Courtesy of BradBlog: Researchers at the University of Connecticut have concluded that the VVPAT, heralded by supporters of the Holt Bill, is meaningless as verification of a voter's selection. Using only information available to the public, experts at the University of Connecticut were able to change a voter's selection within the Diebold computerized voting machine, while presenting a paper trail which gave the voter the false impression that his vote was recorded correctly. Here is the report.

Ding dong, the Holt Bill's dead. The Holt Bill (HR 811), a bill originally designed to restore transparency and accountability to elections, underwent a makeover in committee and emerged as a Frankenstein's monster of voting reform. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) was the first to withdraw his support of the amended bill several weeks ago. Other democrats are now joining him in opposition to the bill in its current form.

Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) describes serious concerns about HR 811 on this post from Brad Blog.

Paul Lehto reports on DU  that the Holt Bill has been declared dead. Even Rush Holt himself is considering withdrawal of his support for the bill because of its pro-DRE (Direct Recording Electronic) industry revisions.

As part of a "turn back the clock on civil rights" movement in government, star Republican vote-suppressors like Brad Schlozman, "Thor" Hearne, Tim Griffin, and "Spaz" VonSpakovsky have made caging and false accusations of minority voter fraud tools of their trade.

Perhaps unwittingly (giving the good Senator the benefit of the doubt), Dianne Feinstein has introduced a new method of minority voter suppression into pending legislation.

I apologize to anyone, including Senator Feinstein, who may have taken offense to the earlier version of my diary and the implication that the Senator meant to promote voting suppression. I was simply being ironic and I did not make that clear. All hurt feelings aside, the consequences of voter disenfranchisement are the same, whether those provisions are included deliberately (as in Jim Crow) or unwittingly (as in HAVA). My goal is to bring attention to the problem, not to show anyone up.

Senator Feinstein's S. 1487, the sequel to HAVA includes the following:

As the Northeastern United States turns prematurely tropical (it is way too early for me to enjoy the sweltering heat of August when it's only mid-May), my thoughts turn to the spinmeisters of the Republican Noise Machine and their flippant denial of the greenhouse effect on our climate.

When do we stop giving George Bush, Alberto Gonzales, Dick Cheney or Condoleeza Rice the benefit of the doubt?

How many fabrications must this administration create before we can call their behavior a deliberate pattern of deception?

When will US Senators start using the "L" words (lies, lying, liars) to describe the testimony of white house officials before congress?

The answer, my friend, is below the fold.

As a response to DRE's (direct recording electronic voting machines), which are proving themselves to be as unreliable and corruptible as voting integrity activists said they would be, Rep. Rush Holt of New Jersey has introduced legislation to correct the problem and require VVPB's (voter verified paper ballots) as the gold standard for elections.

Unfortunately, the Holt Bill contains a provision far more dangerous to our elections system than unverifiable DRE's.

To see the assassin hiding in this Trojan horse, read below the fold...

It looks as if all conventional media are bottled up in the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy, as public opinion continues to spin against us liberal bloggers.

Outfunded, and with a fraction of the media outlet, we liberal bloggers must rely on our creativity to overcome this right-wing media barricade.

I ask myself, "Self? What sort of big event would attract media lenses and microphones? How can Democrats attract the media, so that more reality-based politicians get their messages to the ears, eyeballs and brains of everyday Americans?"

When the news gets too disturbing, it's hard to talk about current events in a dispassionate way. The Constitution is in flames, the Treasury door is wide open to looting and the pilot of our nation has locked himself in the cockpit and seems to be ignoring the control tower.

When reality bites, I reach for fantasy.

As a remedy to my bush-fatigue, I will imagine that the bush administration is a baseball team...

I am a George Lakoff fan, who still likes the Strict Parent metaphor for the neocon ideology. What the Strict Parent will always say is that tough love is better than over-indulgent love.

The US is giving Iraq over-indulgent love, like a weak, can't-say-no parent.

Better to be a tough-love parent. Let the Iraqis work out their own problems. We'll give them a small allowance and a limited amount of emotional and military support.

Read the quote below the fold.

The campaign to re-elect Rick Santorum for US Senate is pulling out all of the stops. At a recent campaign event for Bob Casey, teenage supporters of Rick Santorum heckled and obstructed the Democratic candidate for US Senate. By report of a witness, the unruly Santorum supporters were as young as 13 years old. When a Republican official attending the event was asked if the children were hired for the purpose of demonstration, he would not comment.

As Mr. Casey made his way from his vehicle to the Star City Diner, one of the Santorum demonstrators became overzealous with his picket sign, and a scuffle ensued.

See link below fold.

As a novice in the fields of computer sciences and politics, I have a simple observer's perspective on the public debate over the trustworthiness of computerized voting machines.

In an uncontroversial report, the academic scientific community has demonstrated the insecurity of current systems. Basically, this is due to the voting machine's inability to verify votes independently, as in, outside of the corruptible electronic box itself.

What, to me, is plain to see, is that government bureaucrats and corporate marketing types are telling the world's most respected computer scientists that  scientific results, showing the vulnerability of voting software, are wrong!  

There are moments when the repressed existential part of my mind must come to terms with an irony so grotesque, that it is forced to awaken, to contemplate this irony in the context of the universe, eternity, etc.

This creates a conflict in my mind. My mind prefers simply to accept the insensitivity of my society at face value. It doesn't want to look too far beneath the surface of my culture.

But when so much attention is given to the, albeit tragic, death of a lone, albeit adorable, 6 year-old, while thousands of Iraqi children, women and men continue to be brutally murdered, with no outcry from the mainstream media... well, I just gotta say something.

As Karl Rove and the Conservative Noise Machine become more exposed, we see more and more of the fraud that has been perpetrated in the name of neocon supremacy.

IMO, this is their primary weakness: the credibility of the propaganda on which their power depends, is only as strong as the credibility of the source of the propaganda. In this case, FOX News is the primary purveyor of misinformation.

...or "What would Sun Tzu do?" Sun Tsu's The Art of War graces the library of many progressive homes these days.

It seems like it was another era. The US had just invaded Iraq and I was ringside by CNN watching the coverage. The US was the good guys and the terrorists were just about to drop a nuke somewhere in Heartland, USA.

Was it 2003?

What a relief!

After months of agonizing inaction, Pennsylvania voters made a bold step in reclaiming the integrity of their elections, today. A diverse group of Pennsylvanians from across the state are taking legal recourse against an intransigent bureaucracy, which refuses to acknowledge what is obvious to all computer scientists...

these computerized voting machines stink.

Because of their two worst features: unverifiability and lack of security, computer voting fraud represents the single biggest threat to our democracy.

Verifiable voting is all that stands between us, and a Decidership.

Another notable news story sniffed and whiffed by the mainstream media. Doesn't fit the storyline...

It seems that RFK, Jr. has filed a federal lawsuit against Diebold and other vendors of computerized voting machines. I am not an attorney, but I understand that based on on its qui tam status, the damage awards in this case could be huge.

See: http://www.bradblog.com/...

Bev Harris writes a nice summary on

http://www.bbvforums.org/...

=GL

I begin this post with a disclaimer. I am a Jew who doesn't hate myself or other Jews for being Jewish. In my heart, I support Israel's right to exist based on a spiritual connection that reaches back through the generations... as well as Jews' need for protection, the evidence based on centuries of brutal intolerance, culminating in the Holocaust.