(We owe Bill Hedrick a debt of gratitude. We also need to study his race to figure out why it worked when others faltered. - David Dayen, I'm in for $25 for Bill and $25 for Charlie, who's with me? You can give to both at the Calitics ActBlue Page. - promoted by Brian Leubitz)
Dear Friends and Supporters,
We may be down, but we are by no means out. This race truly is too close to call until every last vote has been counted.
That, however, is not stopping Ken Calvert from trying to end the counting before we can close the gap. Calvert's lawyer is already challenging signatures and trying to get vote-by-mail ballots disqualified.
Today (two days after the election), Ken Calvert told the OC Register that he's sure he won re-election. We beg to differ. With 100,000+ votes still left to be counted and a vote difference of only about 4000 votes, it looks like he knows he's in trouble, and is trying to declare a victory before all the votes have been counted. We can NOT let this happen.
We have assembled a legal team to make sure the process is fair and that all valid ballots get counted. We have the best lawyer money can buy, but good lawyers are expensive.
Can you donate to the Hedrick Ballot Fund right now to help pay our legal costs and make sure every vote is counted?
(because she really has been a strong defender of the voters here in California. - promoted by shayera)
In 2000 and in 2004, we saw what happened when election results are called into question. Citizens across the country reacted with outrage when they realized that their vote might not be counted. That's why, in 2006, California Democrats worked to elect Secretary of State Debra Bowen -- she promised to make sure that in our state, every vote would be protected.
Bowen has fulfilled that campaign promise. Last year she had experts at the University of California conduct a thorough analysis of California's electronic voting machines. When that review showed the machines could be hacked and results could be changed, Bowen promptly decertified the machines to maintain the integrity of California elections.
So how did Diebold and Sequoia respond to her actions? As you might expect, by putting their PR departments into overdrive. In the days and weeks leading up to today's election, they have waged a media campaign to blame Debra Bowen for election delays, cost overruns, and teen acne.
Secretary of State Debra Bowen is looking forward to her hour long discussion with folks on Monday at 4 pm, judging by the note she left Bob on Facebook (yes, she is the coolest Facebook friend I have, especially since it really is her). Courage Campaign is hosting a conference call with all folks interested in hearing from progressive hero Bowen. She will give us an update on what she has been up to and her plans for the upcoming elections.
You can sign-up here and submit your questions in advance. The email that just went out to the Courage list is below. And here is the Facebook group: We Have a Crush on Debra Bowen that Brian created, for this call and obvious reasons.
(Courage Campaign's working on the effort to push back against this right-wing power grab. Click HERE to sign the pledge opposing it. - promoted by Todd Beeton)
The Courage Campaign has launched a petition drive against the Republican power grab otherwise known as the "Presidential Election Reform Act." Click here to fight back against this transparent attempt to steal electoral votes in a move more brazen than anything Katherine Harris even dreamed of back in 2000.
(Bowen rocks no matter how much they lie about her - promoted by Bob Brigham)
Washington, DC based media watchdog group Media Matters has noted that articles appearing in several newspapers repeat misleading criticisms of Secretary Bowen's "top-to-bottom" review of electronic voting machines.
On May 9, Secretary of State Debra Bowen unveiled her unprecedented plan for a top-to-bottom review of California's elections systems. This is exactly what she promised to do as Secretary of State and she is delivering in a big way. Echoing language she used on the campaign trail last year, she said in a statement:
“California voters are entitled to have their votes counted exactly as they were cast. This top-to-bottom review is designed with one goal in mind: to ensure that California’s voters cast their ballots on voting systems that are secure, accurate, reliable, and accessible.”
The review, which began on Monday and will continue through late July, will test the Los Angeles County Ink A Vote Optical Scan system as well as systems by Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia among others, a total of 8 in all on a randomly determined schedule.
There's a lot going on in election protection these days. I know for many the issue cooled once Debra Bowen was elected Secretary of State but while we can certainly breathe more easily now, there's still plenty of work yet to be done.
"The review is designed to restore people's confidence in the integrity of our electoral process...Every California voter has the right to have their vote counted as it was cast."
Thanks again to Debra Bowen for headlining our public conference call earlier this month to discuss matters of election protection. If you missed it you can hear the entire thing HERE. And if this issue is of particular interest to you, please join our Election Protection California - Ask Debra Bowen group, which Debra Bowen's office will be monitoring to gauge voters' concerns.
Join me over the flip for a couple of updates from BradBlog whose new site design is mercifully, a lot less green.
Yet more problems out of Orange County! This time, there weren't enough functioning machines at the polling places on Election Day... And to make things worse (and the wait EVEN LONGER), there weren't enough paper ballots for the voters either! Now while Lou may still be able to win, what would have happened had there were fewer voters in SD 34 who were patient enough to wait in line for several hours in the evening?
On Saturday I attended an amazing election protection event here in Los Angeles. Co-sponsored by SoCal Grassroots, Velvet Revolution, and Progressive Democrats of America, the event brought together a veritable who’s who of the nationwide fight to make sure the votes we cast are the votes that are counted. The fact that it was held in the Immanuel Presbyterian Church seemed only appropriate considering the passion activists have for this topic, especially here in California.
On Wednesday, the Center For Information Technology Policy at Princeton University released a report that proves that the Diebold Accuvote-TS voting machines can be easily infected with an untraceable malicious virus that steals votes and gives a result different than the true vote tally:
This paper presents a fully independent security study of a Diebold AccuVote-TS voting machine, including its hardware and software. We obtained the machine from a private party. Analysis of the machine, in light of real election procedures, shows that it is vulnerable to extremely serious attacks. For example, an attacker who gets physical access to a machine or its removable memory card for as little as one minute could install malicious code; malicious code on a machine could steal votes undetectably, modifying all records, logs, and counters to be consistent with the fraudulent vote count it creates. An attacker could also create malicious code that spreads automatically and silently from machine to machine during normal election activities — a voting-machine virus.
UPDATE: The video that accompanies the study is below:
I contacted Chuck Hahn, Assistant Secretary of State Policy & Planning to get Secretary of State Bruce McPherson's response to this latest indictment of the very technology that he himself certified for use in California's elections. Remember that McPherson certified Diebold even after a study that his very own office conducted found "serious flaws" in the Diebold software. His certification was "conditional" apparently on their insistence that they would fix the vulnerabilities.
At the CA GOP summer convention, I asked McPherson directly what reassurances Diebold had given him that these flaws would be fixed. He simply said "I wouldn't have certified them if I didn't think they were secure." And when I asked if there's anything online or in the public record that can reassure voters of Diebold's good faith efforts, he told me that they held public hearings that anyone could attend. That's when Hahn stepped in, gave me his card and asked me to give him a call and he swept McPherson away.
So in the wake of this new revelation I did call him and e-mailed him to make sure they were aware of the report and to get the Secretary's response. I received a return e-mail from Hahn not long after that, which, while swift, was still quite dismissive UPDATE:he prefers not to be on the record so I've taken down the text of the e-mail. He's been helpful and responsive so far. Hopefully we'll get a swift response from McPherson soon. This is about keeping pressure on him to answer for his decision to re-certify these machines. As I say in the comments, it appears from his certification announcement that CA may not even be using the machine tested. But that's not the end of the story, nor is it the end of the explaining we must demand from McPherson.
Why is that every big primary day we hear about massive problems with electronic voting machine? The easy answer is that the machines are crap and our electoral system is a mess. This quote from President Jimmy Carter says it all:
Terry GROSS: One of the things you do with your Carter Center is to monitor elections around the world, and you've monitored over 50 elections around the world. We are facing a US presidential election here and I'm wondering if America was a foreign country and it had asked you to monitor the election, would it meet your criteria. Could you monitor the American elections if you were asked?
Mr. CARTER: No. We wouldn't think of it. The American political system wouldn't measure up to any sort of international standard for several reasons.
Luckily, here in California we have a real champion for election protection/reform in Debra Bowen. She has a long history of fighting the good fight, going back to her freshman year in the Assembly, where she authored bills pushing for permanent absentee voting and campaign contribution limits. This year she has authored 10 separate pieces of legislation, six of which are waiting Schwarzenegger's signature.
The difference between Bowen and her oppenent McPherson could not be more stark. Take for example Bowen's bill SB 1062, which would expand the "Safe At Home" program to include sexual assault victims. The program, as it currently stands, only allows domestic violence and stalking victims to enroll in this confidential address program, which allows people to receive mail at confidential address set up and maintained by the Secretary of State. The program costs the state a couple hundred thousand dollars a year to maintain.
What was McPherson's response to this expansion proposal? How about demanding an additional $9.8 million to administrate the program. Absolutely ridiculous. This bill is sitting on the governor's desk and Bowen is hopeful he will sign it.
Sen. Debra Bowen is one of those rare creatures in California Democratic politics, a person who inspires us. I can't tell you how many activists I have met who positively light up when her name is mentioned. During the primary between her and Deborah Ortiz no pollster seemed to be able to grasp the base of support that Bowen had. I didn't quite get it myself until I saw the two of them speak at the CA Democratic Convention this spring. I have never seen so much cheering for a voter verified paper trail in my life. Bowen of course thrashed Ortiz 60-40 in the primary. Now she needs our help in the general.
Last night I had the pleasure of being on a blogger conference call with Debra. She and the staff assured us that they plan on coming back to the kos and diaring again soon. You can read her past diaries here.
Right now, what they could really use are a few good parties. The campaign is hosting house parties on Thursday. Click the graphic for more information. Anyone hosting a party will have the opportunity to join Bowen on a conference call. If you can't make a party, you can always contribute on ActBlue. I just chipped in another donation today on the Calitics ActBlue page. The CRaP may well be pushng some cash into this race, given the wingnuttery of the majority of the Republican ticket.
Debra said last night she reads dkos and other blogs on a regular basis. I can't guarantee it, but am pretty damn certain she will read this post, so feel free to leave her messages in the comments section. This will be a netroots fueled campaign. Do what you can to help. Pass the word on Debra to your social networks. Signup for her email list. Find out more about Sen. Bowen at her campaign site.
Luckily, here in California we have a real champion for election protection/reform in Debra Bowen. She has a long history of fighting the good fight, going back to her freshman year in the Assembly, where she authored bills pushing for permanent absentee voting and campaign contribution limits. This year she has authored 10 separate pieces of legislation, six of which are waiting Schwarzenegger's signature.