
elections across this entire country.
(NOTE: Lou Dobbs will be covering this issue on CNN tonight I am
told. Including interviews with some of the poll worker sources we gave them
after originally reported on them at
The
BRAD BLOG.)
I'd have hoped that more media, candidates, individuals and even
Election Reform organizations would have come to understand the national
significance of what all the sturm and drang here has actually been
about. If they haven't, that's likely my failing. So I'll try again to make both
myself and the stakes here crystal clear…
What happens here and now — in regard to this race and its
results as announced — will send a signal to elections administrators across the
country. The signal will be one of two…
Either the rule of law must be followed in the administration
of elections because the citizens of this country demand accountability and
verifiability in our elections as democracy itself depends on confidence in the
results of these elections.
Or the message will be that elections officials, spending
billions and billions of our own tax dollars, are welcome to ignore all such
laws and emergency security provisions in the wake of the first time use of the
world's most tamperable voting
machines, tell us on Election Night whatever (unverified
and unverifiable) numbers they wish to and Americans will subsequently roll over
and say "Great. Good enough for us. We'll believe anything you tell us. Even if
you haven't and couldn't prove your results are accurate to save your
life."
I received an email the other day from a congressional office
complaining that I hadn't given any coverage to a so-far successful effort by
Republicans to
indefinitely postpone a vote on the renewal of
the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
"Busby is one race, one region," the staffer wrote, "this
affects the ability to seek justice nationwide."
I replied that, of course, in normal times
The BRAD BLOG
would have covered the cynical, shameful, and anti-democratic story of
Republicans scuttling the renewal of the beloved and necessary Voting Rights Act
with much prominence. Perhaps even with a siren! We have covered issues
surrounding the Voting Rights Act
many
times here. And, of course, we will continue to do
so.
These are not normal times, however. And, as I pointed out in my
reply — and to several others recently along the same lines — even if we could
ensure tomorrow that every single American who wanted to vote legally was
allowed to do so without problem or disenfranchisement, we still won't
have legitimate elections without seeing to the problem of the security of the
machines which use secret software, written by private companies to count our
vote without any sort of accountability or transparency.
This apparently, is a lesson that the DNC and the Democratic
Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and virtually all Democratic lawmakers
have apparently yet to learn.
I've heard recently that the DNC will soon be announcing an
initiative for "Election Protection" for this November's election. The
initiative will include attorneys, poll-watching and a paltry $500k to pay for
it all. Not one word, as far as I've heard (and I'd be delighted to hear
otherwise from anyone at the DNC) about what the hell will be done to ensure
integrity of the voting machines which will proliferate the electoral landscape
for the very first time this year given that this is the year the disastrous
Help America Vote Act (HAVA) mandates kick into full gear.
If the DNC, and any of the other organizations and/or candidates
give a damn about Electoral Integrity the time to act is now.
Busby/Bilbray is the only federal election in the country at the moment,
and it's the first one to have occurred since the discovery of the massive
vulnerabilities in this new crop of electronic voting machines (Diebold in
proven particular, but all of them in theory). As mentioned, those newly
discovered vulnerabilities have sent both states and the federal oversight
bodies scrambling to produce emergency "security mitigation requirements" for
the approved use of such machines.
But what good are such rules and laws if they are not
followed?
In San Diego County, in the Busby/Bilbray (CA-50) race, those
emergency requirements were all but ignored when San Diego County's registrar
Mikel Haas sent them machines home for overnights with poll workers for days and
week prior to the election. California's Secretary of State, Bruce McPherson,
who convened a special commission of independent computer scientists and
security experts to assess the problems once they came to undisputed light last
December, has blithely ignored the fact that his own so-called "
conditional certification" for the machines,
based on his own "
security procedures" were clearly
violated.
The machines used in San Diego county on election day were
uncertified then by both state and federal standards. They are as
presumed-contaminated as a blood sample would be if taken at a crime scene and
then sent home for storage in a worker's car or garage for a week before being
brought into the crime lab. Just as the voting machines were.
The announced results of the election, therefore, as based on
totals reported from presumed-tainted optical scan systems — on the same day
that
two different races in Iowa were overturned after a manual
hand-count of ballots revealed that the announced
post-op-scan loser had actually won the race instead! — will always be
suspect until they are verified via a 100% manual hand count of the paper
ballots used in the race. (And with the hope that the chain of custody for the
ballots themselves has been secure this whole time. Not an easy
presumption to make given Haas' own appalling lack of security and/or ability to
follow the rule of law in administrating the election up until now.)
It is for these reasons, not that any of us actually care in
particular about the Busby/Bilbray races that so many election protection
organizations, candidates and individuals have now
declared "NO
CONFIDENCE" in the reported results and are demanding a
manual hand-count of the ballots.
By applying enough public pressure on officials, so that a judge
might order a manual hand-count of the ballots (a COUNT, not a REcount as
paid for by citizens or the candidate, since we already paid them once to count
the ballots, and they failed to do so!) a signal might be sent to elections
officials across the country that these things, such as following the rule of
law, actually matter.
On the other hand, if absolutely nothing is done now, I
assure you that by November — when some 435 U.S. House races and 30-something
U.S. Senate races occur on the very same day — we will have an unmitigated
disaster on our hands for which it will be largely too late to do
anything.
Need more indication that action needs to be taken now
before elections are held in thousands of counties across the country on the
same day? See what's
now being reporting as having occurred in Riverside County, CA on Election Day!
No security. No accountability. And, most tragically of all in
the bargain, no democracy.
It's time to act now. I will do so. To the best of my
ability. If the media and the various political parties and the host of
candidates who will be directly affected by this don't wish to do so, that's up
to them.
I'll be doing so either way. Because it's not about them
or their victory or their loss in any election. It's about our democracy.
And, apparently, it's up to us to try and preserve it.
Even if many of those folks don't understand it. Or worse, even
if they do understand it, but don't think it's worth
bothering.
I suggest that nothing in this election year, no single
issue, is of great import to our country. That's what I've been going to
the extraordinary measures that I have. I hope you'll
join me.
Cross-posted
at The BRAD BLOG.
---
Brad Friedman
THE BRAD BLOG - The
uprising continues...
http://www.BradBlog.com
VELVET REVOLUTION
- The revolution begins...
http://www.VelvetRevolution.us
