Washburn's World

Remembering WTC 7

2011-09-09T21:55:00.005-05:00

A video montage to remember the collapse of WTC 7 and the sacrifices of Americans and American society because of it.

Where There's a Whip, There's a Way.

To tyrants foreign and domestic remember the Grandsons of Liberty are going to fight, all day, all day, all day through the natural progression of Liberty:

Dum Spiro Pugnabo
Dum Spiramus Pugnabimus
Dum Spiras pugnabis

I wish we had peace officers in this county

2011-08-21T23:24:00.009-05:00

but we don't. This country has replaced its peace officers with police officers and law enforcement officers; Mindless drones enforcing the dictates of the ruling upon the ruled without regard for Justice, Truth, Mercy, or even common sense.

Here are some citizen-assaulting LEO's at work this weekend in the government's capitol, Washington D.C. I count three criminal assaults by one LEO alone, but LEO's don't enforce laws against the anointed Blues, only against mundanes.

I take delight and see great hope in the fact that several random American people from American society recognize citizen-assaulting jack boots when they see them and more importantly:

DEFY THE JACK BOOTS
It underscores the truth that: The antidote for vision 1984 is the spirit of 1776.

The "law is the law and we just enforce the law" is the same rationalization used by East German border guards as they attempt to kidnapped this woman(seen at 0:47) And history remembers East Germany Law Enforcement Officers (and Moaist, Peronista, and Bush-Obama LEOs as well) with such revernece and fondness that all mothers want their babies to grow up to be LEO's.

For the compare and contrast between peace officers and law enforcement officers though one need look no farther than the Andy Griffith show where the peace officer, Sheriff Andy, has to reign in law enforcement officer, Deputy Ferguson.I'd say out-of-control Law Enforcement Officer, but that would imply LEO's are sometimes IN control of themselves or a situation. Evidence is scant on that proposition.

I love the D.C. video because of the Freedom-loving defiance that blossoms whenever Liberty is curtailed as a once free society shuts down. As the song says: Big Brother's marching so we all stand in his way.

Resistance is not Futile because Resistance is Victory.

As Americans animated by the spirit of 1776, we have not only the opportunity to stand in Tyranny’s way, as Americans, as the Grandsons of Liberty, we have the obligation to do so.

The Germantown School Board Holds Another illegal Meeting Tonight

2010-12-02T23:57:00.008-06:00

The Germantown Board of Education again failed to give proper notice of the meeting of the Planning Committee held this evening, December 2, 2010. At least I think it’s was the Planning Committee. The meeting agenda at Rockfield Elementary school was on an interior wall behind locked doors. Even with the zoom lens my 48 year-old eyes had trouble reading the "public" notice. This continues the Board's 100% failure rate to hold a legal meeting of the Germantown Board of Education since they were first told of their statutory violations on June 14, 2010.

Tonight the Board violated WI Stats. 19.84(1)(b) in yet another way.

From June 14, 2010 to September 27, 2010, the board posted the "public" meeting notices in glass cases within each school building behind a minimum of 2 locked doors. The policy of the Board is that stepping foot on a property containing a school building or entering the building proper is trespassing UNLESS you have a child attending the school and you sign in at the office. Even if you overlook the trespass policy, posting meeting agendas inside a building behind at least two locked doors is not a "public notice of a meeting."

The annual meeting of the Germantown Board of Education was on September 27, 2010. The Board was anxious to not have any technicalities foul up the tax hikes it was to enact during the annual meeting. On the morning of September 27, 2010 the agendas for the annual meeting were moved from the usual places within the school buildings to the interior side of an exterior window. The agendas were visible to anyone standing outside the school building, but that pesky open meeting law, WI Stats. 19.84(3), requires a meeting notice not only be public, but that it be posted "least 24 hours prior to the commencement of such meeting." [emphasis mine]

DOH!! So much for the tax hike being legal.

Since September 27, 2010 the Germantown School Board has recognized that no district property with a school building on it is a public place. The student safety measures (of which the above trespassing policy is a part) have removed the school buildings and the properties they rest upon from the public spaces within the community. The district rightly considers student safety more import than the unfettered public access which the "public" aspects of WI Stats. 19.84 require. In recognition that posting meeting notices anywhere on or within the 6 school buildings (while convenient for the district staff) is not public in the sense of WI Stats. 19.84, the Board has changed its official position regarding the notice requirements of WI Stats. 19.84. While the staff of the school district need do no more than go to work to see an agenda of an upcoming Board meeting, the other 18,000 residents of the Village of Germantown are required go to the distict offices, located on Donges Bay Road, and view the agenda posted on the interior side of external window near the southwest entrance. The official position of the Board of Education is that posting a meeting agenda in this single (but, admittedly public) location is sufficient (in a village of 34 square miles and 18,000 people) to apprise members of the public and the news media of time, date, place and subject matter of the meeting as required by WI Stats. 19.84(2). This position is preposterous and is in stark contrast to the opinions held by Wisconsin Attorneys General since 1977 that three public locations is the minimum. This is the Board's official position and Chairman Michael Erdman even stated during the October 25, 2010 meeting of the Board that they are "comfortable" with this policy. On that, I will let DA Cannon sort the matter out as his office works through the complaint I sent to his office under WI Stats. 19.97.

The problems with not meeting the requirements of WI Stats. 19.84 though are stiff. First there is $25 - $300 fine faced by each Board member. The fine is per meeting attended. The second is that if the meeting is not properly noticed, then the meeting is not an open meeting. If it is not an open meeting, then any actions taken during the meeting are voidable. In Wisconsin:

Every meeting of a governmental body shall be preceded by public notice as provided in s. 19.84, and shall be held in open session. At any meeting of a governmental body, all discussion shall be held and all action of any kind, formal or informal, shall be initiated, deliberated upon and acted upon only in open session except as provided in s. 19.85. [19.83(1)]

The Planning Committee meeting was not properly noticed because the postings in the school buildings were again placed behind locked doors and on interior walls of the school building. In addition to this usual failure though, the Board also failed to send the meeting notice to all "those news media who have filed a written request for such notice as required by WI Stats. 19.84(1)(b).

Back in September 2010, I requested in writing to be notified of meetings of the Germantown School Board. But, by not sending meeting notices to the interested media (or at least me among the other media), the Board failed to meet the requirements of WI Stats. 19.84.

I am not sure there are many more ways the Village of Germantown Board of Education can violate WI Stats. 19.84. But I have faith. They will. The Board and its staff have proven positively ingenious in violating both the letter and spirit of Wisconsin's open meetings law.

The Machine Rejected My Legally-Marked Ballot

2010-11-03T02:39:00.016-05:00

I was able this evening to prove conclusively that the voting system in Village of Germantown, District 1 is programmed incorrectly. This also proves the pre-election functional testing done prior to the election (aka logic and accuracy testing) pursuant to WI Stats. §5.84, failed to detect this faulty programming. The Wisconsin State Election Board (now known as the GAB) has had since September of 2005 testing guidelines designed to aid clerks to effectively test voting machines. If the GAB had given the guidelines to the Village Clerk and she had designed her test ballots according to those guidelines, then she would have discovered this faulty programming prior to the election.

Until I get the original ballot as part an open records request, here is a sample ballot marked the same way. This ballot has a mark for Republican party preference voting and marks for other ballot lines. According to the statute on elector intent, [WI Stat. §7.50], this ballot is a legally marked ballot were the marks unambiguously designate to which candidate a vote should accrue.

The Diebold/Premier/Dominion AccuVote OS v1.96.6 infrared scanner erroneously rejected the ballot as over-voted. The chief inspector offered to hit the override button, but doing so would have switched my Democratic vote to Republican and my write-in vote to Republican as well.

The trade-secreted, vender-owned programming/configuration found on the removable memory pack erroneously rejected this ballot and that is illegal.

Here is why.

In Wisconsin, marks for pre-printed candidates trump marks indicating party preference voting [WI Stat. §7.50(2)(a)]
In Wisconsin, marks for write-in candidates trump marks indicating party preference voting [WI Stats. §7.50(2)(a)]
In Wisconsin, marks for write-in candidates trump marks for pre-printed candidates [WI Stats §7.50(2)(d)]

My ballot was legally marked with votes for the following candidates:

Scott Walker / Rebecca Kleefish,
J.B. Van Hollen,
David King,
Kurt Schuller,
John Washburn, and
Todd P. Kolosso

I was not very surprised the programming/configuration within the removable memory card of the AccuVote OS v1.96.6 infrared scanner broke Wisconsin election law. I marked my ballot in such a way as most likely to discover the programming/configuration error(s) introduced by slothful, lazy, and untested programming. Sadly, I was correct.

I have been to dozens of voting system test sessions and have never seen any of this faux "testing" actually test the voting system software correctly. This is the professional opinion of a software tester testing software since 1994.

The defective programming/configuration was present during an actual election and was NOT caught by the pre-election functional testing.

WI Stats. §5.84 reads [emphasis mine]:

Where any municipality employs an electronic voting system which utilizes automatic tabulating equipment, either at the polling place or at a central counting location, the municipal clerk shall, on any day not more than 10 days prior to the election day on which the equipment is to be utilized, have the equipment tested to ascertain that it will correctly count the votes cast for all offices and on all measures. Public notice of the time and place of the test shall be given by the clerk at least 48 hours prior to the test by publication of a class 1 notice under ch. 985 in one or more newspapers published within the municipality if a newspaper is published therein, otherwise in a newspaper of general circulation therein. The test shall be open to the public. The test shall be conducted by processing a pre-audited group of ballots so marked as to record a predetermined number of valid votes for each candidate and on each referendum. The test shall include for each office one or more ballots which have votes in excess of the number allowed by law and, for a partisan primary election, one or more ballots which have votes cast for candidates of more than one recognized political party, in order to test the ability of the automatic tabulating equipment to reject such votes. If any error is detected, the municipal clerk shall ascertain the cause and correct the error. The clerk shall make an errorless count before the automatic tabulating equipment is approved by the clerk for use in the election.

Because the faulty programming/configuration found on the removable memory card used by the AccuVote OS, the machine failed (during an actual election) to correctly count the votes on a legally marked ballot for the six races shown. In a sane, law abiding world the ballots in the Village of Germantown District 1 would have to be hand counted. The presumption of correctness in WI Stats. 7.51(2)(h) is fatally pierced because an "error in the record is clearly apparent". That would inconvenience election officials though and the GAB will not allow that.

I could have made a different ballot which probably would have been accepted by the trade secreted, vendor-owned programming/configuration on the removable memory card. But, why should I change my legally marked ballot to accommodate defective voting software? Since, the pre-election, §5.84 testing clearly missed the defect whereby my legally marked ballots and the unambiguous votes thereon was erroneously rejected. What other defects the "testing" miss?

If this legally marked ballot could not be processed correctly, what confidence should I have that a second ballot marked in a way that the ballot is sucked into the front of the machine and deposited in the lock box below the machine was processed and counted my ballots correctly as traveled through the machine?

If that which I can see is clearly faulting and manifestly illegal. Why believe the hidden portions of the system are working correctly or within the Law? In a rational world the answer you shouldn't.

In Election World though the answer is you must always trust what is hidden. If the public can't see it, then it isn't a problem.

It easy to not see something if you studiously avoid looking.

P.S. This is one ballot of 2961 cast. This error rate (>1 in 3000) is very, very much higher than the maximum allowable error rate of 1 in 500,000 permitted under by the Help America Vote Act (HAVA).

Happy Patriots' Day

2010-04-19T07:13:00.013-05:00

Happy Patriots' Day.

To commemorate the happy day the "shot heard 'round the world" was fired I would like to submit the following reminders of how we, the Grandsons of Liberty, can honor Sam Adams, Tom Paine, Crispus Attucks and other winter partiots by guarding jealously the jewel of public liberty which they have bequeath to us, their posterity.

and

And since it is Monday, I submit the following for Monday Morning Music as a call to support our troops. We owe our servicemen to shield them from the Bitter Laugh.

by:

reminding them of the oath crafted so as to protect them from the "Rage of Ares" and
By only sending them out for Constitutionally declared wars.

Our Patriot forefathers must look from beyond the veil and weep at how our haughty eyes, lying tongues, and prideful hearts have brought us to such low estates.

Flickr Set of Optech IIIP Eagle

2010-02-19T06:53:00.003-06:00

One of the things I have been asking for in recent open records requests are backups of the removable memory cards used in the Town of Waukesha in the Optech IIIP Eagle infrared ballot scanner during the November 4, 2008 general election.

Backup of the contents of these removable memory packs is required by WI Stats. 7.23(1)(g) and the backups made are required to be kept by the clerk pursuant to WI Stats. 7.24.

You would think that the required to be made and required to be kept provisions of Wisconsin Election law would have made this open records request a no-brainer. In response to my August 4, 2009 open records request for the backup of four such removable scanner memory packs I received a CD-ROM with 1.5 megabytes of data.

As you can see from this flickr set of several Optech IIIPE memory packs I own, the chips of the memory pack can hold at most 48 kilobytes of data for a cumulative total of 192 kilobytes of data for the four backups requiested.

I begin to suspect the statutorily mandated backups of the November 4, 2008 general election were not made on or before February 17, 2009 as the law demands.

More on this as it develops.

The GAB: The Johnny Yoo of Election Administration

2010-01-27T17:17:00.014-06:00

Due the the length, a PDF version is available here

My blogging has been very sparse (nothing since May 2, 2009). That is not for lack of things to write about, but for the lack of time to write. One of the things consuming my time for the last year has been the usual and customary practice of election clerks in Wisconsin to destroy certain electronic election records and the legal cover provided by the Government Accountability Board (GAB) to carry out the destruction of those records. In the same way that John Yoo provided and continues to provide legal cover to President Bush and President Obama to violate federal law, the GAB provides legal cover to clerks so that the clerks may destroy election records which the clerks deem too inconvenient to preserve and retain.

In order to set the context for the last two years on this matter I will show my fundamentalist, Christian roots and begin with a creedal statement:

I believe there cannot be effective oversight of an election (by an election official or by the public) if any election records are secret.
I believe ballots are not secret, but anonymous.
I believe the content of a removable memory card used by a voting machine during an election is an election record as that term is used in state and federal law.
I believe that ALL of the content of a removable memory card is an election record.
I believe the contents of a removable memory card contain an admixture of some or all of the following:
- programming,
- ballot "images"¹,
- audit logs,
- event logs,
- vote totals at various levels of aggregation,
- "ballot definition files"²,
- audio files,
- screen text,
- page/screen layout,
- whole, mountable file systems.
I believe the above list is likely incomplete because the exact contents of a removable memory card are secret and vigorously protected as trade secrets.
I believe election records should not be secret.
I believe election records are records that should have an "absolute right of access". Under current law some election records in whole or in part are not even open records, much less records with an "absolute right of access".
I believe the contents of a removable memory card used to aid in the administration of an election should be preserved and retained by jurisdictions for the same length of time as the jurisdiction is required to preserve and retain the poll registration lists used to administer the same election.
I believe state law, WI Stats. 7.23(1)(g), requires the contents of a removable memory card used by a voting machine in the administration of an election be preserved and retained for 22 months
I believe federal law, Title 42, Chapter 20, Subchapter II, § 1974, for federal elections, requires the same; preservation and retention for 22 months
I believe state law, WI Stats. 7.24, requires the backups made of the contents of a removable memory card pursuant to WI Stats. 7.23(1)(g) remain in the custody and control of the election official for the entire retention period.
I believe the contents of a removable memory card used in a voting machine is MORE important than the voter poll lists used in the same election. This is because the contents of the memory card actively and directly determine how the election is administered, where the poll books do not. If nothing else (and there is more), the contents of the removable memory card control how or if marks on the paper ballot or touches on the touch screen will be recognized and to whom votes will accrue based on those marks or touches. These are the election officials' duties under WI Stats. 7.50 even if those duties have been delegated to an inscrutable black box.

The Government Accountability Board (GAB), its staff, and the clerks who head the Wisconsin Towns Association, Wisconsin County Clerks Association, and the Wisconsin Municipal Clerks Association do not agree with most, if any, of the above credos.

I object to the notion that there can be such things as secret election records. No paper election record is secret.

The ballot is not secret. It is anonymous.
The confidential poll lists of WI. Stats 6.47 are not secret. They are confidential. They are known to those election officials for whom the knowledge is necessary in order to administer the election and only for the time needed to administer the election.

In contrast though, many electronic election records generated by electronic voting machines are regarded by the state as secret; more precisely trade secreted. The contents of these records are not available for inspection by the public and in many cases are not even known to the election officials who use those records to aid them in administering an election.

Again, I believe there cannot be effective oversight of an election (by an election official or by the public) if any of the election records are a secret.

In the summer of 2007, I began looking for election records which were not governed by the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), not part of the new equipment purchases, not part of the new security regulations, not part of administrative rule GAB5, but which were likely to be considered secret. I selected the 20-year old requirement to backup the contents of removable memory cards. The backups made under WI Stats. 7.23(1)(g) fit my criteria as election records of long standing, but which were likely be kept secret — via trade secrecy claims — from both the public and the election officials who rely on them.

My assumption that the backups were records of long-standing was incorrect as I reported here and here. I discovered the statutory requirement to backup the contents of removable memory cards, in the 20-year history of the statute, had never been obeyed by any election official at any time.

Naïvely thinking breaking the law might be a crime, I reported my discovery to the local District Attorney, who declined to investigate. In January 2008, I elevated my report to the Office of the Attorney General of Wisconsin, who immediately kicked it over to the newly-created Government Accountability Board. I appeared before the GAB for nearly every meeting in 2008 arguing that obeying the statutes by preserving and retaining the contents of removable memory cards was not just good policy, but that failing to comply with WI Stats. 7.23(1)(g) is felony election fraud under WI Stats. 12.13(2)(b)7.

From minute 1:35:00 to 1:44:10 of the recording of the GAB August 10, 2009 meeting is a summary of my contention that the GAB is "all promulgation and no enforcement"; an assessment which applies to the preservation and retention of the contents of removable memory cards. Since at least 1995, again in 2006, as part of the Election Administration Manual, and as part of the official record retention schedule, the GAB and its predecessor, the State Election Board, informed clerks of the State of their duty to make the backups required by WI Stats. 7.23(1)(g), however neither Board has done anything to verify that these election records were preserved and retained.

My concerns expressed in the August 10, 2009 meeting culminated in two documents prepared by the GAB staff addressing the issue of maintaining electronic election records: the December 17, 2008 Memo and the December 18, 2008 Memo. I believe both to be flawed in that both documents counsel the municipal and county clerks to violate WI Stats. 7.23(1)(g) and/or WI Stats. 7.24 in any one of several GAB-approved ways.

Option C of the December 17, 2008 memo is best paraphrased as: "Let the vendors retain the records." This is an express violation of WI Stats. 7.24, which reads [emphasis mine]:
The official or agency shall retain all election materials until destruction or other disposition is authorized under s. 7.23.
Prohibiting the outsourcing of record retention is not just good law it is good public policy. For examples of the problems associated with outsourcing election administration to private corporations and third parties, see "Vendors are Undermining the Structure of U.S. Elections" by Ellen Theisen of VotersUnite.org.
Option A of the December 17, 2008 memo counsels the clerks to backup the programming and data stored on the central election management software rather than retain the actual contents of the memory cards. This is advice to retain what ought to have been on the memory card in lieu of what was actually on the memory card. One only needs to watch Hacking Democracy to understand why this is bad policy and why the GAB promulgated rules in order to ensure what ought be on a removable memory cards is what is actually on the memory cards when those contents administer an election on behalf of the clerk. But, the GAB's policy is in direct opposition to the legislature's mandate. Backing up what is convenient and might be on a removable memory card rather than what is actually present on the memory card is expressly forbidden by WI Stats. 7.23(1)(g).
Option 1 of the December 18, 2008 memo to the municipal clerks is a restatement of Option A, "Backup whatever the vendors say is convenient to backup" with the addition that if it is claimed the PROM pack has no initial programming on it, then don't backup the event logs or ballot "images"¹ or other information on the PROM pack either.
Option 4 of the December 18, 2008 memo is a restatement and clarification of Option A: "Backup what ought to be on the memory cards in lieu of backing up what is actually on the memory cards".

I spent the spring, summer, and fall of 2009 surveying which of the statute-violating GAB recommendations various clerks have adopted. Specifically, I asked various county clerks (and, in Oneida County, the municipal clerks) for the backups made on or before February 17, 2009 pursuant to WI Stats. 7.23(1)(g) of the memory cards used in the November 4, 2008 election. The results so far are:

City of Milwaukee: No backups of Automark cards made. The City Election Commission contends both that the AutoMark is not a voting machine as that term is used in WI. Stat. 5.08(4m) and that even if it were a voting machine no backups are required because the Automark neither stores vote totals on the removable memory card nor tabulates votes. A file which is not the contents of the Optech memory card is kept in lieu of an actual backup of the Optech memory cards.
Washington County: All copies of the backups I requested had been made, copies were delivered to me, and the copies seem to be complete backups of the binary data found on the memory cards used by the AccuVote OS and AccuVote TSx machines.
Sheboygan County: Files which clearly are not the contents of the M100 memory cards are kept in lieu of a backup of the actual contents of the memory cards.
Oneida County: The "let the vendor do it" approach was used. The vendor, ES&S, destroyed the records, made no backups, and states categorically that ES&S does not and will not retain election records on behalf of a customer jurisdiction. This contradicts the "research" done by the GAB staff described in the December 17, 2008 memo.
Waukesha County: Unknown. I made open records requests for the backups of 8 different memory cards. Seven of those open records are tied up by the County's claim that portions of the requested records are secret and that it will cost $470 ($67.14 per requested record) to redact the secret portions of 7 of the 8 backups requested. Access to copies of these 7 backups is contingent on my paying the $470 fee. I am contesting both the fee and the claim that election records can be secret.Regarding the eighth back up requested, the response was that the unnamed vendor to the Town of Waukesha has gone bankrupt and apparently has taken the records with them.

The GAB staff has submitted to the legislature bills AB-646 and SB-435 in order to "remedy" the memory card backup "problem". The proposed legislation:

Removes the requirement to make backups for non-federal elections.
Removes the requirement to save the memory cards in situ for at least 21 days.
Exempts ballot marking devices and central count scanners if it is claimed the equipment does not tabulate votes. A relevant quote from this report from the California Top to Bottom Review explaining why a central count scanner (such as used in Sauk and Juneau counties) would be exempted is:
During the election, the GEMS server is responsible for performing image processing on the ballots scanned by the Central Count AV-OS. After the election, the GEMS server tallies the election results and is used for generating election result reports and databases.
Fails to require voting equipment certified by the GAB actually have the capability to create backups and to create those backups in a form or on a medium over which the clerks can maintain custody and control for the entire retention period.

This proposed legislation demonstrates the failure to communicate when there are fundamental and irreconcilable differences in world views. The GAB staff and I disagree on fundamentals such as:

Are the contents of a removable memory card used to administer an election an election record?
Whether records or not, should the contents of a removable memory card be preserved for at least as long as a poll list?
If preserved, then preserved by whom?
Does a concept similar to "adverse possession" apply to election statutes? I.e. if a statute has been un-enforced for the past 20 years by the responsible executives, then can the statute continue to be un-enforced for the next 20 years? I might consider that argument concerning Wisconsin's Oleo regulations, but not for something as vital as elections.

The only remedy for parties with such irreconcilable differences is arbitration by a third party whose authority is accepted by the disputing parties. In the case at hand there are only five such parties with the authority to arbitrate the dispute among the GAB, the county and municipal clerks, and myself. I am open to suggestions if there are more than these five:

The legislature,
Any of the 72 county District Attorneys of the state,
The Office of either US Attorney located in the state,
A Wisconsin state court,
A Federal court,

The Attorney General of the State of Wisconsin is not included here because under the same statute which created the GAB, the Office of the Attorney General of Wisconsin is prohibited from investigating election crimes unless there is a specific referral from the GAB or from a county DA.

I am now pursuing these avenues of arbitration.

I have filed a statement with the Oneida County sheriff's department documenting my allegation that ES&S destroyed election records from the November 4, 2008 election.
I have filed a statement with the Milwaukee office of the FBI documenting my allegation that the City of Milwaukee Election Commission destroyed election records from the November 4, 2008 election by failing to comply with WI Stats. 7.23(1)(g).
I have filed a statement with the Milwaukee Police Department documenting my allegation that the City of Milwaukee Election Commission destroyed election records from the November 4, 2008 election by failing to comply with WI Stats. 7.23(1)(g).
I am considering a mandamus action to force the GAB and/or the clerks of the state to comply with WI Stats. 7.23(1)(g)
I am exploring how unmerchantability may affect the certification of a voting system. I do not believe the claim by the voting machine vendors that their systems:
- can write to a removable memory card,
- read from the removable memory card, but
- cannot backup the removable memory card.
Again, I do not believe this, but, if true, then the vendors are admitting their systems are unmerchantable as that term is used in the under the Wisconsin Uniform Commercial Code. Consider the flash drive in your pocket. Do you believe that a system which can write to your flash drive and can read from your flash drive, cannot also make a backup of your flash drive? This is what the clerks claim the vendors have told them about the voting systems the clerks purchased with regard to removable memory cards instead of flash drives.

If voting systems are so poorly designed and constructed that there is no way to make backups of the removable memory cards, then those systems may well be so defective as to be unmerchantable. This because the systems are unfit for the usual and customary purpose for which they were purchased: administering elections in a lawful manner.

That is the story so far with more developments to come.

¹ "Ballot images" are neither pictures nor some graphical representation of the ballot scanned; the terminology is part of the Humpty Dumpty language of the election industry.
² "Ballot Definition File" is another bit of the Humpty Dumpty language of the election industry. Often the "ballot definition file" is neither a single, separate file nor a complete definition of the ballot.

Milwaukee – Life in the Constitution-Free Zone

2009-05-02T22:49:00.009-05:00

The Department of Homeland Security (sic) claims that the US Federal Constitution does not apply to any person or property within 100 miles of an international border. For most reading this blog, that is you and your home.

As this map shows, this Constitution-free zone includes all of Milwaukee county and most of eastern Wisconsin. Many of my, it-is-not-fascism-when-our-side-does-it, colleagues in the cheddar-sphere cheered as George Bush shredded the Constitution with decrees such as this 100-mile Constitution-free zone. This is because they mistakenly thought such power would only be used on illegal immigrants and "terrorists". This belief is/was in spite of the fact that George Bush and the sponsor of this abomination, Wisconsin's own Jim Sensenbrenner, expressly included American citizens in the definition of "Terrorist".

This video by Pastor Steve Anderson of Faithful Word Baptist Church of Tempe, AZ is a peek into the future of Milwaukee. The unusual thing about the Pastor Anderson encounter is the Department of Homeland Security(sic) abused a citizen who refused to act like a serf and, judging by the Faithful Word website and blog, the errors were compounded by the fact that they abused an internet-savvy pastor who clearly has not been given a spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

As is the case with most bullies when they are caught pounding kids on the playground, the Department of Homeland Security(sic) has issued the official statement: "I didn't do it. Nobody saw me do it. You can't prove anything." But, the part of this story yet to unfold are the video tapes from dozens of points of view which the Department of Homeland Security(sic) made of the incident. If the few current youTube videos are causing such public outrage, I am keen to see what will be the effect when dozens of "official" videos are released.

We reap what we sow. And the JBERBs have made clear, Pastor Anderson is the first of many Americans to be beaten and tasered for demanding the Constitution be treated as if it were the supreme law of the land. The Constitution is not Terrorism even if the jack boots say it's terrorism.

For 8 years people applauded as George Bush and Jim Sensenbrenner shredded the Constitution, yet now, those same people are aghast that the resulting confetti will not protect them as Obama implements and advances the Bush Doctrine against the American people.

dum spiro pugno ⇒ dum spiramus pugnamus

Fort Detrick losing Samples

2009-04-30T10:17:00.006-05:00

One of the things I like to watch for is news about Fort Detrick. This is because Fort Detrick is the source of the lethal pathogen used in the only known bio-terrorist attack within the US; The October, 2001 Anthrax attacks on:

Two political opponents of George Bush,
A newspaper photo journalist critical of Bush's drunken daughter, Jenna, and
The unfortunate postal workers who were the delivery vehicle(s)

In two articles, here and here, it is noted that Fort Detrick has lost many samples of its various viruses and bacteria; both weaponized and not. Now to be fair, the lab may not have lost the samples, but just may have an inventory control system such that quartermaster at Fort Detrick cannot either

locate the samples within Fort Detrick, or
cannot determine when, where, or to whom the samples were transferred from Fort Detrick

I honestly don't know which scares me more; that the lab lost samples or has inventory control so poor that samples only "appear" missing.

To truly add to my pessimism is the fact that the Wall Street Journal opined that the current, scary strain of swine flu is synthesized from 4 different strains affecting 3 different species (Human, swine, and avian) from 3 continents (North America, Europe, Asia). The hysteria over the swine flu is just that: hysteria whipped up by pompous power grabbers looking for a chance to prove their usefulness via "appropriate responses". Also the initial report of the recombinant nature of the flu strain appears in error and may only be two comingled strains of pig flu which have, without warning or precedent, broken out first among humans instead of swine.

Also the US government turned over the current strain of swine flu, designated H1N1, to a Boston lab, Replikins Ltd sometime before April 8, 2008.

So what we have are dots which probably done even form a plane let alone a line.

A laboratory with a history of providing/losing lethal pathogens to person or persons unknown who in turn release those pathogens on US citizens.
A facility which admits doing research on the many strains of influenza virus
Including the 1918 strain which Dr. Taubenberger, of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (located at Fort Detrick), ordered dug up from the Alaskan permafrost.
A strain of the influenza virus identified last April as the one most likely to cause a pandemic, and
This year that same swine flu virus emerges for the first time in the human population without first having emerged in the swine population.

It is unlikely these dots are as connected as the listing above would indicate, but it would be prudent to ask questions such as:

When did Fort Detrick first receive the H1N1 strain of the influenza virus?
Are all the samples of N1H1 virus at Fort Detrick properly secured and accounted for?

As always with Fort Detrick, there are far more questions than answers.

In Memorium - John Gideon

2009-04-29T01:21:00.004-05:00

I was stuck with the news that one of my friends, John Gideon, had died today. Well, yesterday, since it has taken me until after midnight to compose my thoughts on the passing of this great man.

John Gideon was the co-founder of VotersUnite.org, the editor of the Daily Voting News, and a tireless advocate for justice and election integrity. You can read more of his work in this eulogy at the BradBlog.com.

But, John is and was more than his work.

I have a limited number of friends and I count myself blessed to be able to claim John Gideon as one of them. I only physically met John Gideon once when we attended the National Summit to Save Our Elections in October of 2005. Over the past 3-1/2 years we often worked together via email and telephone. In that time, we became friends.

I have benefited greatly from his sage advice, his affectation for technical incompetence, his stiff-necked inspiration, but mostly from his good humor.

More than once he reminded me that Liberty in general and election integrity in particular is a day to day swim against a sometimes stiff current. His humor and optimism combined with his diligence and persistence is/was an inspiration to me an others.

My world, our world, is smaller and poorer place for his absence. I will remember and cherish our friendship until the day I am called home.

Good bye, My Friend. Truly, may you now rest in peace where the yoke is easy and the burdens are light.

The Stasi In the USA

2009-04-16T20:22:00.015-05:00

I reported earlier on the official government designation of terrorist to all who think the US Constitution is the supreme law of the land and is primarily power-limiting document rather than a power-granting document.

As would be expected, the imperial follow-up after such classification is to spy on said ~~dissenter(s)~~ terrorist(s) Enter the Homeland Security Department called the Extremism and Radicalization Branch and its official plan for said spying. This is the administrative creation of the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act. (See here: for the six representatives who took their oath to support the Constitution seriously. (Not surprisingly, Jim SenselessBrenner was not among them. Surprisingly, neither was Ron Paul).

This means that for the first time in American history, the federal government has a full-time intelligence organ devoted exclusively to scrutinizing the political opinions and affiliations of U.S. citizens. Well, the first time the domestic spying was public.

If you think I am exaggerating, I will let the J-BERB's speak for themselves:

DHS/I&A will be working with its state and local partners over the next several months to ascertain with greater regional specificity the rise in rightwing extremist activity in the United States, with a particular emphasis on the political, economic, and social factors that drive rightwing extremist radicalization

Oh, by the way, this DHS-ERB document is not to be shared with the public, media, or Congress and is exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The relevant quotes are [emphasis mine]:

LAW ENFORCEMENT INFORMATION NOTICE: This product contains Law Enforcement Sensitive (LES) information. No portion of the LES information should be released to the media, the general public, or over non-secure Internet servers. Release of this information could adversely affect or jeopardize investigative activities.

and

Warning: This document is UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY (U//FOUO). It contains information that may be exempt from public release under the Freedom of Information Act (5 U.S.C. 552). It is to be controlled, stored, handled, transmitted, distributed, and disposed of in accordance with DHS policy relating to FOUO information and is NOT to be released to the public, the media, or other personnel who do not have a valid need-to-know without prior approval of an authorized DHS official. State and local homeland security officials may share this document with authorized security personnel without further approval from DHS.

Someone is facing a year in jail for disclosing this document. Here is the relevant quote from §214 (f) of the Homeland Security Act of 2002

... shall be fined under title 18 of the United States Code, imprisoned not more than 1 year, or both, and shall be removed from office or employment.

Thank goodness there are still some peace officers scattered among the legions of police and law enforcement officers in the country.

The continued domestic spying on citzens in general and dissidents in particular, is just further implementation of the Ten Steps to Closing Down a Free Society by Naomi Wolfe from her 2007 book, The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot. Those ten steps are:

Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy.
Create secret prisons where torture takes place.
Develop a thug caste or paramilitary force not answerable to citizens.
Set up an internal surveillance system.
Harass citizens' groups.
Engage in arbitrary detention and release.
Target key individuals.
Control the press.
Treat all political dissidents as traitors.
Suspend the rule of law.

The DHS-ERB is the American version of the Stasi (Stasi 2.0 if you will) for the post-republican, imperial Bush-Obama regime.

My prediction is the ERB and their minions, the J-BERB's (Jack Boots at the Extremism and Radicalization Branch), will exceed the reach, scope, and terror of the East German Stasi and will do so with the thunderous applause of Law and Order conservatives and ACORN radicals.

h/t to Pro Libertate

P.S.
If you have not heard of Naomi Wolf, then I recommend the following videos:

Banksters at "Work"

2009-04-16T14:09:00.011-05:00

Goldman-Sachs Posted a 1.8 billion profit for the first quarter of 2009. The funny thing about that is that Goldman-Sachs had $1.3 billion in write-downs for December, 2008. How do you lose 1.3 billion in a single month (December, 2008) and still make 1.8 billion over three months (December, January, February)?

Simple, you ignore the losses from December and report on the 3 months (January, February, and March 2009) for which you had profits. Here is the report from the New York Times and a similar report from The DOW Jones Report.

How this legal scam works is simple. The 2008 Fiscal Year 2008 for Goldman-Sachs Fiscal ran from December 2007 to November 2008. Goldman-Sachs changed its fiscal years to now coincide with the calendar year. Because of the change the fiscal year 2009 for Goldman-Sachs will runs from January 2009 through December 2009. Notice December 2008 is in neither fiscal year. This makes December 2008 a "stub month" and is not reported within either fiscal year. Most likely the results for December 2008 will appear in a footnote of the consolidated finacial reports.

In simpler terms:

Move all your losses to a single month; December 2008
Change the definition of your fiscal year to so no fiscal year includes the month with all the losses.
Vacuum up billions of bailout money through the bankster money conduit known as AIG via (arguably fraudulent) credit default swap (CDS) contracts.
Report that you "beat your numbers in a spectacular way" and offer to sell more than $5 billion of stock to the unsuspecting public.

While the stubbing of December is legal, the Emperor of the Treasury can do ANYTHING he wants to Goldman-Sachs because of the Orwellianly named, Emergency Economic Recovery and Stabilization Act. And any action taken by the Emperor of the Treasury is beyond legal review by any court but the US Supreme Court. See section 119.

Good thing the US Treasury department is full of ex-Goldman-Sachs Boyz (eGSB'z). So rest assured, there will be no heavy handed investigation of Goldman-Sachs cooking their books, ripping off US taxpayer via the Government laundering money through AIG, and no firing of executives at Goldman-Sachs by Obama, the Blessed.

H/T to George Washington's Blog

Big Brother Watches us so, we We Watch Him Back

2009-04-05T00:13:00.016-05:00

Update Below
One of the songs I love is Wake Up! (It's 1984) by Oingo Boingo. The title of this post is from the lyrics of this song.

Most technology is morally neutral and can be used for good and evil; often time simultaneously. It is a technological arms race between those of us who use technology to expand Liberty those who use technology to expand Government. Because as one waxes the other wanes. The exercise of your G-d given rights is a zero sum game; either Govenment is powerless to prevent your expression or it CAN limit your expression.

Here is a small battle on the Liberty-Government front where technology was used for Liberty.
If I get the the full 25 minutes of audio I will post it.
Here is link to the full audio. As expected the TSA goons have trouble handle free men instead of serfs. I especially like the threat "I'll help you understand". Didn't Rodney King also get such instructional help?

His "game" was to not cower like a serf. His "game" was to not answer a question without his attorney present. His "game" was to ask the appropriate questions; "Am I legally required to answer that question?" and "Am I free to go?". His "game" was assuming the Constituion of the United States survived its encounter with George W Bush.

Clearly, this guy is one of those Consitutional terrorists MIAC warned the ST. Louis TSA about, because Silence in the Face of Official Questioning is protected by the fifth amendment of the Constitution.

In case you need to know why that is important read the story of Sir Thomas Moore.

But the practical reasons are stated in this video by defense attorney, James Duane.
The advice is simple (and in the first 30 seconds): "NEVER speak to the POLICE without an attorney." In case you think only defense attorneys believe this, here is the same advice from a police detective with 25 years of experience.
Officer Bruch's advice is the same : "NEVER speak to the POLICE without an attorney."

We recently had a case where an honest, law-abiding citizen was doing what Shirley Abrahamson ordered him to do if he wanted to exercise the G-d given right protected under Article I section 25. In Philip Cole v Wisconsin, Shirley Abrahamson, ruled that Wisconsin is an unfettered open carry state. It was a good thing he too recorded his conversation with the police. I speculate that recording and the threat of it being played in open court helped with the dismissal of the case.

Honest citizen needs to record there interactions with the police if possible. Wisconsin is a single party recording state and having your own recording is really useful when there is a "glitch" with the dashboard cam and/or the body mike.

Tape the Police when you can because it may keep you out of jail, but mostly because you still can.

Tyranny is as Tyranny Does

2009-04-04T23:30:00.009-05:00

My appologies to Forest Gump, but Tyranny is defined by its acts nothing more and noting less. Thus,

Tyranny is as Tyranny Does. This is the American defintion of tyranny and has been so from the beginning.

We Americans have for more than two centuries defined a tyrant as A ruler, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, are unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Jack Harris, the Police Chief of Phoenix Arizona, is just such a tyrant.

The lastest foray into tyranny by Chief Harris is to arrest and begin the prosecution one of his most effective critics.

On April 2, 2009, the police raided the home of Jeff Pataky, who runs Bad Phoenix Cops. Mr. Pataky's "crimes" are:

"Petty theft" for making name plates that look so good the Police Chief thought they were stolen.
"computer tampering with the intent to harass” which seems to translated from into English from PoliceSpeak to "effective detective of bad cops".

I would urge you to go to Jeff Pataky'ssite, Bad Phoenix Cops, and read his past "criminal" acts of harrassing.

Didn't Woodward and Bernstein get a Pulitzer for similar "harrassing"?

A critic to whom the few peace officers in the Phoenix police department feed tips about the

It's Official - I am a terrorist

2009-03-16T10:51:00.010-05:00

The Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC), a military "fusion" center similar to the one in Texas and the one in Wisconsin. Check for the fusion center near you.

If you have never heard of fusion centers you are not alone. I only learned about the fusion centers this weekend. But in our defense, they are a secretive bunch. Even though the third annual conference of National fusion centeres was held this week in Kansas City, the website for the Wisconsin fusion center is a secret and a Google search for "Missouri Information Analysis Center" not bring up the URL to the Missouri Information Analysis Center? Could it be, because the MIAC robot.txt file prevents archiving of the site by all known search engines?

According to the official report from MIAC you are a terrorist if you:

You display or use the Gadsden Rattlesnake Flag/Symbol.✔
You have watched the movies zeitgeist or America: Freedom to Fascism.
You support a repeal of the 16th Amendment - the Income Tax. ✔ (and the 17th as well)
You supported the candidacy of Representative Ron Paul (R-TX). ✔
You are a member of a Committees of Safety.
You oppose mandatory citizen service for those aged 18 to 24 per Rahm Emanuel’s proposal. ✔
You oppose the Security and Prosperity Partnership (aka the North American Union) being out of the jurisdiction of Congressional oversight. ✔
You support the abolition of the FEDERAL RESERVE private central bank and favor a return to Constitutional money. ✔
You oppose any further restrictions on the inherent right to bear arms. ✔
You oppose any bailout bills for failing banks and/or private companies.✔
You are literate enough in in Greek history to know that "Molan Labe" does not mean "over my dead body".✔
Play paint ball with either true paint ball guns or Airsoft guns.✔
Think injecting tumor-inducing RFID chips into humans and animals is a bad idea.✔

Lest you think this is some new insanity from the the 9-11 changes everything buffoons here is a similar brochure on identifying terrorists issue to Arizona state troopers from the FBI.

It is official. I am a terrorist.

In addition to the above I have proudly done the following:

Opposed the immoral act of taking from the productive and giving to the foolish regardless of the name used: TARP, Stimulus, TARP II, AIG, etc.
Referred to and appealed to the US Federal Constitution as if it were the supreme law of the land.
Insisted that government officials get search warrants or permission in order to search my property
Called "asset forfeiture" an immoral, but legal plundering of sovereign citizens.
Called Presidents Bush the Elder, Clinton, Bush the Younger, and Obama tyrants.
Supported the nomination of Ron Paul as the presidential candidate for Republican party. Boy, I am so glad we choose that "electable" John McCain instead.
Vowed to NEVER forego my duty to confront my accusers by appearing via television in any judicial proceeding.

And since I am now a terrorist all the provisions of the PATRIOT ACT, the Military Commission Act, John Werner Defense Authorization act, can be brought to bear on me and those who are similarly classified as terrorist.

I am heartened that may weak-kneed conservatives such as Limbaugh, Hannity, and Belling are now starting to see some of the danger of a "Unitary Executive" now that Obama is that unitary executive. But, they suffered from the same intellectual error that Democrats and progressive are currently exhibiting: "It's not tyranny if our side does it." And yes, these fusion centers are tyranny and another usurpation of power because one of the stated goals of the miltary fusion centers is The regulation of noncriminal conduct. [emphasis mine].

The problem, as always, is not whose hands are on the Sword of Government, but how long, indiscriminate, and poorly sheathed is the Sword of Government. Since someone is going to eventually wield it against you it is best that the Sword of Government be short, discriminating, and difficult to un-sheath.

More on Interim Approval of Voting Systems

2009-03-06T11:06:00.004-06:00

I received the response from the Government Accountability Board regarding to my inquiry into the legality of interim approval of voting systems.

The summary is:

Approval from the Government Accountability Board is not needed for each change to a voting system fielded in the State of Wisconsin.
Changes to fielded voting systems need new approval from the Government Accountability Board only if the staff believes the changes are
significant enough to warrant a recommendation that the Government Accountability Boar require the manufacturer to submit a new application for appr5oval of the entire voting system containing all modifications

I agree that this approach

balances the interests of conducting accessible elections with requiring re-approval of entire voting systems as a result of minor modifications

I stand by my earlier statement that interim approval is without legal foundation and, in the case of ES&S, there is no way to know if the staff is correct in their assessment of significant because the engineering change order is a trade secret.

I also agree with the staff of the GAB

that the voting system approval process prescribed by statute and code did not contemplate the ongoing updates, engineering change orders and other modifications that incidentally affect the previously approved voting system

This is because the whole central, but false, premise of the voting system approval process is electronic voting systems are stable, well-engineered, well-tested, high-reliability systems which are fit for use in the mission-critical area of election administration.

All evidence from the last ten years (especially that not bought by the manufacturers) shows that no electronic voting system on the market from any vender is stable, well-engineered, well-tested, reliable, or fit for use.

This is the rock and the hard place in which the Government Accountability Board and its staff finds itself in. The approval process assumes electronic voting systems are stable, well-engineered, well-tested, reliable, and fit for use in administering election. The reality is that no electronic system currently on the market (or likely to be on the market in the next 10 years) is stable, well-engineered, well-tested, reliable, or fit for use.

What is the staff and the Board to do, but stretch the statutes and administrative code to the breaking point? The only alternative is to administer elections without electronic voting equipment. Neither clerks nor the public, which demands numbers by the ten o'clock news, will tolerate elections without electronic administration and tabulation.

A Rock, A Hard Place, and Interim Certification

2009-03-04T13:56:00.006-06:00

The state of Wisconsin elections are between a rock and a hard place. Because much of the administration of an election relies on unstable, poorly tested, and unreliable equipment, on February 17, 2009 many election jurisdictions had some tough choices. If your jurisdiction uses an Automark ballot marker as your accessibility device, you were told by ES&S on January 21, 2009 that your ES&S equipment is no longer covered by the maintenance agreement with ES&S. If your jurisdiction uses Premier(aka Diebold) equipment, then you were told that you have to upgrade your SSL certificate before the February 17, 2009 election or you would not be able to upload election results via modem or from a TSx touch screen DRE.

The squeeze from the vendors on the local municipalities and the Government Accountability Board (GAB) is clear: accede to our demands or we will make your election life difficult.

Wisconsin has its own, state-level accessibility requirement. So, even though February 17, 2009 was not a federal election, the local municipalities are required under state law to have working Automarks and TSx touch screen DRE, unless an exemption is granted by the GAB or its staff.

In an extra-legal attempt to help the municipalities navigate between Scylla and Charybdis, the Staff on their own authority granted "interim approval" to the updated systems from ES&S and Premier. To better understand this situation I filed an open records request with the GAB on these "interim approvals" and what was being approved.

The results are here and here, and they raise several serious issues.

Two voting systems have been granted "interim approval".
There is no public documentation of what changes were approved for the Automarks. The engineering change order (ECO) granted interim approval is a trade secret. So again, when it comes to election administration the truth is a trade secret. The GAB staff claims the ECO is a de minimus change. Maybe it is. There is no way though for the public to confirm or deny that assessment. The approved changes are a trade secret.
the ES&S ECO was presented to the staff of the GAB in July 22, 2008.
The threating January 21, 2009 letter from ES&S to municipal and county clerks was not limited to Automarks. The ES&S letter cited here was obtained from Taylor County Wisconsin, which has no Automarks. Taylor county has iVotronics, m100's and m150's from ES&S, but no AutoMarks. The GAB claims the July 22, 2008 engineering change order (ECO) is limited from ES&S is limited to Automarks. Perhaps what Attorney Falk meant was the interim approval of the ES&S ECO was limited to Automarks. But since the ECO is a trade secret, there is is no way to tell what the scope of the ES&S ECO actually is.
The response from the GAB on January 22, 2009 indicates that they believe the withdrawl of services by ES&S to be a possible breach of the maintenace agreement. Here is the relavent quote from the GAB January 22, 2009 letter:
The G.A.B. encourgages election officials to contact their attorney regarding contract responsibilities and obligations. From our review, it appears that only a second routine maintenance vist in a 12 month period is subject to teh 90% per unit maintenance fee and only emergency remedial maintenance services are subject to the 150% per unit maintenance fee. Your costs and rights will depend on the language of your contract with ES&S and the frequency of maintenance services.

The vendor control of election administration is a big problem, but what did the GAB and the clerks expect? When you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. This is how voting equipment vendors have behaved for three decades. As troubling as this control and near extortion by the vendors is, I find the "interim approval" more troubling. It is Class I felony to use unapproved voting equipment in an election, and the staff of the Government Accountability Board has no legal authority to grant or deny approval of voting equipment. There has been ample time to bring the ES&S ECO before the GAB and get approval the legal way. There have been five GAB meetings since the ECO request was presented to the GAB staff; August, October, November, and December, of 2008 and again on January 15, 2009.

During the January 15, 2009 meeting of the Government Accountability Board, the Board approved delegating some of its authority to Kevin Kennedy and Shane Falk. It is item L on page 58 of the meeting agenda. Approving voting equipment was not on the agenda. Nor did the GAB vote to delegate such authority.

In fact the Wisconsin legislature has expressly limited the powers the Government Accountability Board CAN delegate to its staff. Specifically, WI States 5.05(1)(e) reads [emphasis and reformatting mine]:

Delegate to its legal counsel the authority to
intervene in a civil action or proceeding under sub.(9),
issue an order under s. 5.06,
exempt a polling place from accessibility requirements under s. 5.25(4)(a),
exempt a municipality from the requirement to use voting machines or an electronic voting system under s. 5.40 (5m),
approve an electronic data recording system for maintaining poll lists under s. 6.79, or
authorize nonappointment of an individual who is nominated to serve as an election official under s. 7.30 (4) (e),
subject to such limitations as the board deems appropriate.

The approval, interim or otherwise, is not a power the GAB can delegate even if it voted to do so. Interim approval is without legal foundation. I have three times asked the staff counsel of the Governmental Accountability Board, Shane Falk, to provide me with the legal citations which he believes allow for the staff to provide "interim approval" to voting equipment. He has refused to provide an answer even after having had more than a week to provide it.

In summary, to help relieve the pressure voting equipment vendors were putting on municipal and county clerks, the staff of the GAB decided the best choice was to break the law, exceed its authority, and grant "interim approval" to the offending equipment. On option which was within the law to do (if the Board had delegated such authority to the Staff) was to exempt polling locations from the state requirements to provide Automarks if those Automarks were broken. Admittedly, a poor option, but it has the virtue of being legal.

But, given the corner that the vendors back them and clerks into, what was the staff supposed to do but break the law?

The Anthrax Case Will Not Go Away

2009-03-04T00:06:00.005-06:00

Much as the FBI would like the Amerithrax case to go away, it won't.

I think the reason it won't go away is because the FBI does not want to find the person or persons who killed 5 Americans and injured 17 others with a bio-weapon manufactured by the US military. Too many awkward questions.

Last August, I pointed out, the official FBI story, The Dead Guy Did It, has some serious holes in it.

It turns there is one more hole. The anthrax spores Bruce Ivins had access to do not match the weaponized anthrax spores used to kill Americans in October 2001.

My one complaint about the article is the last paragraph:

Ivins, 62, a bio-defense researcher who spent years searching for a better anthrax vaccine, overdosed on Tylenol and Codeine last year after learning that the FBI was preparing to indict him on murder charges.

First, there was no autopsy done when Bruce Ivins died. It is a leap of faith to claim the cause of death was an overdose of any kind let alone by an overdose of a prescription-only drug. Second, as everyone touched by suicide knows, there are only guesses as to why a person commits suicide. In defense, of the Raw Story, the story of Ivins-committed-suicide-to-avoid-indictment is the official FBI story and they are merely quoting the official story.

In spite of this latest obstacle (no murder weapon), the FBI is sticking to its official story: The Dead Guy Did It. Quoting the article:

The results don't necessarily exonerate Ivins.

The mailed spores could have been removed from the flask and grown under different conditions, resulting in varying chemical contents, Jason Bannan, a microbiologist and forensic examiner at the FBI's Chemical Biological Sciences Unit in Quantico, Virginia, told Kwok.

"It doesn't surprise me that it would be different," said Bannan.

There you have it. Even though the murder suspect, The Dead Guy, had no access to the murder weapon, the official fable is unchanged; The Dead Guy Did It. You would think the murder weapon not matching would make it a lead pipe cinch that Ivins is not the guy. But, if you thought like that, i.e. rationally, then you wouldn't be an FBI Amerithrax investigator.

The still untold story is:

How were US manufactured bio-weapons released on members of Congress and the unfortunate postal workers who delivered that deadly mail? Just how does that happen?

Until the FBI wants to ask some uncomfortable questions and follow the evidence wherever it my lead, we will never know.

In the meantime, the FBI wants you to just go back to sleep with the lullaby:

The Dead Guy Did It.
The Dead Guy Did It.
The Dead Guy Did It.
The Dead Guy Did It.
    .
    .
    .
ZZZZ

Over the Cliff Even Without the "Stimulus"

2009-01-28T19:38:00.013-06:00

In other posts (here, here, and here) I have compared the stampeding of American's to transfer control over to the central government to stampeding bison over a buffalo jump.

I think I was too kind. I do not believe we will fare as well as the jumping buffalo.

Here is a posting of the expansion of the money supply:
Federal Reserve Money Chart

Here is a set of graphs of the M1 money supply. Even if you believe the St. Louis Federal reserve branch is fudging the number, the M1 numbers show a very bad trend.

If the graphs don't scare you try this 4 minute history of the Federal reserve.
These numbers are all from before the “stimulus” bill, TARP II, and the second round of Auto bailout money. All signs point to the fact the Federal Reserve is sending the US dollar the way of the Zimbabwe Dollar, the Weimar Reichsmark, the French Assignat, and the US Continental.

The solution is simple, but hard to do: END THE FED

The first step to ending the fed is to recognize it for the fraud that it is. Remove your consent and reverence for the Federal Reserve. The FED has no reserves and is no more federal than Federal Express.

Nothing undercuts the pompous voice of illegitimate authority like laughter, ridicule and a trip to the house of pain.

In order to provide laughter and ridicule, I present this work-inappropriate video: F**K the Fed. Enjoy.

Secure Socket Layer is Compromised

2008-12-30T19:41:00.014-06:00

My posting here has been sparse.

Part of the reason for that is I have been working on a submission to the NIST SHA-3 Competition. My algorithm, WaMM, has the ignoble honor of being the first weak sister to go down in the hash algorithm cage match. To monitor the details of the competition I recommend the SHA-3 Zoo.

This theoretical world of cryptographic hashes has real-world applications. One of those real world applications is the transport layer security (TLS) or secure socket layer (SSL) (aka TLS/SSL). The preceding sentence is best described as the little lock icon you see when you are doing your online banking.

Here is a screen shot

from the web site of Guaranty Banking. I am not picking on Guaranty; the SSL is used by Wells Fargo and Bank of America as well. Here is an excerpt from the BoA Security Guaranty

Whenever personal information is requested or displayed on our Web site we use encryption technology, such as Secure Socket Layer (SSL), to prevent unauthorized access to data

The TLS/SSL is your assurance from your bank, online store, or government that your private information can be safely broadcast across the internet. The value of that guarantee took a serious hit on December 30, 2008.

At the 25th Annual Chaos Communications the team led by Alexander Sotirov has published this paper announcing the creation of a rouge Certification Authority Certificate (CA Certificate).

Anyone with a rogue CA certificate can impersonate any website which uses certification authorities (CA's) for SSL connection; Think eBay, BoA, and www.Widgetsonline.com

The paper has two excellent pictures. The first is how the SSL uses the CA certificate under normal conditions. The second picture is how the rouge CA certificate can be used to attack the SSL connection.

What this means to Wells Fargo and Bank of America is that it is now possible for someone other than them to create a website which can impersonate the Wells Fargo or Bank of America website. With the rogue CA certificate the impersonation goes so far as to present a bogus CA certificate which the TSL/SSL on your web browser cannot distinguish from the legitimate Wells Fargo or BoA certificate.

What this means to you is that if you previous placed blind trust in the little lock icon, then stop that. The lock used in the icon now has a master key which can open the lock in many commercial settings.

The rogue certificate takes advantage of the poisoned message attack by exploiting the know hash collision problem in the MD5 hash algorithm.

For years people have been recommending the MD5 hash be dropped from the CA certificate specification and that all MD5-based certificates be revoked. The response has been the usual two.

That vulnerability is completely theoretical.

It would be too expensive to upgrade a working system because of a theoretical problem.

These responses were given even after Peter Selinger published in 2006 this demonstration of the danger posed by MD5 hash collisions.

As you can see this was problem two years in the making. Now VeriSign, BoA, and most online retailers will need to get new certificates which use the stronger SHA-1 hash instead of the broken MD5 hash. Here is a survey of the CA certificates used on several popular sites. Any of the sites listed with MD5 should now be considered broken.

But, this raises a larger epistemology question.

How do you know who uses what combination of encryption and hashing?
How do you know what you know in order to decide if trust is warranted?

What would be nice is if the browsers provided mouse over text when the mouse hovers over the lock icon. The mouse over text should provide three data: Encryption Algorithm, Hash algorithm, Public Key bit length. From the survey above, the mouse over text for www.microsoft.com would be: (AES128)(SHA)(1024).

People would then know to shun any site where:

the encryption algorithm is not AES160, AES192, AES224, or AES256.
The hash algorithm is not SHA or better.
The public key bit length is less than 2048

The problem with the TLS/SSL protocol is the usual one for cryptography; implementation. By "simplifying" the user interface to a simple picture of a lock, the browser robs the user of the information needed to make an informed decision about whether to trust the SSL security of a website.

My modest proposal would help by providing three simple data upon which a customer can decide a complicated trust issue. The current model is the usual bureaucratic one; trust us because some Authority vouches for us. My small suggestion is more in keeping with the PGP model: What evidence do you need in order to trust us? Here it is...

The difference is transparency and who makes the ultimate decision to extend or withhold trust:

An opaque system where trust is decided by an unknown Authority, or
a more transparent system where trust is given or withheld by the individual

TARP has Coerced Participation

2008-10-15T10:50:00.007-05:00

As I have stated here, here, here, here, here, and here, the bailout, now known as TARP, is not about money, mortgages, or market stabilization it is about power.

One of the dangers I mentioned BEFORE this became law is that participation in TARP prevents any court review even if the participation is not voluntary.

Yesterday, on the Glen Beck show, the ex-director of the St. Louis Federal Reserve admitted that forced confiscation of assets is the power exercised under TARP.

See for yourself.

The naiveté of the Mr. Poole is stunning. At the end of the segment he mentions that one of the 9 banks refusing to participate in the hostile takeover should take the matter to court. The courts will save the day.

Clearly, Mr. Poole has not read the TARP legislation and Section 119 in particular. Section 119 (a)(3) reads

No action or claims may be brought against the Secretary by any person that divests its assets with respect to its participation in a program under this Act, except as provided in paragraph (1), other than as expressly provided in a written contract with the Secretary.

The effect of section 119 is that anyone accepting or, more importantly, forced to exchange assets for money on such terms as the Secretary determines has no standing in court to bring suit. No Standing equals No judicial Review.

If a bank were to pursue Mr. Poole's recommendation and go to court here is what will happen:

In Federal district court, he Emperor of the Treasury will file a motion for summary dismissal based on section 119
Regardless of the ruling on the motion to dismiss, the bank will file a motion for injunctive relief to block the Emperor of the Treasury from confiscating the bank's assets or confiscating ownership in the bank. Section 119 also prevents such the district judge from issuing such an injunction.
Regardless of the ruling by the federal district judge on both motions (the motion to dismiss and the motion for injunctive relief), both rulings will be appealed to Federal circuit court
Regardless of the how the appellate judge rules on the two matters, again, both matters will be appealed to US Supreme Court
If the SCOTUS grants the writ of certiorari, then and only then will the matter finally be before a court not bound by the Congressional portion of the establishment clause in Article III section 1.
Even then the US Supreme Court may rule in favor of Power instead of Justice as the court did in both Kelo v New London and Gonzales V. Raich.

The American justice system(sic) has an uneven record of rendering Justice.

During all of this time, the bank will have its arm caught in the gear works of the American federal court system. Regardless of whether the injunctive relief is granted or denied (Treasury is denied the confiscation or not), the damage to the business interests of the bank while caught in the gear works will be substantial.

The proper expletive for the bank is TANJ

What the Federal Government CAN Do

2008-10-02T11:58:00.004-05:00

I stated in an earlier post there is little the federal government can do except get out of the way, enforce contracts, and prosecute fraud.

In that spirit here is my suggestions for unfreezing the credit markets

Suspend the withholding and collection of income taxes for 300 days. This is only 650 Billion (649,645,995,893 @ 2,165,486,653/day * 300 days) dollars not confiscated by the treasury and leaves the treasury with 1.7 trillion in revenues from other taxes. I know it is less than 700 billion, but if the Treasury Department can pull 700 billion out of its ass, I can pull 300 days out of mine. I selected 300 because it is a round number which creates a bailout figure of about 700 billion at current tax collection rates.Source: Heritage Foundation with income tax receipts comprising 30.8% of gross tax revenues.
If you are going to loot the treasury at least give the money to the people who earned it. [principle employed: Get out of the way]
Repeal taxes on interest earned. [principle employed: Encourage saving (increase supply of credit capital) by getting out of the way]
Repeal taxes on dividends paid to shareholders. [principle employed: Encourage corporate and shareholder savings (increase supply of credit capital) by getting out of the way]
Repeal deductions for interested paid. [principle employed: Discourage borrowing (decrease demand on credit capital) by getting out of the way]
Amend RICO so as to include GSE's such as Freddie Mac and Fannie Mea [principle employed: prosecute fraud]
Do not permit re-writing mortgage terms by the Emperor of the Treasury. (see section 109(c) of the Paulson plan). [principle employed: enforce contracts]

I guarantee the business and individual savings rate of America will go up under this plan. With an increased pool of saved capital looking for returns, the capital markets will thaw.

The reason why this plan will not be adopted is that it does not create an Emperor of the Treasury which is the core, non-negotiable part of the Paulson/Bernanke/Bush plan.

The "bailout" proposed by the Paulson/Bernanke/Bush team is not about money or a mortgage such as the plan above is. The Paulson/Bernanke/Bush plan is about power. The design goal for the Puulson Plan is the stated goal of dictatorship.

The Paulson Plan: Take 3

2008-10-01T15:39:00.003-05:00

The plan by the Bush/Paulson/Bernanke team to create the post: Emperor of the Treasury, is now up to 451 pages. The Paulson Plan: Take 1 was 3 pages; Six if you count the 3-page battle plan. Then Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan wrote the 110-page Paulson Plan: Take 2.

As I predicted earlier this morning, the current Senate bill, Paulson Plan: Take 3, has the three, core, non-negotiable points:

The Secretary of the Treasury can acquire anything even Microsoft with no check or balance on this power by any authority except the limits of his whimsy.
The Secretary of the Treasury gets to set the "price" with "such terms and conditions as determined by the Secretary".
No Judicial review or very limited Judicial review

The Secretary of the Treasury can acquire anything

Section 3(9)(B) reads:
- The term "troubled assets" means any other financial instrument that the Secretary, after consultation with the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, determines the purchase of which is necessary to promote financial market stability, but only upon transmittal of such determination, in writing, to the appropriate committees of Congress.
Section 101 (c)(5) reads:
- The Secretary is authorized to take such actions as the Secretary deems necessary to carry out the authorities in this Act, including, without limitation ... Issuing such regulations and other guidance as may be necessary or appropriate to define terms or carry out the authorities or purposes of this Act.
- Terms such as "troubled asset" and "financial institution".

The Secretary of the Treasury gets to set the price

section 101 (a)(1) reads:
- The Secretary is authorized to establish the Troubled Asset Relief Program (or "TARP") to purchase, and to make and fund commitments to purchase, troubled assets from any financial institution, on such terms and conditions as are determined by the Secretary, and in accordance with this Act and the policies and procedures developed and published by the Secretary.

Limited, if any, Judicial Review

Section 119 (a)(2)(A) reads:
- No injunction or other form of equitable relief shall be issued against the Secretary for actions pursuant to section 101, 102, 106, and 109, other than to remedy a violation of the Constitution.
Section 119 (a)(3) reads
- No action or claims may be brought against the Secretary by any person that divests its assets with respect to its participation in a program under this Act, except as provided in paragraph (1), other than as expressly provided in a written contract with the Secretary.
- Even if that participation was not consensual.
- Since the Secretary gets to define such terms as participation. The is Section 8 of the Paulson Plan: Take 1, but with more words. The effect is that anyone accepting or, more importantly, forced to exchange assets for money on such terms as the Secretary determines has no standing in court to bring suit. No Standing equals No judicial Review

As I have stated here, here, here, here, here, and here, this bill is not about money, mortgages, or market stabilization. It is about power; naked, unfettered power. It is about creating a financial dictator in the aftermath of an economic 9/11 event. It is about herding and driving American Taxpayers over an economic buffalo jump

A Second Drive for the Buffalo Jump

2008-10-01T01:26:00.004-05:00

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." H.L. Menken

As predicted, they’re back!! This time the Senate proposal is much better, but we have to trust them on that because the proposed Senate legislation is on double secret probation.

From the International Herald Tribune

The senators issued no details of their proposal and said none would be available until Wednesday.

I guess the Bush/Paulson/Benanke team doesn't want us plebes reading the bill ahead of time and making truthful points in opposition by citing actual provisions of the proposed ~~bail out~~ rescue legislation. Keeping the legislation secret is a reasonable gambit because it's gotta work better than the truth.

According to Bloomberg, the Plunge Protection Team changed the incoming calls to the Congress from opposition to support:

After a week-long torrent of calls and e-mails from angry voters opposing the rescue package, the tide turned after markets plunged on Sept. 29 in response to the House vote.

"Over $1 trillion worth of market value was wiped off the books by the stock market drop," said Senator Robert Bennett, a Utah Republican. "It is ordinary people looking at ordinary pensions, with their ordinary Main Street kind of 401(k) plans, who lost that $1 trillion. And they lost it in a matter of minutes."

Interesting the Plunge Protection Team did not work to prevent that plunge. But, then as I noted earlier, perhaps the PPT achieved its mission for September 29, 2008. Perhaps the shock doctrine will work tomorrow now that some of the American Herd has been channeled down the driving lanes in a full gallop toward the buffalo jump.

I predict the three key elements of the original Paulson plan for creating the post of Emperor of the Treasury still exists in the Senate version. These three points are non-negotiable to the Paulson/Bush/Bernanke team. This is not about money. It is about power. So the three elements in the final bill will be:

The Secretary of the Treasury can acquire anything; Mortgage related or not; Troubled or not; US headquartered or not. Either the legislation will do this explicitly or grant the Secretary the power, without limitation, to define terms.
The Secretary of the Treasury can set the price at "such terms and conditions as are determined by the Secretary"
No judicial review or very limited judicial review

With those provisions intact the rest of the Senate bill is probably irrelevant. The post of Emperor of the Treasury will have been created and it will be time to "consecrate the bond of obedience and assume the position".

Plunge Protection Team = Plunge Provocation Team?

2008-09-30T13:57:00.000-05:00

The President's Working Group on Financial Markets is colloquially know as the Plunge Protection Team (PPT). If one believes the PPT has the power to artificially prop up the DJIA by systematically buying Dow stocks, one must concede the PPT has the power to artificially depress the DJIA by systematically selling Dow stocks or by executing put options.

My complaints (here, here, and here) with the bailout plan have centered on the power aspects; specifically the creation of an Emperor of the Treasury.

Given the power of the PPT, I find the comments of President Bush ominous.

In his comments from the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House, Bush pointed to Monday's drop in the Dow Jones industrials.
"The dramatic drop in the stock market that we saw yesterday will have a direct impact on retirement accounts, pension funds and personal savings of millions of our citizens," he said. "And if our nation continues on this course, the economic damage will be painful and lasting."

This manipulation: Give us your Liberty or we will take your Prosperity, as noted by Congressman McCotter during the debate on the bailout bill, is a recurring threat.

Circumstances change, but principles endure. Because of this Andrew Jackson's words from 1832 endure and are as true today as they were then. When politically-connected, rapacious bankers (i.e. banksters) demand "Give us a handout or else." the power and privilege demanded are the same.

Under such circumstances the bank comes forward and asks a renewal of its [The Second National Bank of the US] charter for a term of fifteen years upon conditions which not only operate as a gratuity to the stockholders of many millions of dollars, but will sanction any abuses and legalize any encroachments.

The power demanded under the Paulson/Bush plan is a gratuity to the politically-connected which would sanction any abuse and legalize any encroachment.

It is good it went down yesterday. Unfortunately it will be back because they only need to win once.

Doing Nothing is Not an Option

2008-09-30T11:18:00.002-05:00

Yesterday, Congressman Steny Hoyer said, ""Doing nothing is not an option". The unspoken assumption is that all human action is action by government. This is untrue. Government action is only miniscule sliver of the human actions currently in motion due to the faltering US economy.

Tens of millions, perhaps billions, of people are taking action today. Some are buying books in order to better understand this situation. Some are watching the news. Some are reading this blog. Some are buying stocks on the dead cat bounce. Some are husbanding cash in anticipation of future needs such as payroll. I am sure some are taking the advice of Dr. Doom and moving out of dollar denominated assets. Schiff was unequivocal in part two of this interveiew on Australian Television. (Part One). Some are taking the action of observing the situation and orienting themselves to it as part of their own personal OODA loops.

I agree with Congressman Hoyer, "doing nothing is not an option". Millions and billions of actions need to be taken in order to unwind the mal-investments caused by 15 years of US government manipulation in the credit and housing markets.

I disagree with Congressman Hoyer. Doing nothing is an option; for the US Government. Beyond getting out of the way, enforcing contracts, and prosecuting fraud, there is nothing useful the government can do. If Ken Lay can go to jail for cooking the Enron books, then so can Franklin Raines and Daniel Mudd.

The primary and fatal conceit of Secretary Paulson, Chairman Bernanke, and Congressman Hoyer is that their brains can hold enough information regarding the trillions of daily human interactions of a market that they can then select the optimal action.

There is a lot of action going on to right this economic ship. The problem for Paulson, Bernanke, Hoyer and their bankster pals is that very little of that action is government action. Without government action banksters are unlikely to make it to the life boats as the economic ship lists right over them while righting itself through billions of individual, human action in the highly regulated US market and in the much more regulated world markets. (Contrary to propaganda the US is not a free market, but a less regulated market)

The US government doing nothing allows honest bankers to thrive while the politically-connected banksters to wither. Through bankruptcy and acquisition bankster assets are turned over to the prudent and productive members of Wall Street and Main Street. Even though this will cut down on campaign contributions to Congressman Hoyer and temporarily slow or contract economic growth, I think allowing those who have been prudent and productive in the past to prosper in the present is a good. Let the multitudes take the myriad individual actions needed.

Ultimately, I trust a drug-addled woman living in a her mortgaged, double wide trailer in Rhinelander, Wisconsin to handle money more responsibly and to predict the future better than I trust Paulson, Bernanke, and their political allies at Wall Street mega-banks to handle money and predict the consequences of their decisions. Her self-interested actions (or inactions) and the self-interested actions of tens of millions of others, will hit on correct solutions. Legislation will not.

Monday Music: TINA is NOT in Charge.

2008-09-29T10:52:00.002-05:00

The mantra for today regarding the Bankster Subsidy Act is that TINA is in charge and TINA is a bitch driving the American Herd toward Account-Smashed-In Taxpayer Jump. The good news about TINA (There is No Alternative) is that it is a lie. In the Land of the Free, there is Freedom of Choice.

Dont be tricked by what you see. You got two ways to go.

As always, I acknowledge Monday Music (tm) is Nick Schweitzer Production.

The Banskster Bailout: Still All of Microsoft for a Buck

2008-09-28T22:02:00.012-05:00

Last week I warned that the proposed legislation was so broad, sweeping, and dangerous that it allows the Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson, to confiscate All of Microsoft for a Buck

After week of frenetic activity which has lengthened the proposed legislation from 3 pages to 110 pages, Congress now has the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 before it. The result is longer, wordier, and supposedly better than the original 3-page proposal, but the new version still allows Secretary Paulson to confiscate all of Microsoft for a buck.

The key elements I noted which are needed to confiscate all of Microsoft for a buck were:

Define mortgage asset to include Microsoft
Set the "price" to one dollar
prevent judicial review of the confiscation.

All of these elements remain in the newer, "better" version of the bailout.

Define mortgage-asset to include Microsoft
The definitions in Section 3 of the new proposal drop the term "mortgage asset" and substitutes the term "troubled asset". Section 3(6)(B) defines a "Troubled asset" as:

The term "troubled assets" means any other financial instrument that the Secretary, after consultation with the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, determines the purchase of which is necessary to promote financial market stability, but only upon transmittal of such determination, in writing, to the appropriate committees of Congress.

As I stated last week, consultation is not the same as approval. But if the definition of "trouble asset" is not broad enough for the Secretary, then Secretary Paulson can re-define "Troubled Asset" to be whatever he wants it to mean under Sec. 101(c)5. Sec. 101(c)5 is the same as paragraph 2(b)(5) of the original proposal and reads:

The Secretary is authorized to take such actions as the Secretary deems necessary to carry out the authorities in this Act, including, without limitation, issuing such regulations and other guidance as may be necessary or appropriate to define terms or carry out the authorities or purposes of this Act.

"Troubled Asset" is what every the Secretary wants to purchase/confiscate.

Set the price to one dollar
SEC. 101(a)(1) of the newer version has more words than paragraph 2(a) from the original proposal, but it still lets the Secretary of the Treasury to arbitrarily set the "price" of a "troubled asset". SEC. 101(a)(1) reads:

The Secretary is authorized to establish a troubled asset relief program (or "TARP") to purchase, and to make and fund commitments to purchase, troubled assets from any financial institution, on such terms and conditions as are determined by the Secretary, and in accordance with this Act and the policies and procedures developed and published by the Secretary.

Prevent Judicial review
Section 8 of the original proposal stated there would be no judicial review. Here the newer proposed legislation looks better, but this is largely illusionary. Section 119 is entitled: Judicial Review and Related Matters. In true Orwellian fashion though, Section 119 is nothing but a laundry list of limitations on judicial review. Sec 119(1) states the standard of judicial review is Title 5 chapter 7 which seems to allow very broad judicial review. Section Sec 119(2)(A) though guts most forms of judicial relief and reads:

No injunction or other form of equitable relief shall be issued against the Secretary for actions pursuant to section 101, 102, 106, and 109, other than to remedy a violation of the Constitution.

The limitation on Judicial review with the most perverse possibilities though is Sec 119(3)which reads:

No action or claims may be brought against the Secretary by any person that divests its assets with respect to its participation in a program under this Act, except as provided in paragraph (1), other than as expressly provided in a written contract with the Secretary.

If the divestment is not consensual as in my hypothetical confiscation of Microsoft, the victim (Microsoft) cannot bring suit unless the Secretary allows the review.
But even if a court happens to review the Secretary's actions, it can offer limited relief and can declare the transaction NULL and void only AFTER the confiscation has occurred. By then the damage is done and hard to impossible to repair.

Legislative Oversight
The rest of the 110 pages supposedly put in place strict legislative oversight. As this article points out, this is true, but worthless. The newer proposed legislation requires the Treasury Secretary and his Wall Street agents report their activities to two oversight boards. Again, I must cynically point out that report to is not the same as seek the approval of. There is no limitation on what Secretary Paulson and his hired cronies can DOonly that they prepare reports on what they have already DONE. Congress can huff and puff, but has abdicated the ability dismantle the house Secretary Paulson is scheming to build.

The numbers of the congress critters in this area are

Sensenbrenner: (202) 225-5101
Kohl: (202) 224-5653
Feingold: (202) 224-5323

Call today and stop this naked power grab which enables the transfer wealth from us, US citizens, to politically-connected Wall Street Banksters.

Buying Microsoft for One Dollar

2008-09-23T10:49:00.004-05:00

Under the proposed bailout legislation, the US Treasury or agents thereof could acquire Microsoft for one US dollar and there is no legal recourse for Microsoft or its shareholders.

Here is the text of proposed legislation and here is what the Treasury Department claims the legislation will allow it to do.

The relevant sections of the proposed legislation (all emphasis are mine) are:

Paragraph 2(b)(5) which reads:
The Secretary is authorized to take such actions as the Secretary deems necessary to carry out the authorities in this Act, including, without limitation [to issue] such regulations and other guidance as may be necessary or appropriate to define terms or carry out the authorities of this Act.
Paragraph 2(a) which reads:
The Secretary is authorized to purchase, and to make and fund commitments to purchase, on such terms and conditions as determined by the Secretary, mortgage-related assets from any financial institution having its headquarters in the United States.
Section 8 which reads:
Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.
Paragraph 12(1) which reads:
For purposes of this section, The term "mortgage-related assets" means residential or commercial mortgages and any securities, obligations, or other instruments that are based on or related to such mortgages, that in each case was originated or issued on or before September 17, 2008.

Here is how Paulson "buys" Microsoft for one dollar.

Invoke paragraph 2(b)(5) to define term "mortgage-related asset" to include Microsoft stock.
Invoke paragraph 2(a) and acquire all outstanding Microsoft stock in exchange for one federal reserve note because these are the "terms and conditions as determined by the Secretary".
Invoke Section 8 when Microsoft shareholders sue over the theft of their property.

I chose Microsoft because it is the corporation with the least connection to mortgages I could think of. But, my hypothetical "purchase" of Microsoft above is not prohibited under the proposed legislation. Moreover, the Treasury department is already telling Congress that my interpretation of paragraph 2(b)(5), paragraph 2(a), section 8 and section 12 of the proposed statute is the official interpretation of the Treasury Department.

Here are excerpts from the Treasury Department's OWN statement of what powers the Congress will grant to the Treasury Secretary under the proposed legislation [again emphasis mine].

From the paragraph entitled: Scale and Timing of Asset Purchases
The purchases are intended to be residential and commercial mortgage-related assets, which may include mortgage-backed securities and whole loans. The Secretary will have the discretion, in consultation with the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, to purchase other assets, as deemed necessary to effectively stabilize financial markets.
From the paragraph entitled: Asset and Institutional Eligibility for the Program
To qualify for the program, assets must have been originated or issued on or before September 17, 2008. Participating financial institutions must have significant operations in the U.S., unless the Secretary makes a determination, in consultation with the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, that broader eligibility is necessary to effectively stabilize financial markets.

The Treasury Department is telling Congress right now that under its official interpretation of the effects of the proposed bailout, that the Secretary of the Treasury, under paragraph 2(b)(5), has the discretion to alter the definition of "mortgage-related asset" so as to include any financial asset from any institution headquartered in the US or not mortgage related or not, as long as the Secretary "deems it necessary to effectively stabilize financial markets".

I would also cynically note that "consultation with the Chairman of the Federal Reserve" is not the same as "with the approval of the Chairman of the Federal Reserve". Under the proposed statute and the Treasury's proposed regulations, Chairman Bernanke can object all he wants, but as long as he was consulted, Secretary Paulson can do what he wants with any financial asset domestic or foreign. If the Chairman of the Fed could prevent anything, then that would constitute a "review by an administrative agency" and such review is strictly prohibited by Section 8 of the proposed legislation.

The Secretary Treasury is boldy asserting that under the proposed "bailout" legislation that he can "buy" any asset foreign or domestic at what every "price" he dictates and the victims of his "purchases" can pound sand.

Al Capone made similar "purchases" on similar terms back in the 30's.

The telephone numbers for the office of Jim Sensenbrenner are:
(262) 784-1111 (Brookfield office)
(800) 242-1119. (Toll-free to Brookfield office)
(202) 225-5101 (DC Office)

Call today. Call tomorrow. Call until this proposal to rape the American public is defeated.

Music for Bailout Monday

2008-09-22T09:44:00.005-05:00

On the proposed nationalization of 1/20th of the US economy and the proposed creation of the post: Emperor of the Treasury, I thought these blasts from the past were particularly appropriate as my submission for Monday music.
I acknowledge I am shamelessly plagiarizing Nick's Monday Music feature.

Too Big To Fail In Texas

2008-09-22T07:06:00.005-05:00

Last Thursday Libertarian Presidential Candidate, Bob Barr, one one and lost one in his effort to have Texas Election Law enforced uniformly to all candidates. He lost his effort to prevent defective ballots from being shipped to military and overseas voters. The defective ballots began shipping last Saturday, September 20, 2008. He won in that the Texas Supreme Court did not throw out the motion for summary dismissal filed by the Texas Attorney General. Motions from the Texas Secretary of State, the Republican Party of Texas, and the Democratic Party of Texas in the case are due today

In his his petition for mandamus Bob Barr points out that such uniformity is required by the US supreme court under Bush v. Gore.

As I stated before the Texas courts will not render justice, enforce the law, and remove the Obama/Biden and McCain/Palin tickets from the ballots. On this Bailout Monday, it is important to remember that the Republican and Democratic parties are too big to fail.

So the question for me is how will the Texas Supreme Court ignore the law and give the R&D party a pass on obeying the law. My bet is laches. I predict the ruling of the Texas Supreme Court will be to dismiss the petition for a writ of mandamus on the grounds that the Barr campaign is guilty of laches.

The court will rule that because

the Barr Campaign waited a week to get the evidence from the Texas Secretary of State (August 26, to September 4, 2008)
Spent a week trying to convince the Texas SoS to obey the law( September 4, 2008 to September 11, 2008)
Spent a week to find a Texas attorney, research Texas Election Law, to file the motion (September 11, 2008 to September 16, 2008)

, the Barr campaign is guilty of laches; the campaign did not assert its rights in court soon enough.

In spite of the fact that

You cannot assert a tort until actual harm accrues (Barr was not harmed until the Texas SoS illegally certified the Obama/Biden and McCain/Palin tickets on September 3, 2008)
You cannot bring suit in court until all administrative remedies have been exhausted.
You must use a lawyer admitted to the Texas bar in order to file a motion in a Texas Court

, the ruling will be that the Barr Campaign needed to file its motion for a writ of mandamus earlier and than September 16, 2008. The filing will be ruled as untimely and be dismissed.

This will not be Justice, but it my bet this will be the ruling of the Court.

McCain A Write-In Candidate in Texas?

2008-09-17T16:27:00.018-05:00

In a word: No.

Even though both the McCain and Obama campaigns failed to meet the legal requirements of the Texas election code, the Secretary of State of Texas ignored the clear language of the law and certified both as having a place on the ballot.

The ballot status of the Mcain/Palin and Obama/Biden tickets is now part of a lawsuit in Texas. The Texas Courts will NOT render justice in this case. Instead the court will allow the defective certification of the McCain/Palin and Obama/Biden tickets to remain on the ballot.

What happened is simple. Neither the Republican Party of Texas nor the democratic party of Texas filed nomination papers by the end of day, Tuesday, August 26, 2008. Texas election statute 192.031(2)(A) requires that:

before 5 p.m. of the 70th day before presidential election day, the party's state chair signs and delivers to the secretary of state a written certification of the names of the party's nominees for president and vice-president

This requirement is to allow the Texas Secretary of State and the 254 county clerks of Texas have time to prepare and mail ballots out to overseas and military voters by September 20, 2008. This deadline is now in peril because the Texas SoS failed to obey the law.

Here is the documentation submitted to the Texas Secretary of State by the two, politically connected parties. As you can see the names and addresses of the presidential electors were submitted on time, but the four names (presidential and vice presidential names from the Republican and Democratic parties) were not submitted on time. The closest of the four names to meeting this hard statutory deadline was when the Republican party submitted on August 25, 2008, the name of the un-nominated John McCain and an unsub. The first problem is McCain was not the party nominee by then and the second problem is Sarah Palin was not even proposed as the VP nominee until August 29, 2008.

Here is the letter objecting to this failure to obey the law from the politically unconnected Libertarian Party. The LP, BTW, followed the rules and held its convention in May specifically in order to meet filing and ballot access deadlines such as this one in Texas and other, more draconian ballot access laws in other states. The politically unconnected Green Party had its national convention in June in order to meet such filing and ballot access deadlines. The politically unconnected Constitution Party had its national convention in April in order to meet such filing and ballot access deadlines.

What have the Texas Supreme court said on missing important, statutory filing deadlines? It has said that that if the defects are minor (e.g. missing place numbers) the candidate can cure, but if the deadline is important it must be enforced even if this bounces the candidate from the ballot. The tendency is to allow cures provided the legislative scheme for elections and the election schedule is not contravened.

The 2006 case cited by the Barr campaign is In Re Francis which reads [emphasis mine]:

Finally, we emphasize several limitations on today’s holding. First, it concerns only facial defects that are apparent from the four corners of a candidate’s filings; it does not reach forgery, fraud, or other non-accidental defects discoverable only by independent investigation. Second, it concerns only early filings that allow time for corrections after the state chair’s review; no additional time will be available for candidates who file at the last minute so that review cannot be completed before the filing deadline. Third, it does not allow political parties or candidates to ignore statutory deadlines; it allows candidates only the time that the Election Code was designed to give them. Fourth, it concerns only defective filings that have erroneously been approved; it does not change what the Election Code says party chairs should and must reject. Finally, it does not absolve candidates of the need for diligence and responsibility in their filings; party chairs must only notify them of defects, not do their work for them.

The dissent in In Re Francis is even blunter. Deadlines are deadlines for a reason and must be enforced lest the whole election be disrupted. The dissent reads [emphasis mine]:

Election contests often raise competing interests: courts must favor candidate eligibility and access to the ballot, strictly enforce the Legislature’s intent as expressed in the plain words of a statute, and attempt to honor both principles to reach a just and reasonable result as required by the Code Construction Act. Mandatory requirements in the Election Code can work harsh consequences that may result in applicants not being placed on the ballot; yet the plain language of the Election Code, frequently couched in terms of "must" and "shall," instructs that candidates include all of the listed elements in their applications and petitions.

It is a fortuitous thing for the McCain/Palin and Obama/Biden tickets that the American government is no longer a lawful, republic but is a post-republican empire where the whims of men and not the dictates of Law rule. All that matters is political connection and political power. Neither McCain/Palin nor the Obama/Biden will be removed from the ballot. The political might of the Republican and Democratic parties are sufficiently strong that not even clear language of the Law will stand in their way. But watch out you Libs, Greenies, and Consties out there. For you the statutes WILL be used to club you and keep you off the ballot. If this was not the case, then substantive ideas and substantive issues might leak into the campaign, be discussed, and cause voter confusion.

Can't have that!!

For the 2 wings of the ruling duopoly, discussing divergent points of view on the substantive issues of the day is more dangerous than destroying the Rule of Law in Texas.

Hail, Victory!

Election Observation Limited

2008-09-12T06:22:00.004-05:00

As I predicted the new GAB rules on election observation do limit the ability of citizens in Wisconsin to monitor their election.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008 I went to observe the local board canvass of my home voting district, District #1 of the Village of Germantown.

Standing about four feet from the scanner and about 30 feet from the table with poll books I took this picture with my camera at full zoom.

When I took the picture above, I was threatened with arrest by this rather nice police officer.

After asking why I would be arrested I discovered the county clerk has instituted a new observation rule in which the clerk states that every election worker has a six foot bubble around them and any member of the public who violates the bubble will be arrested. The village clerk informed me of this and showed me the email she had received from the county clerk. Based on legal authority of a printed email from the county clerk, the police officer informed me that he would arrest me if I persisted in violating the bubble rule. I protested that the bubble rule was bogus and was a misstatement of GAB rule 4.01. Unfortunately I did not think to have a copy of the rule on me, but knowing the bubble rule was bogus, I proceeded to take this picture.
.

At this point I was given the clear ultimatum by the village clerk: back away and abide by the bubble rule or be put under arrest. I spent about 10 to 20 seconds deciding if arrest was prudent. I had other things to observe that evening. Eventually discretion, prudence, or cowardice won and I moved off.

Later I saw this

Thinking that something worth observing might be happening I moved closer to observe. I was again threatened with arrest even though I had clearly stopped more than six feet away.

The rest of the evening was spent in the Washington County courthouse observing the tallying and aggregation of votes on the central GEMS server.

Here is a picture of an assistant clerk working on the GEMS server in the area set up for the public observation.

Yes, there is someone at the desk back there. Yes, this was what is considered to be open for public observation.

I have stated for years that only bad software is delayed by good testing. The same principle holds for elections:

Only poor procedures are hindered by vigilant observation.

History Repeats Itself, Almost

2008-09-10T14:04:00.014-05:00

Well it seems the same programming mistake from September 12, 2006 happened again last night.

The programming mistake from September 12, 2006 and again last night involved polling locations with more than one ward serviced by a single scanner. So for example, the voting for wards A, B, and C are all at the same physical polling location, Johnny’s School, and are serviced by a single optical scanner. Here is an example of ballots for some hypothetical race in the location Johnny’s School for the three wards.

Here is a breakdown of the ballots as marked by voters in wards A, B, and C.

Actual Ballots Cast
Reporting unit	Total Ballots Cast	Ballots with votes for Jefferson	Ballots with votes for Hamilton	Ballots with no vote cast for this race
Ward A	100	74	21	5
Ward B	125	69	44	12
Ward C	150	89	58	3
Johnny's School	375	232	123	20

With the programming error this is how the scanner reported on those ballots when it created its end of day tape report and what the scanner uploaded to the central UNITY server.

What the Election Commission claims the machines reported.
Reporting unit	Total Ballots Cast	Ballots with votes for Jefferson	Ballots with votes for Hamilton	Ballots with no vote cast for this race
Ward A	375	74	21	5
Ward B	375	69	44	12
Ward C	375	89	58	3
Johnny's School	375	232	123	20

But, it should be noted this is what the Milwaukee City election Commission claim is the effect of the programming error.

In September, 2006, the City Election Commission only hand counted the total number of ballots for the affected wards. If the total, aggregate number of ballots matched, they declared the problem solved.

In our example above, that would mean that if the total number of ballots for Wards A, B, and C. Once you find that total numbers of physical ballots are 100, 125, 150 for wards A, B, and C; respectively, you claim the problem affected no individual races.

The problem is this. Once you discover one statistic from the location level (Johnny’s school) has contaminated the reporting for a ward-level statistic (e.g. ballots cast in Ward A), how do you know that no other ward-level statistics has been contaminated as well?

Here is an outrageous example. Assume the machine reported the following statistics on the end of day tape report and then subsequently uploaded those statistics to the central UNITY server.

What the machine could have mistakenly reported
Reporting unit	Total Ballots Cast	Ballots with votes for Jefferson	Ballots with votes for Hamilton	Ballots with no vote cast for this race
Ward A	375	232	21	5
Ward B	375	232	44	12
Ward C	375	232	58	3
Johnny's School	375	232	123	20

If the machine reported the ward level statistics this way, the City’s test from September 2006 would not have caught this error.

That is because the number of physical ballots cast is indeed 100, 125, and 150. In 2006 the City Election Commission never checked any of the candidate-level statistics to see if the machine-reported totals matched the votes actually found on the voter-marked ballots. They assumed the only statistic in error was the total ballots cast. What justified that assumption?

Did the machines mis-report the candidate vote totals in September 12, 2006 or last night?

I don't know about September, because no one botthered to check. But, for last night, the city election commission claims that every ballot line for every race on every ballot cast in every affected precinct were counted and tallied by hand. It is reported every single hand count ballot line agreed with every ballot line on every end of day reports printed last night by the scanners in the affect locations.

This is a substantial improvement over September 2006, because now there is evidence (instead of faith) that the programming error is indeed limited to the single ward-level statitstic.

Number-less Election Records

2008-09-02T18:08:00.003-05:00

Signed Election records without numbers. Who knew such things were possible. O yeah, Wisconsinites.

But Palm Beach, Florida is looking to follow in our numberless footsteps.

From the Sun-Sentinel this Weekend:
Election officials stumped by about 3,400 missing ballots

I love the quotes from the supervisors on the Board of Election Supervisors:
Cohen said he would be "absolutely stunned and disappointed" if they were found sitting somewhere, uncounted.

Cohen said the board's job is to create a record of the recount, follow mandated steps and send up the results to Tallahassee. "Unfortunately, I don't think it's my position to make any sense out of it," he said.

County Commissioner Addie Greene, also a board member, said she didn't notice whether numbers were filled in on the report she signed.

"I really wasn't looking for them. I didn't know they were supposed to be on there," Greene said.
But, the state of Florida is equally adamant:
The state canvassing board has no authority to intervene, said Jennifer Krell Davis, a spokeswoman for the Florida Division of Elections. "The results are the results," she said.
So with 3,478 ballots unaccounted for the voters of Palm Beach County are supposed to believe that one of the candidates won by 60 ballots of between 99,045 and 102,523 ballots cast.

Washington County Voting Machines Lose Votes

2008-08-24T22:29:00.003-05:00

It turns out that the voting equipment used in Washington and Ozaukee counties has possibly been dropping votes for more than ten years.

The voting equipment used in all municipalities in Washington and Ozaukee county is the AccuVote OS optical scanner, the AccuVote TS touch screens, all tied together with the GEMS application on the county central server. This equipment is sold by Premier Election Systems (formerly known as Diebold Election Systems).

Last week, after vendor-independent testing by the state of Ohio, Premier (aka Diebold) admitted to the state that the GEMS system loses votes contained on removable memory packs as the votes on those removable memory packs are uploaded to the central GEMS server. The GEMS server is the application which prints all those nice municipal and county level summary reports.

In their own words, here is the description of the problem provided by Premier in three correspondences to Office of the Secretary of State of Ohio

The cover letter from Premier to the Office of the SoS.
The summary of the problem with the MS Access database used by GEMS.
The Product Advisory Notice (PAN) sent to Premier customers around the country

This vote-losing defect has been in the GEMS system for more than 10 years.

The GEMS system was "tested" no less than 19 times under the NASED/ITA process between 1998 and 2006. Not once did the "rigorous" testing performed by vendor-funded, NASED/ITA labs discover this problem. Here is an excellent article which ties together these two threads, significant flaws and NASED "(non)testing". [Disclaimer: I am quoted in this article].

The scariest aspect to this story is:

The Butler County, OH officials discovered this defect by accident. They were examining the data base on an unrelated matter when they discovered the record counts did not reconcile. The scary part is that upon further investigation by the State of Ohio it was discovered that least 8 other counties in Ohio had similar vote loses which went unnoticed. Only Butler County, OH officials noticed. The certified results in at least 8 other Ohio counties were incorrect and none of the election officials in those counties noticed.

The detailed time line from the Ohio Secretary of State is found here

Since, the records of past elections are gone, one must have faith that county clerks, Brenda Jaszewski and Julianne Winkelhorst have never certified results where this defect lost votes on them. The evidence from Ohio suggests, odds are 8 to 1 against this proposition. Let's hope our two counties have won this bet for every election in the last ten years.

State law, WI Stats. 5.91(10), requires all voting systems be:
"suitably designed for the purpose used, of durable construction, and is usable safely, securely, efficiently and accurately in the conduct of elections and counting of ballots."

My questions are:

How is a system, which loses votes without any notice to the municipal or county clerk, "designed to accurately conduct an election" as required by state law?
Is the GEMS application illegal to use in Wisconsin?

GAB to Limit Election Observation

2008-08-23T11:07:00.007-05:00

This Wednesday, August 27, 2008, the Government Accountability Board (successor to the State Elections Board) is proposing to limit the ability of the public to observe elections. This limitation is item G on the meeting agenda.

The draft of the proposed rules I received on August 5, 2008 is here.
My comments to the restrictions on election observers are here
The proposed rules as revised on August 18, 2008 is here. This is the version to be discussed Wednesday.
The full set of comments recieved by the GAB on this issue begin on page 51 of this large (22 megabyte) PDF file.

The current draft is better than the prior draft in that the GAB seems to realize election activities in a polling place on election day are an open meeting and thus can be reasonably recorded by citizens. Unfortunately, there are still problems.

~~The rules prohibit videotaping the equipment set-up that happens before the before polling begins.~~[This statement is incorrect. Proposed rule GAB4.01(20) would include the activity which occurs in a polling place prior to the opening of polling (e.g. equipment setup) . I deeply regret this error. jww*]
The rules prohibit videotaping any of the public activities of an election which occur in the office of the municipal or county clerk.
The rules prohibit videotaping of the Milwaukee County canvass which occurs in the office of Milwaukee County Election Director, Janice Dunn, three days after the election.
The rules prohibit videotaping the municipal canvass of vote which happens in Office of the Milwauke City Election Commission located in room 501 of City Hall.
The rules prohibit videotaping the municipal canvass of vote which happens in the office of the office of the municipal clerk.

All of the above activities clearly meet the definition of an open meeting found in WI Stats 19.82 and thus are available to be video taped under WI Stats. 19.90

On the other hand the addition of proposed rule GAB4,01(14) is an excellent addition to the August 18, 2008 draft from August 5, 2008 draft. This proposed rule reads:

Observers shall not be permitted to handle an original version of any official election document

It always bothered me that the NPR reporter, a candidate, and I were allowed to touch the election materials as documented in this YouTube video

Under Wisconsin statutes the chief election inspector is held to full account for the election administration within a polling location. It is right and proper that the chief election inspector have the authority to exercise the necessary power to control that administration. Having the public pawing through the election records on election day leaves the chief election inspector with responsibility and accountability without the power and control to meet those responsibilities.

These rules are a step in the right direction.

One of the primary duties of the Elections Division of the Government Accountability Board is to give clear direction to state election officials on how to conduct elections in a lawful manor. These rules give clear and uniform directions. This is good. The clear and uniform directions to violate the open meetings law are not.

* I dislike the memory hole effect on the internet where embarassing information in the contents of a URL "disappear". My solution is to highlight such revisions in green. Again I appologize for confusing GAB4.01(19) of the 8/5/2008 draft with the GAB 4.01(20) of the current, 8/18/2008 draft of the regulations.

There is more to this story

2008-08-04T22:18:00.020-05:00

When I first heard that the prime suspect in the Anthrax mailings was dead, my first thought is: "Pretty convenient. The dead guy did it. Our most embarrassing case is now closed."

The Washington Post article from Friday, August 1, 2008 raises more questions than it answers. Here is the official time line from the FBI.

Bruce E. Ivins begins working at Fort Detrick biological weapons lab in 1972 as a vaccination specialist.
Bruce E. Ivins passes all psychological screenings required for Fort Detrick personnel 1972-present.
October of 2001, a letter containing weaponized spores of Bacillus anthracis, the bacterium that causes the deadly disease anthrax, was opened in Daschle's office at the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington, DC.
In December 2001, Dr. Ives is part of the team that identifies the strain of weaponized Anthrax contained in the letters to Senators Daschle and others had originated at Fort Detrick, MD
In January, 2002 Ives suspects the weaponized anthrax from Fort Detrick which was used the anthrax mailing attacks has been mis-handled and spores have escaped into the larger environment of Fort Detrick. From the Washington Post article:
June 22, 2002, the home of Dr. Steven Hatfill is searched.
In March 2003, Army scientist Bruce E. Ivins accepted the Defense Department's highest honor for civilian performance for helping to resurrect a controversial vaccine that could protect against the deadly bacteria.
On August 26, 2003 Steven Hatfill files suit against the FBI, DOJ, and John Ashcroft
On March 7, 2008, the US courts order, Toni Locy the USA Today reporter to name names at the FBI and DOJ in the matter of Hatfill v Attorney General Michael Mukasey or personally pay $5,000 per day.
In June 27, 2008 the DOJ settles for millions in order to make Steven Hatfill go away.
Date unknown, a grand jury is convened on the matter of the anthrax mailing attacks and that grand jury issues subpoena to Jean C. Duley
July 24, 2008, Dr. Ivins therapist, Jean C. Duley, asked a Frederick judge for a protective order against Dr, Ivins, saying he had repeatedly threatened her. In the request for a protective order, Ms. Duley asserts:
In an nearly unprecedented move the FBI and DOJ have shared details of the sealed grand jury proceeding with Duley.
August 1, 2008, Dr. Bruce Ivins is dead of an overdose of Codeine and Tylenol.

So, if I have the FBI story straight, the official story is:

A specialist in the detection of anthrax and the vaccination against anthrax, but with no actual access to weaponized anthrax, poisoned 5 people and injured 17 others with weaponized anthrax pilfered from his employer so he could get his moribund anthrax vaccine program going again.
In the meantime, the FBI wastes 7 years investigating Steven Hatfill (the wrong guy).
While the wrong guy (Hatfill) is being vilified in the press and investigated, the right guy (Dr. Ivins) has been studying where the weaponized anthrax used in the mailings is found within the Fort Detrick facility.
The right guy (Dr. Ivins) reports those locations and findings to his superiors.
JUST as the wrong guy (Dr. Hatfill) gets the proper squeeze on a key witness, the FBI and DOJ settle with Hatfill for just under 6 million.
Five weeks later the right guy (Dr. Ivins) is dead with no autopsy report by an overdose of a prescription-only painkiller, Tylenol-3. (BTW, which doctor wrote that script?)
FBI declares Amerithrax case official closed.

I don't know what it is, but, there is much more to this story than the official fable presented above.

Ruling of the Village Board of Review

2008-07-25T08:59:00.005-05:00

As I expected the ruling today from the Board of Review for the Village of Germantown is to dismiss my objection to the assessment.

I believe my testimony was a spirited defense of the constitution and a fair recitation of the precedent that even inspections need to conform to the 4th Amendment and to Article 1 Section 11.

The attorney for the Village stated the function and jurisdiction of the Review Board is to correct mistakes made by the Assessor and that to do a warrantless search of my property is a mistake "in cosmic sort of way" by the Assessor, but, the review board does not have jurisdiction. I was advised by the village attorney to take up my case with the Wisconsin Department of Revenue and/or the Wisconsin Courts.

The Board followed the reasoning of the village attorney and declined to grant the remedies within their power which I sought.

The Board of Review moved and then voted unanimously to close the matter of my objection because the correcting the constituional, statutory, or cosmis mistakes of the village assessor is outside the jurisdiction of the Village Board of Review.

The matter is now closed.

Praise for Russ Feingold.

2008-07-23T06:41:00.002-05:00

In my zeal to connect the historical dots, my article on the abominable FISA Renewal forgot to mention that on this topic Wisconsin can be proud of its junior Senator, Russ Feingold.

On the immorality of warrantless searches, the immorality of secret evidence presented in star chambers, and the immorality of ex post facto immunity, there has been no greater, vocal, or articulate critic of this destruction of the rule of law than Senator Russ Feingold.

I often don't agree with the policies of Senator Feingold. That all the more reason to praise him when he gets it right and more importantly gets it right for the correct reasons.

I am deeply sorry I have not given Feingold the praise he deserves on this topic and I am greatful my friend Paul for reminding of my lapse.

On the FISA renewal and its unwinding of our lawful Republic into an lawless empire, Russ Feingold got it right, got it right for the correct reasons, and, most important, fought against this abomination to the American character with all of his effort.

Thank you Senator Feingold. On the matter of FISA, you have made this Wisconsinite proud to call you my Senator.

Yes, Virginia, A Search Warrant Is Required.

2008-07-19T12:55:00.003-05:00

Back in January, 2008, I raised the question on Boots and Sabers: Do building inspectors need search warrants.

I discovered late last week that the Village of Germantown did a warrantless search of my property back in August of 2007. The Village used the ruse of an inspection as the color of law under which the warrantless search was done. The Village agent claims to have not entered my house or out-buildings, but just walked about on the premises as if he owned it. When I asked him to see a copy of the search warrant he obtained prior to entering my property, his answer was, "I don't need a search warrant". Once the subject of warrants came up, his memory of exact dates and times became fuzzy.

Now that the question is not philosophical, but practical, I did some research. It turns out the Village did need a type of non-criminal search warrant called a Special Inspection Warrant. The requirements for a when a Special Inspection Warrant is needed and how to obtain one is found in Wis Stats. 66.0119.

As an aside, since Wis Stats. 66.0119 defines inspectors of any type as "peace officers" does that mean inspectors of any type can carried concealed weapons under 941.23?

So, yesterday, Friday, July 18, 2008, I did what little I could to put the Village on notice that in my little corner of the Village I believe the state constitution is the supreme law of the land and is the authority under which the Village derives its just powers. I did so by delivering a Notice of Denial of Permission to Inspect to the 4 departments most likely to hold the attitude: "We are inspectors. We don't need Warrants.". These are the Village Inspections (Chief and assistant inspector), Village DPW, Village Treasurer (both Treasure and the apprasier), and the Village Clerk (as the Village record keeper).

I am not naive enough to believe that Federal, State, or Local governments are going to let Rights, Constitutions, or statutes interfere with something as vital as confiscating money from the serfs and calling it tax revenue. But, I do believe the point of the fourth amendment to the US Constitution and Article I, Section 11 of the Wisconsin State Constitution is not about hiding things, but is all about making tyranny inconvienient for tyrants, be they tyrants of the Federal, State, or local strain.

But, if the Constitution is not to be practiced at home, then it is dead and so is the Republic for which it stood.

FISA Renewal: Hamilton and the Federalist are Proven Wrong yet again

2008-07-11T03:52:00.004-05:00

In 1787, Alexander Hamilton got his wish. For seven years he harangued people claiming the government of the United States was too weak. The US government under our first constitution was too weak even though it was powerful enough to defeat the world's greatest power of the time (Great Britain). In May 1787, Hamilton got his wish. A constitutional convention was called to make minor amendments to the then current constitution, The Articles of Confederation. Once convened, Hamilton unveiled his true intentions. He proposed a President elected for life, who in turn would appoint state governors. The governors would have un-reviewable veto power over any state legislation (i.e. no voting to override gubernatorial vetoes). Hamilton’s plan was for "an energetic Executive" in order to make the United States a "great" nation like Britain instead of a country like Switzerland which had no influence on European affairs. His plan was dismissed with the first hour. If you would like to read more on Hamilton's plans for a "Great America" see the books at the end of this article.

The minor amendment proposed by Hamilton's Convention was an amendment by substitution. That substitution was our second and current Constitution (without a bill of rights).

The resulting debate on abandoning a successful government organized as a Swiss/Iroquois confederacy or adopting a nationalized, central government was spirited, vigorous, wide ranging, and many times bitterly personal.

For those interested in this point counter point exchange of pamphlets, editorials, letters, and ratification debates, there is no better source than The Debate on the Constitution.

When I first read this book, I was struck by three things:

These men were prescient. With two hundred years on my side, I was able to judge the merits of the arguments offered and the fears articulated.

The opponents of the new Constitution (the anti-federalists) were almost always right

The proponents of the new Constitution (the Federalists Jay, Madison, and Hamilton) were almost always wrong

Every dire consequence predicted by the opponents of the Constitution has come to pass.
These predictions include:

civil war as one faction uses the new, central government to dominate other factions,
that the "General Welfare" and the "Proper and Necessary" clauses would be used as justification for unlimited legislative action,
That taxes on liquor and hard cider would lead to insurrection, and
that the Supreme Court will remake the government into any shape the court dictates because the power of this court is in many cases superior to that of the legislature.

Every rationale offered by the Hamilton and his comrades as to why these dire consequences were phantoms of over heated imaginations has been rebuked by actual history.

With the passage of the FISA renewal yesterday, the constitutional opponent, Centinel, has been proved correct.

On October 5, 1787, in Anti-Federalist paper 47, CENTINEL of Philadelphia, predicted: And from his [the President's] power of granting pardons, he might skreen [sic] from punishment the most treasonable attempts on liberties of the people. This argument was gaining enough traction (and derailing ratification), that Hamilton penned Federalist No. 74 in March 25, 1788 to specifically counter the arguments advanced by Centinel.

The warrantless wiretapping program begun by Bill Clinton in 1995 and completed by George Bush in February 2001 is laid out in this time line. Bill Clinton's program to have the telecoms perform wireless wiretaps was a continuation of his 1993 Clipper Chip program designed to make all private telephone conversations illegal within the US. It is clear that when the Clipper Chip initiative failed, Bill Clinton proceeded to plan B; Warrantless wiretapping via telecommunication companies.

The most effective propaganda on this subject is the LIE that the warrantless wiretapping program begun by President Clinton in the 90's and completed by President Bush in February 2001 is a post-September 11, 2001 anti-terrorism program. God, we are gullible.

Since December, 1999, the Telecoms were assured by the NSA and the White House that they would be "taken care of" and "protected" should the program be discovered. Exactly as Centinel predicted two hundred years ago, the President and the Senate have colluded to use pardoning powers in order to skreen from punishment the most treasonable attempts on liberties of the people

Not all Telecoms though participated in this treasonable attempt on liberties of the people. In February 2001, one Telecomm company, Qwest, refused and demanded the US Government produce one of those pesky warrant things. Given the Government reaction, Qwest may have even been so bold as to demand the warrant actually be signed and in an act of utter imputence may have further demanded the warrant be signed by an actual Judge. We are told that Qwest's inability to get government contracts for the next two years was unconnected to their refusal to participate. The official story is that the prosecution of Qwest CEO, Joseph Nacchio, for securities fraud (begun on or before March 2003 and was brought to court in March 2006) was unconnected to Qwest's refusal to participate in a treasonable attempt on liberties of the people. The official stories here may even be true, but we will never know. The fact remains that Nacchio was denied the opportunity present this evidence to a jury during his trial. The discussion of the 2001 NSA upgrade contract and its financial impact on the company was central to his defense.

The opponents of the second and current Constitution (the Anti-Federalist) are proven correct yet again and Hamilton and the Federalist are proven wrong yet again. Exactly as Centinel predicted two hundred years ago, the President and the Congress have and will collude to use pardoning powers in order to entice to action and then to screen from punishment private agents willing to execute their treasonable attempts on liberties of the people.

Thomas Jefferson, Sam Adams, Patrick Henry, Centinel, Brutus, An Old Whig, A Federal Farmer, and the other other opponents of our second and current constitution held the view that Government Power and Individual Liberty were a zero-sum game. To the extent one waxes, the other wanes. With the star chambers of FISA and with the introduction of retroactive immunity, Government Power waxes hard and we, the gullible, modernist sheep, reject the the deep wisdom of our forefathers to think that Individual Liberty has not waned

Long Live Hamilton's ~~Empire~~Republic.

Book's on Hamilton:
Hamilton's Republic
Hamilton and the Constitution
Hamilton's Curse

Voting System Standards: All Form and No Substance

2008-06-12T11:10:00.007-05:00

I have been a long time critic of the 2002 Voting System Standards (2002 VSS) and of the 2005 Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (2005 VVSG). In fact, both sets of standards are virtually worthless. There are two reasons for this. First, the requirements enumerated in the standards are, in and of themselves, much too weak for something as vital as administering an election. Second, both sets of standards have an explicit loophole that allows almost all the requirements — weak as they are — to be ignored. This second objection was first brought to my attention two years ago by Howard Stanislevic.

We now have proof that this loophole is used by the labs in order to “pass” systems that don’t meet the standards. In the most recent certification test report submitted to the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), SysTest labs (one of the labs accredited by the EAC and the NIST) recommended certification for a voting system. SysTest recommended the system certification even though their findings showed 79 specific failures to meet the standards.

As you read this article, keep in mind that the standards actually allow 77 of these 79 failures to be ignored!

Last February, SysTest labs wrote its certification test report for a new voting system manufactured by Premier Election Solutions (formerly Diebold). The report listed the 79 problems the lab found during testing. Even so, SysTest recommended the system be certified by the EAC. Section 6 from the test report reads:

SysTest Labs has successfully completed the testing of Premier’s Assure 1.2 voting system. It has been determined that Assure 1.2 successfully met the required criteria of the Federal Election Commission Voting System Standards April 2002.

Based on testing scope and results, as detailed in this report, it is SysTest Labs’ recommendation that the EAC committee grant certification of Premier’s Assure 1.2 voting system.

I sent a letter to the EAC objecting to this recommendation for certification — not because of the 77 “acceptable” failures, but because of the two failures that require denial of certification.

The test report reads like the problem log maintained by VotersUnite! and contains the following 79 “findings”:

Functional, Accufeed will not feed ballots (Finding #1 page 38)
Doc, Batch Start card is not rejected (Finding #2 page 38)
Functional, Batteries are not functioning (Finding #1 on page 39)
Functional, BallotStation is not accepting voter access cards (Finding #5 on page 45)
Functional, TSX looping with use of AVPM ll (Finding #6 on page 45)
Doc, Housing door does not fit over the canister (Finding #7 on page 45)
Doc, Provisional votes flow from the BallotStations up to GEMS is not clear (first Finding #4 on page 45)
Doc, User's Guide does not list the limitations of the VCE (Finding #8 on page 45)
Doc, VCE does NOT save loaded data unless POSITION 1 is loaded (Finding #9 on page 45)
Doc, Statement in #1 is incorrect and may need to be removed (Finding #10 on page 45 – note, this item references the following one)
Doc, Section 3.1 references out of date (first Finding #1 on page 45)
Functional, The AVPM I and II print modules are not operating (first Finding #2 on page 45)
Functional, Ballot Station freezes (second Finding #1 on page 45)
Doc, Doc does not provide information on Recall/Retain type C (second Finding #2 on page 45)
Doc, Installing and Removing the OSAA (Finding #3 on page 45 – note, this finding and other below are not explained)
Functional, Build failed, “failed to verify file” (second Finding #4 on page 45)
Doc, Section 8.3: Adding and Editing an Audio file (first Finding #2 on page 52 - unexplained)
Doc, Section 14.4: Exporting Required Translations (first Finding #3 on page 52 - unexplained)
Doc, Section 5.3: Importing Election Data into AIMS (Finding #4 on page 52 - unexplained)
Doc, Section 15.1: Importing Text Translations (Finding #5 on page 52 - unexplained)
Doc, Section 4.1: Getting Started (Finding #6 on page 52 - unexplained)
Doc, Section 4.2: Logging On (Finding #7 on page 52 - unexplained)
Info, Section 5.1: Setting Up a New Election in AIMS (Finding #8 on page 52 - unexplained)
Info, Section 5.1: Setting Up a New Election in AIMS (Finding #9 on page 52 - unexplained)
Doc, Section 5.1: Setting Up a New Election in AIMS (Finding #10 on page 52 - unexplained)
Doc, Section 5.3.1: Importing Diebold GEMS Data (Finding #11 on page 52 - unexplained)
Doc, Section 12.8: Languages (Finding #12 on page 52 - unexplained)
Doc, Section 12.8: Languages (Finding #13 on page 52 - unexplained)
Doc, Section 6.1: Removing the Ink Cartridge (Finding #1 on page 52 - unexplained)
Doc, Section 6.5.3: Setting the Admin Password (second Finding #2 on page 52 - unexplained)
Doc, Section 6.5.1: Printing the Operation Log (second Finding #3 on page 52 - unexplained)
Doc, Section 1.5: Assisting the Voter who uses an AT Device (first Finding #4 on page 53)
Functional, Audio script does not match text script (Finding #5 on page 53)
Functional, Ballot title not voiced on 2nd race screen (Finding #6 on page 53)
Doc, Section 1.3: Using the AutoMARK VAT with an AT Device (Finding #7 on page 53 - unexplained)
Doc, instructions/procedures are not provided (first Finding #8 on page 53)
Doc, Flash Memory Card the Pin # is not provided in the doc (first Finding #9 on page 53)
Doc, Japanese text for 'Write-in' different than what was input (first Finding #10 on page 53)
Functional, Both Chinese languages have the same text on select button (first Finding #11 on page 53)
Functional, Voting Instructions are not translated (Finding #3 on page 53)
Functional, Audio is not provided when voting with a UAID device (Not Supported) (second Finding #4 on page 53)
Doc, Issues with foreign fonts (second Finding #8 on page 53)
Doc, Section 4 - The listed fonts do not cover all Vietnamese characters (second Finding #9 on page 53)
Functional, Cannot select the Contrast or Large Text buttons with the Keypad on the R6 (second Finding #10 on page 53)
Functional, No visual cue for every error-type audio cue (second Finding #11 on page 53)
Doc, Section 12.1.3 of Appendix D is incorrect (Finding #12 on page 53)
Functional, 6 and the 4 keys on the keypad do not function as described (Finding #13 on page 53)
Informational, dB levels of 113-115 were consistently measured. (Finding #14 on page 53)
Functional, A tenth language is not selectable via the keypad device (Finding #15 on page 53)
Functional, Report was not found to exist (Finding #2 on page 53)
Functional, Error message when attempting to connect to Assure Security Service Host (first Finding #1 on page 59)
Doc, Missing information in the documentation on how to create the MDB file (second Finding #1 on page 59)
Functional, OSX unit allowed a blank ballot w/no message (third Finding #1 on page 59)
Doc, Document does not contain enough info to resolve the errors (first Finding #2 on page 59)
Functional, OSX unit failed when attempting to download via modem (first Finding #3 on page 59)
Functional, Central Scan application failed to open the system audit log (fourth Finding #1 on page 59)
Functional, Error can't connect to the security service host (second Finding #2 on page 59)
Doc, (discrepancy is not valid) (second Finding #3 on page 59)
Functional, users and roles that were assigned in the Access Control window are lost (first Finding #4 on page 59)
Functional, documentation does not specify how the user is notified when the Vote Center is finished loading (Finding #5 on page 59)
Functional, Users and Rolls lost that were assigned in the Access Control window (Finding #6 on page 59)
Functional, Messages block user from being able to run PCS (Finding #7 on page 59)
Doc, Unable to use “Next card” and “Previous card” buttons (Finding #8 on page 59)
Functional, Message – “workspace could not be opened” (Finding #9 on page 59)
Doc, VCE requires a commercial off the shelf (COTS), (fifth Finding #1 on page 59)
Doc, Voter Card Encoder does not have an ENTER button (third Finding #2 on page 59)
Doc, Acceptance Test do not match the steps for encoding a voter access card (third Finding #3 on page 59)
Doc, Prompts stated in the user’s guide match do not match VCE (third Finding #4 on page 59)
Doc, User’s guide does not explain what a master voter access card is (Finding #5 on page 60)
Doc, User’s guide does not provide clear and detailed steps on how to overwrite a ballot key (Finding #6 on page 60)
Doc, No explanation of how to create a master voter access card (Finding #7 on page 60)
Functional, GEMSVoterCardData.txt file disappears (Finding #1 on page 64)
Doc, GEMS documentation does not specify how to setup a Blanket Open Primary (Finding #3 on page 69)
Functional, Exception error was encountered (Finding #4 on page 69)
Functional, 2.0.1 users guide is shown. The installed software is the 2.0.4 (Finding #6 on page 74)
Doc, Automark System Installation and Maintenance Guide procedures not adequate (Finding #1 on page 82)
Doc, AutoMARK 3010 Poll Worker's Guide, no indication for message "Alert! (Finding #3 on page 82)
HW, Unit inoperable; caused loss of data from the operations log (Finding #2 on page 82)
Info, Changes in the total printed count in the operations log on the ATS VAT can be caused by abnormal shutdown (Finding #4 on page 82)

Except for the last two findings on this list, there is nothing that would prevent ANY NIST-accredited test lab from recommending this system for certification by the EAC. None of the 2002 VSS requirements violated by the first 77 findings are enforceable requirements!

Some definitions are in order.

A requirement is a declarative statement of the form "The system shall..." or a declarative statement of the form "The system shall not..." . Two example requirements from the 2002 VSS are:
- From section 2.2.2.1a of Volume I of the 2002 VSS: To ensure vote accuracy, all systems shall record the election contests, candidates, and issues exactly as defined by election officials;.
- From paragraph 5.7.2d of Volume I of the 2002 VSS: the telecommunications components of a voting system shall notify the user of the successful or unsuccessful completion of the data transmission.
An enforceable requiremen t is a requirement such that if the requirement is not met, then the system cannot be certified.

There are almost no enforceable requirements in either the 2002 VSS or the 2005 VVSG. This is because both standards have a conformance exception clause (loophole) which covers nearly every requirement listed in either standard. The exemption paragraph is found in section B.5 of Appendix B of Volume II of the 2002 VSS and the 2005 VVSG . From the 2002 VSS, paragraph B.5 reads [emphasis mine]:

Of note, any uncorrected deficiency that does not involve the loss or corruption of voting data shall not necessarily be cause for rejection. Deficiencies of this type may include failure to fully achieve the levels of performance specified in Volume I, Sections 3 and 4 of the Standards, or failure to fully implement formal programs for qualify [sic] assurance and configuration management described in Volume I, Sections 7 and 8. The nature of the deficiency is described in detail sufficient to support the recommendation either to accept or to reject the system, and the recommendation is based on consideration of the probable effect the deficiency will have on safe and efficient system operation during all phases of election use.

The first 77 of the 79 uncorrected deficiencies listed above fit within the conformance exemption (loophole) defined in both sets of standards. Some of these 77 violations are also violations of federal law, and yet they are allowed by the standards. For example:

Findings 33-49 (in my list above) demonstrate that the system under test fails to conform to the accessibility requirements for blind voters and the accessibility requirement for some foreign language voters. This means the system violates Section 301(a)(3) of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA). See page 3 of the EAC advisory on compliance with this section of HAVA.
Non-conformance 72 involves the destruction of an election record. The destruction of an election record used in a federal election prior to 22 months after that election is a felony under Title 42, Chapter 20, Subchapter II, § 1974.

But, since none of these specific 18 non-conformances nor 59 of the remaining 61 non-conformances involve vote loss or corruption of voting data, none of them prevents the lab from recommending certification.

The last two finding involve the corruption or loss of voting data. So, even with the loophole of paragraph B.5, the system cannot be recommended for certification. SysTest erred when it recommended the system for certification, but only because the voting system was so broken that even the B.5 loophole would not allow the system to be recommended for certification.

SysTest’s report demonstrates that with the broad nature of the loophole found in paragraph B.5, there is almost no failure that would prevent a system from being certified by the EAC, or that would have prevented qualification under the previous NASED/ITA program . So, it should come as no surprise to anyone that we read about failure after failure, in election after election, by voting systems “certified” by the NASED Voting Systems Board .

The 2002 VSS and 2005 VVSG are made toothless because of the conformance exemption found in paragraph B.5. But, as broad and eviscerating as the loophole is, it is not a blanket exemption.

The report I examined was written by SysTest about a Premier/Diebold system. But, the problems with the 2002 VSS and 2005 VVSG apply to systems from all vendors, not just Premier/Diebold, and they apply to all of the NIST-accredited test labs, not just SysTest. SysTest found 79 non-conformances to the 2002 VSS, 18 of which also violate federal law. But, because of the loophole paragraph, the system as tested, but containing only the first 77 of the 79 non-conformances, is certifiable.

The problem with the whole national certification program of the EAC is that the program is built on standards that are standards in form only, without substance. Nearly every voting system currently in the field and used in elections since November 2006 was "certified" to the 2002 VSS under the previous NASED/ITA system. Nearly every voting system to be sold to counties and municipalities until 2012 (and perhaps beyond) will be "certified" to the 2005 VVSG.

The labs are quick to state that they do not certify equipment. The EAC is quick to point out that the testing is done by the labs and not by the EAC. For years the voting equipment vendors have claimed that the 2002 VSS and 2005 VVSG are "comprehensive and rigorous". This real world application of the 2002 VSS to an actual voting system by a NIST-accredited laboratory should demonstrate how toothless and ineffective the 2002 VSS and 2005 VVSG are.

As hard as this is to believe, the EAC certification program is a substantial improvement over the qualification program administered by NASED. With EAC certification, it is possible to find out the known deficiencies that are present in the system used to administer your election. How many known deficiencies are lurking within the equipment certified by NASED and currently used in an election near you? You are not allowed to know! Neither are your local election officials.

Certification test reports, listing the deficiencies of the systems certified by NASED, will never be published. This is because the reports are considered trade secrets by the vendors. The reports are also considered trade secrets by the ITA testing labs that tested the systems. Most importantly, the reports are also considered trade secrets by the chairman and every member of the NASED Voting Systems Board.

This means that systems with known deficiencies certified by NASED were sold to unsuspecting counties and municipalities. With the old NASED/ITA program, these local election officials were left in the dark and never had the opportunity to learn of known deficiencies before they used the voting systems in elections. Instead, they get to learn of the deficiencies as the systems fail during the administration of real elections in the real world.

At least, under the EAC certification system, local election officials have a chance to learn how their voting systems will fail before they use the voting system to administer a real election. This is how the certification process has “improved” under the EAC.

Is this sufficient improvement? Certainly not. Listing the known deficiencies in obscure, technical reports on a government website has some small benefit. Better still, don’t certify systems that violate the standards. Under the standards though, the NIST-accredited labs can recommend certification and the EAC can certify systems which violate most of the requirements of the standards. In my opinion the EAC should not certify such systems nor should the NIST-accredited labs make such a recommendation. But, the standards as written and enforced almost never prohibit certification of a voting system.

The central problem is that both standards (the 2002 VSS and the 2005 VVSG) allow lax and probably uneven enforcement of nearly all of the system requirements listed in the standards. This is because the loophole created by paragraph B.5 is nearly without limitation, moreover, paragraph B.5 provides no meaningful guidelines on when to enforce and when not to enforce a system requirement found in the standard. It is possible the same problem may be found in two different systems and one system is certified and the other is not.

Until this core loophole in paragraph B.5 is closed:

The standards do not prohibit the NIST-accredited labs from recommending the certification of a system that violates virtually any combination of requirements listed in the standards.
The standards do not prohibit the EAC from certifying a system that violates virtually any combination of requirements listed in the standards.

As long as a voting system does not lose or corrupt vote totals, the voting system can violate any or all other requirements listed in the standards and still be certifiable.

This is why the “standards” (2002 VSS and 2005 VVSG) used to test and certify voting systems are all form and no substance and will be without substance for the next several years.

Monday music

2008-03-03T06:29:00.002-06:00

I thought I would try my hand at Monday Music.

I hope you enjoy this bit of the World Wide Message Tribe.

96% is closer than 87%, But not 100%

2008-02-13T23:02:00.004-06:00

Washington State GOP Chairman, Luke Esser, has now stopped counting at 96% of the vote. this is better than 87%, but is not actually 100%.

The details are in this SeattlePI article. Here is Chairman Essers statement on this matter. Translation to me is volunteers get to count slowly and intermittently.

As near as I can tell, there are 12,970 delegates. From the numbers on the GOP website you have the following numbers.

Name	Delegates	Percentage	Difference
McCain	3,191	24.60%
Huckabee	2,898	22.34%	293
Paul	2,665	20.55%	526
Romney	1,905	14.69%	1,286
Other	136	1.05%	3,055
Uncommitted	1,656	12.77%	1,535
Uncounted	519	4.00%	2,672
Total	12,970	100.00%

Assuming the counting errors are evenly and randomly distributed (unlikely in this situation) Huckabee need to get 60% of the uncounted 519 delegates to take the lead.

I stand by my earlier assessment that Huckabee is being jobbed here.

The Washington caucuses have lesson for us here in Wisconsin. First, a spread of 25%, 22%, and 21% for first, second, and third are not the results of a race with a front runner. Two, John McCain can be stopped.

Just don't vote for him and let the convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul decide who is the nominee. Uncommitted delagate is an option This coming Tuesday.

By waiting until the convention, McCain will either prove he is sincere or pull a McCain and piss off the GOP base. For either outcome postponement the prudent course of action is to wait until September.

An Election or Annointment?

2008-02-11T14:34:00.000-06:00

I will be honest I am not a big fan of Mike Huckabee, but he is being jobbed in Washington by the state party chair Luke Esser.

The details in the Seattle Times are here.

Here is the gist of the article. There were about 14,400 delegates casting ballots. Chairman Esser stopped the counting after 13,000 just as Senator John McCain for the first time in tallying took the lead with 242 votes. Esser declared the count (of 87%) is "as close to 100%" as we can get.

Huckabee is correct to be hopping made. 99.9% is close to 100%. 87% is not.

Chairman Esser has learned well from "Boss" Tweed of NYC Tammany Hall fame that there is "power, power, wonder-working power in the counting of the vote".

Hopefully, now that Chairman Esser has been shamed into having an election instead of an anointment, the promised final numbers will be available by 5 pm today (Monday, February 11, 2008).

Tabletop Trebuchet

2008-02-02T21:58:00.000-06:00

Not everything in my life is election records, reviving the Republican party, or messing with Texas.

One of the more pleasant aspects of my life is being an assistant scout master of a local boy scout troop. Recently, our troop hosted a clinic for WeBeLoS to earn their engineering activity pin. For the catapult requirement, the boys built a table top version of a trebuchet. Replacing the sling with a bucket was a simplicifation in order for 18 boys to complete the construction within 2 hours.

I thought others might enjoy pictures of the final product. The dimesions are 15.5 inches in length, 13.5 inches high, 13 inches wide, and the swing arm is 20 inches. The boys then hurled stale marshmallows all about the room.

Click on the picture see the whole Flickr set.

Trouble When Even Merle is Agin' You

2008-01-29T21:04:00.000-06:00

Republicnas, we are in trouble when even Merle Haggard is again' ya.

His newest video and song is classic Merle Haggard beuatiful, simple, and direct.

Again, this is trouble if the Republicans can't keep a patriot like Haggard in line with with the classic "America. Love it or Leave it." line.

Complaint kicked upstairs to the AG

2008-01-28T04:19:00.000-06:00

On December 28, 2007, I re-filed my 5.08 complaint against Washington County Clerk, Brenda Jaszewski, with the Wisconsin State Attorney General.

The haeart of this dispute is the failure to create backups of the data found on the memory cards used in various pieces of election equipment within the county

As of last week the official word is that the matter is "under review". The AG has 45 business days (March 6, 2008) in which to make a decision on the merits of the complaint.

Waiting to see what J.B. Van Hollen will do or not do.

Self-Incrimination in the US

2008-01-28T02:10:00.000-06:00

h/t to Declan at PoliTech

In a previous post, Self Incrimination in the UK, I spoke of the how an untested part of the fifth amendment is how the protection against self incrimination extended to encryption keys.

Well the fifth amendment issue of compelling a person to utter his encryption key is settled. In Vermont at least, your PGP encryption key is testimony if you are required to type it or utter it in order for the police to obtain access to the files it protects. Here is an article on the case. The defendant is unattractive because he is accused of trafficking in child porn. The charge is based on what the customs agents saw on a laptop drive that they can no longer access.

The current status of the case seems to be two pronged. On prong is an attempt to brute the PGP key. The second is to develop the case without the Z: drive. The brute force effort will fail. PGP is modest when it calls itself Pretty Good Privacy. It is Very Good Privacy. So when the case stalls without the contents of the Z: drive, the denial of the subpoena by Judge Niedermeier will be appealed. The government will try to subpoena Sebastien Boucher to provide "any passwords" used with his Alienware laptop. At that point this case will go to the Supreme Court.

Here is the ruling by Judge Niedermeier, a discussion of the ruling, and a 12 year old law article that is looking very prescient now.

I light of this, here are my three suggestions.

One
Use PasswordSafe. It is an excellent product. You remember one long pass phrase (notice I did not say pass word). I would recommend a pass phrase of at least three words. Longer is better; e.g. my pass phrase is about 31 characters long. Memorable is important though. The passphrase is used to temporarily decrypt a small data file which has your user names, passwords and URL's organized in a simple tree view. If you want (and I recommend you do), you can let the password safe generate strong passwords for you (e.g. eight characters of mixed case and digits). It will remember the tough password and, for short periods of time, the password safe will transfer the strong passwords to the clipboard so you can paste in the password. If the program is inactive for about 5 minutes, the unencrypted version of the file is purge from memory, virtual memory, and the clipboard. You will need to re-enter the pass phrase to transfer a password to the clipboard.

Two
Never write the pass phrase down on paper. As long as the passphrase is in your mind alone, it is testimony. The paper though is evidence which can be seized.

Three
Don't traffic in child porn. What is the attraction here? And no I do not want to understand. This was a rhetorical question.

But, even law abiding citizens need and deserve privacy so recommendations one and two still apply.

Texas Emails Posted

2008-01-24T02:34:00.002-06:00

The first batch of files recieved from the Office of the Governor of Texas in response to November 6, 2007 Public Information Act Request are now posted on Box.net in the TXGovEmails-20071106PIR folder.

I am sure Watchdog will find most of it drivel and dross, but others can now look for themselves and see if there is any "paydirt" in this chaotic, mash-up of data.

The files are posts as recieved no alterations have been made. The files were delivered on a single CD-ROM and all with in a single directory of that CD-ROM.

Texas EMails are in

2008-01-23T13:09:00.001-06:00

Yesterday I recieved the first CD-ROM of the emails of the Governors Office responsive to my November 6, 2007 PIR, which have not been appealed to the Texas Attorney General for exemption.

This certified letter like all the others from the Office of the Governor arrived inspite of the fact that the envelopes do not contain a street address. I would like to personally thank my local postmaster and postal carrier

There were 1993 files occupying 233 MB. My first question is where are the other 3,000 to 6,000 emails the $568 dolars was supposedly paying for? The Governor's office estimated the emails for Friday November 2, 2007 to Monday, November 5, 2007 numbered between 5,000 and 8,000. Either the estimating process faulty or the Governor's office sent 3-6 thousand emails to the Office of the Attorney General for review as per this letter.

I am currently sorting through the files to see if they are responsive and, if not, why not.

My inital impression is that the set is not very responsive because email attachments were stripped even though attachments were part of the PIR. Also this was considered an email and responsive. Yes, you saw correctly. A screen shot of various .MSG icons was considered the same as providing the emails contained in those .MSG files.

The most charitable description I can give is that these files (most are PDF versions of email text cut and pasted into an MS Word doc) is that the organization is chaotic.

Working on the inventory at this time.

Election Records Reprieve

2008-01-23T12:51:00.001-06:00

The City of Milwaukee Election Commission met yesterday. Two related items of the agenda were of interest to me. One item was the status of the final report of the Joint Task Force investigation allegations of election fraud during the November 2, 2004 election. The second was the destruction of the extant, original election records from the November 2, 2004 election.

On the first matter (the final report from the Joint Task Force), the Executive Director, Susan Edman, reported to the commissioners that her contact in the Milwaukee Police Department believes the publication of the final report to be imminent. The detective related to Ms. Edman that his understanding is that completed reported is at the District Attorney's office and is awaiting sign off from the US Attorney, Steven Biskupic, and DA Chisholm. After that the FBI will also review the report prior to publication.

I personally have heard the report will be published "any day now" since December 2006. I will curb my enthusiasm regarding this agenda item, until the final report is actually published. But, is nice to know at least someone other than be would be interested in knowing what Biskupic, McCann, the MPD, and the FBI discovered.

On the second matter, I hd written previously to Ms. Edman and Commissioner Spindell that it would be good public policy to not destroy the original records which are the subject of the Joint Task Force report until after the report is published. Commissioner Spindell agreed and had this question added to the meeting agenda. At the meeting he argued for the retention of the original records and ballots. With the friendly amendment, from Chairman Campos, the commissioners unanimously agreed to retain the election records and original ballots of the November 2, 2004 election for a minimum of six months following the publication of the final report of the Joint Task Force.

Who Sounds Like Ronald Reagan?

2008-01-15T07:03:00.000-06:00

The search in the Republican primary is to find the candidate who will be "just like Reagan".

Here is Reagan in his own words as he campaigned for Barry Goldwater.

After seeing this ask yourself:
Which of the current GOP candidates sounds like Ronald Reagan, the most mainstream of mainstream Republicans?

The Rudy Guiliani? No
John McCain? No.
Mitt Romney No.
Mike Huckabee. No.
Fred Thompson? Sometimes; except on foriegn policy.

The candid, truthful answer is that Ronald Reagan sounds like Ron Paul. The reson for this is straight-forward. Both men share the same philosophical underpinning of their politics: Freedom at home, sound money, sound fiscal policy, and a humble, non-interventionist foreign policy.

Election Records are Declared Open Records

2008-01-13T22:34:00.000-06:00

Last week between the Iowa Caucuses and the New Hampshire primary the coalition of a citizen group, AUDIT-AZ, and the the Democratic Party of Pima County (with the help and support of the Republican and libertarian parties of the county) won a stunning open records victory.

The details of this can be found a Blog For Arizona, but here is the synopsis.

Back on May 16, 2006, Pima County Arizona had a controversial tax referendum proposed by the Regional Transit Authority. The irregularities uncovered by AUDIT-AZ prompted the local Democratic party to join in a open records request to release the election databases which produced these anomalous log entries to the three parties of standing in Pima County: Democratic, Republican, and Libertarian.

For two years they slogged while Diebold (now Premier) and the Pima county election staff stated election data was a trade secret or that releasing the election data posed a national security risk.

In the interum, there was a questionable

The Judge in a very conservative decision ruled otherwise. He order the release of only the databases subject to the matter directly before him and made no sweeping statement about the other databases from other elections asked for in other legal actions.

After much passionate discussion (see video here)the day, the Pima County Board of Elections over-ruled their staff and directed than not only the court ordered database be released to the three political parties, but all databases requested over the last two years should be released as well. This effecteively ended all of the open records lawsuits pending before the Board of Elections.

The transfer of data was completed Friday, January 11, 2008. The next step is for academics and interested parties from around the country to study the data. I look forward to see the contents of the wiki proposed as the organizational structure presented and available to the general public.

Why are the Texas emails important?

2008-01-08T00:01:00.000-06:00

This is response to Watchdog who thinks me and the donors who paid $611 dollars for emails "wasted" the money and are wasting the time of the Governor's staff.

Until I started this lark in November of 2007, the only scandal I knew of from Texas was the TYC scandal. This scandal is where the the boys incarcerated by the Texas Youth Commision (TYC) were routinely raped and assaulted by organized ring of pederasts which ran the TYC from 2003 until early 2007. I did not know my email project and the systematic abuse at the TYC were related. But, it turns out the two stories were deeply intertwined.

In early 2007, Office of the Governor lied about when he got emails from the Texas Rangers on the the raping of young boys. Those TYC emails have gone down the "memory hole".

The Governor's response is "find the emails I deleted". The position of Governor Perry's spokesman is: No emails means there is no proof the Governor's office knew about the rapes at the TYC earlier than March 2007. Pay no attention to that Texas Ranger, Burzynski, behind the curtain.

Watchdog, aren't you as a Texan just a little bit curious what else the Governor's office has stuffed down the memory hole?

Here are two possibilities now that I have found from skimmed recent Texas articles.

Emails between the Governor's Office and the contractor(s) renovating the mansion?
Emails between the Governor's office and Cintra? The Cintra deal for 50 years worth of tolls from Texas roads makes "Diamond" Jim's casino deal look cheap in comparison

Policy and how it is formed matters. Email is the correspondence of the 21st cnetury and the means by which policy is shaped and crafted. Emails of government officials (not just those of Governor Perry) are important policy documents and important historical records.

Records the public has right and duty to examine.

Saturday ABC Debates

2008-01-06T03:16:00.000-06:00

I am watching the tape of the debate from earlier this evening. Blunders and Brilliance

World View
Q: What are the world view, ethics, and philosophy which do and will guide your politics and presidency?
A: The six non-conservatives: The Constitution.

words

enumerated powers

McCulloch v Maryland

A:Ron Paul: Lip service is worthless. We [candidates and office holders] should all be bound down by the Constitution. I think Paul came off well on this exchange because, other than Thompson, he sounded like someone who routinely reads the Constitution.

Health Care
Romney: I like mandates. (blunder)
Thompson: You like mandates?
Romney: I will tell you the mandates I agree with.
Thompson: The one you come up with." (brilliant)

I was unfair to state Fred Thompson needs better, Law-and-Order caliber writers. If this was ad hoc as it looked, Fred Thompson has a quick wit, because that was a brilliant riposte.

And then Huckabee following up that Smoke Free America is the answer because the power of the Federal government should prevent "unhealthy" choice. Oh, and by the way the federal run health care system should be economic magic: affordable or free, high quality, and universally accessible. Ignore the laws of economics means you can find Huckabee's wellness care "system" right next to herds of unicorn grazing on grass of Glaukos.

Head to Head on Obama
For us Republicans, this is the question. Who will best defend, champion, and prevail on the Republican principles of small government, taxes, victim disarmament, securing the border, eroding the democratic base by getting "Reagan Democrats" back.
Thompson: Windfall tax? No. (Brilliant. This should be an ad in production tomorrow and on the air in SC by Wednesday. Short, unequivocal answers play well IF you believe the answer is from the heart.)

My predictions for 2008:
McCain/Lieberman ticket will be the independent run not Ron Paul. Should Ron Paul not get the nomination during the Minneapolis convention, he will run for Governor Texas as the Republican he is and not as President as a non-Republican.

To Jim

2008-01-06T02:11:00.000-06:00

Life is distractions and tragedy. Sorting and prioritizing those events are what shape us.

With that I would like to take this opportunity to eulogize my cousin Jim Washburn who died this last month. Jim was struck in the head with a tree branch as he was burning carbon from the spark plugs of his new sled (snowmobile). This happened at half moon "island" at the mouth of the Fox river of Pistakee Lake as he was heading to Fox Lake. He died sometime between 11:00 pm and 1:30 am of the night of Tuesday, December 19, 2007.

The Washburn family of Gurnee, Illinois is close knit. Jim and I grew up together even after my family moved to Piehl in 1974. His sister is the god-mother of my daughter. There is a Jim-shaped hole in our family and my life.

I miss Jim’s smiling face and his joy of living. At his funeral in the many pictures of him on his various Artic Cats there was a lot of air under the ski's; not this much air, but only because the opportunity never presented itself. That zest for living is what I will most.

My blog is small, but, what meager stage I have, I give to you, Jim.
Kin, Cousin, and Friend.
I miss you and will continue to miss you. But, I know from the promise of our Savior this separation, while hard, is temporary.

If God wills, maybe we can zoom the clouds as we zoomed snow in the woods and on the lakes of Three Lakes, Eagle River, and Da UP.

Ron Paul blimp is in the air for January

2008-01-03T22:36:00.000-06:00

The Liberty Political Advertising, LLC (the Ron Paul blimp) has enough supporters to fly for the month of January. Again, this is an endevor completely unconnected to the Ron Paul campaign.

The combination of a blog, online flight plan and real time tracking allows the morbidly curious to track the Ron Paul air force.

It is amazing what free thinking individuals can accomplish when left to their own creative devices.

Update – Messin’ with Texas

2008-01-03T21:43:00.000-06:00

Thanks to the people who generously donated $530 in response to Blegging for Records I was able to pay the Office of the Governor of Texas $611.00 for two sets of emails and email headers. $568 dollars went to pay for copies of the complete emails sent or received by the office of the Governor for the four days of November 2, 2007 through November 5, 2007. These would be the records responsive to my two PIA requests dated November 6, 2007. $40 dollars went to pay for the email headers and complete emails sent or received by the office of the Governor for the three days of November 20, 2007 through November 22, 2007. These would be the records responsive to my four PIA requests dated November 23, 2007.

The reason for the difference in costs is that the Governor’s office failed to respond to the November 23, 2007 within ten business days as required by law. Under the Governor’s own interpretation of the Texas Public Information Act, this failure to respond means the Governor’s office has forfeited the option of presenting a itemization of charges which exceeds $40. I believe this is a misreading of the Texas PIA, but for this request I will stipulate the Governor’s construction of the statute is correct. It saves me $528 after all.

To date: Messin’ with Texas has consisted of 9 emails to publicrecords@governor.state.tx.us which contained 32 PIA requests among them. The emails sent on November 6, 2007, November 9, 2007, November 13, 2007, November 16, 2007, November 20, 2007, November 23, 2007, November 27, 2007, November 30, 2007, and December 4, 2007 can be found by linking through.

On December 7, 2007, attorney Joe Larsen sent a tenth public information act request on my behalf. The Office of the Governor claims it has a written policy which is used to review emails prior to their destruction by the electronic shredders. This tenth PIA request asked for a copy of this written policy. To date there has been no response at all to this tenth PIA request; not even a late one response as was the case for the November 23, 2007 requests.

At this point the ball is in the Governor’s court. By their own interpretation of the PIA statutes the Governor’s Office has ten days to produce the records, take the matter up with the Office of the AG, or take the matter to court.

Slowly developing.

WIVA is not Home Schooling

2007-12-28T18:52:00.000-06:00

Mike Plaisted at Plaisted Writes continues to call the Wisconsin Virtual Academy home schooling such as in this post.

Now, I know Mike Plaisted loves tax-supported, youth propaganda camps, but this love blinds him to reality on this topic.

WIVA is NOT homeschooling. Never has been. Never will be.

The incessant and false advertising of WIVA and its parent corporation, K12, does not make it home schooling. Actual home-schoolers, have objected to the false advertising of Bill Bennett and K12 for years (here is another example).

I would have thought Mike was more discerning than to perpetuate the lies of Bill Bennett. But then, Bill Bennett and WEAC are allies in the common goal of destroying actual home schooling.

Let's compare traditional, Prussian common schools (aka WEAC-approved, government schools), WIVA, and actual home schooling and let a candid world decide.

	Prussian / Government Schools	WIVA	Home Schooling
Can I choose the curriculum?	No	No	Yes
Can I choose which 180 days I hold class?	No	No	Yes
Do I need to file an IEP in order to modify my child's curriculum?	Yes	Yes	No
Can I discuss the religious teachings of Jesus, Mohammad, Jehovah, or Buddha?	No	No	Yes
If WEAC goes on strike does my child’s education stop?	Yes	Yes	No
Is the primary educator required to be WEAC certified?	Yes	Yes	No
Can I steal from my childless neighbors to pay for the education of my child?	Yes	Yes	No
Can I take the house of my childless neighbor if they refuse to pay for the education of my child?	Yes	Yes	No

The only reason WEAC had standing in out to bring suit is because WIVA is a tax-supported, government school. If it were home schooling, then WEAC (thanks to Wisconsin v Yoder) would have been powerless to call on the courts to shut down this effort to educate the public.

The next time WEAC, WIVA, or K12 lie again, just remember:
WIVA is not home schooling!
Never has been.
Never will be.

Ron Paul -- Who Cares?

2007-12-16T22:29:00.000-06:00

I was responing to a foolish comment on my previous post. The response got so long that it has been promoted to an posting unto itself. The complete, anonymous comment was:

The national average for national polls do indeed average to 4.5%. Fortunately, there are not national primaries in the US.

According to Real Clear Politics, Paul is kicking the snot out of Thompson in New Hampshire (7% to 3%) and Thompson is kicking the snot out of Paul in Iowa (9% to 5%).

But, even with the most optimist poll numbers (10% in South Carolina) Ron Paul will not win Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan, or South Carolina. Thus, the point on the money should be obvious.

Money is the mother's milk of politics. Money translates into votes because of two things. Money can buy media and money can hire boots on the ground (e.g. Sean at Friends of Fred Thompson, Inc.)

Paul does not need to hire boots on the ground. He has actual volunteers. But, $17 million a quarter in donations buys a lot of media. My prediction is the money will be spent more in NH, SC, and MI rather than in IA. Caucuses are won and lost by "get-out-the-vote" efforts using boots-on-the-ground . Ron Paul has the upper hand in Iowa on this point. Thus, he will need to buy media in the primary states in order to increase his name recognition.

And at last the question: Who cares?
We who love liberty and freedom care.

Some of us would like to live in constitutional republic instead of an empire.

For the first time in decades, we who love liberty can vote for a Republican.

Finally, there is a Republican who will keep his promises.

A Republican who will live up to the ideals of the Republican party by lowering taxes and expanding individual liberty.

A Republican who recognizes that "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."

A Republican whose yeah is yeah and whose neah is neah."

Finally, a Republican whose knees will not buckle and whose spine will not go all noodlely ala Newt Gingrich when there is a government shut down.

A Republican who will not will sign bad legislation just to avoid a shutdown.

A Republican who will secure our borders

A Republican who will not depricate our currency.

A Republican who believes the second amendment exists so citizens can shoot at tyrants.

A Republican who believes it is a parent's DUTY to "train up a child in the way that he is to go" and thus supports home schooling, private schools, and allowing institutions which educate the public to arise and replace "public education".

A Republican who will dismantle our newly created star chambers.

Finally, a Republican who will not publicly declare his commitment to lawlessness as he signs legislation.

Those of us, for whom Fairness, Justice and Freedom are more than just words, they are perspectives, care. We care very deeply.

I am tired of the rich and powerful clinging to me as they are dragged from their throne. I want a humble man as President. I want a President who can predict the consequences of hubris (e.g. in 2005, in 2001, in 1998). I want a President to actually take his oath of office seriously.

I want Ron Paul.

Semper Libertas.

$5 Million For Ron Paul?

2007-12-16T13:41:00.001-06:00

Earlier I was chided for predicting Tea Party 07 would garner $5.5 Million.

As so many others have, I have probably underestimated the support for Ron Paul. Clearly, the message of bringing Liberty and Freedom to America resonates in spite of the self-admitted shortcomings of its most current spokesman.

After 12 hours, the Tea Party has raised $3.1 Million in donations.

If you are curious, the current total can be viewed in real time. Well as fast as the orders can be processed and the Ron Paul Graphs server can cough up the pictures. Rember these are cash in hand donations. This amount does not include pledges.

Trevor Lyman must be saying to himself "I love it when a plan comes together."

Semper Libertas.

Milwaukee Election Numbers Still Don't Add Up

2007-12-03T12:28:00.000-06:00

When I saw the testimony of Neil Albrecht before Congress, I was surprised to hear all the numbers from November 2, 2004 had been reconciled.

I was interested because, I have wanted an explanation for why these numbers do not add up for some time now. I requested any correspondences between the City of Milwaukee Election Commission and any of the four parts of the Joint Task Force. The response was prompt (2 business days), free of charge and succinct. There are no records of any correspondences (electronic or otherwise) between the City Election Commission and the FBI, the US Attorney of Eastern Wisconsin or the Milwaukee Police Department. The only correspondences (electronic or otherwise) have been between the City Election Commission and Milwaukee County DA and there have only been 4. All four correspondences are emails. The emails were sent
March 3, 2006 at 2:58 pm,
March 3, 2006 at 6:28 pm,
April 3, 2006 at 7:27 am, and
April 5, 2006 at 10:12 am.

Based on these emails, I have questions about the "investigation" itself.

How were the wards to "investigate" selected? According to the first email, the joint task force "investigated" the election records of only six wards. Those wards located at: Riverside High school (43 and 44), Rose Park Senior Center (wards 97 and 98), and Trowbridge School (wards 238 and 239). There are more than 50 wards with anomalous numbers that are off by more than 25. Three of those wards have a higher variance than found at Riverside High school (either ward 43 or ward 44). Why were the election records from the Cass Street School (ward 54) not investigated? Why were the election records from the French Immersion School (wards 192, 194, and 195) not investigated. Perhaps election records from other wards were examined. If so, the results of those investigation(s) would be hidden in the as yet unpublished, final report.

Why were no inspectors questioned? The four emails make it quite clear the "investigators" only asked Room 501 for explanations. Ms. Edman and Mr. Albrecht are in the tough position of having to answer for a mess they did not create or administer. I don't envy that position. This is all the more reason to ask poll inspectors who were present: "What happened?". Again, maybe, election inspectors were questioned by the task force, but, if so, the results are hidden in the as yet unpublished, final report.

Here are some findings of the task force as described in these emails.

The Task force proved the Optech IIIP Eagles scanners cannot count properly. The number of ballots passing through the scanner (as determined by hand counting the number of ballots) is MORE than the number of ballots the scanner claims to have counted (as reported on the machine tape total).
The Task force proved the ballot boxes may have been stuffed. The question seem to answer seems to be how much stuffing (e.g. 186 or 470 in ward 44). Even with the most generous accounting for then number of ballots handed to electors (poll list + same day registrants + Sworn Registered Voters), the ballot box in ward 44 had more ballots in it than handed to electors.
Even more election records (besides poll books) have disappeared. It is stated the email, that the Sworn Registered Voter list for about half the wards in the City of Milwaukee had disappeared by April 5, 2005. The Milwaukee Police Department is cited as perhaps having the records, but since no receipts were kept and the date the records were transferred to the MPD is unknown, this is unsupported speculation.

What we have here is a failure to count.
The explanation for the scanner not being able to count the number of ballots cast, is the unsupported, speculation "the ballot jammed". This is different than the miscounting error due to faulty programming reported reported during the September 12, 2006 primary election. This may be related to the miscounting counting error videotaped on September 12, 2006. Ballot jams was the same explanation offered for the documented miscounting in Germantown District #1 during the November 2, 2004 and April 5, 2005 elections. Since, the "ballot jams" has been offered as the explanation for miscounting on scanners from 2 vendors (ES&S Optech's in Milwaukee and Diebold AccuVote scanners in Germantown) in multiple elections perhaps we should test to see what happens when ballots jam in a context other than an actual election? I am NOT advocating dropping optical scanners in favor DRE touch screens. The only reason we KNOW the scanners miscount is because there are software independent records (the actual ballots) available to confirm or deny the software works as advertised. With DRE touch screen computers there are no pesky contradictory records. The DRE computer generates all of the records, so the records are consistent. But, consistent records are not the same as accurate records. I am proposing we test these scanners to find out how they really work so election officials in the polling places can handle machine and software faults appropriately.

Does the Sworn Registered Voter List, "close the gap"?
In the March 3, 2005 email Mr. Albrecht speculates the missing 186 voters handed a ballot could be on the Sworn Registered Voter List. This he states might be an explanation for the appearance of ballot box stuffing (more ballots counted than handed to electors). He offers no evidence though that there were 186 people from ward 44 who registered to vote at City Hall 13 days prior to the election. some questions on this "answer":

Is the Sworn Registered Voter List for ward 44 one of the half that have disappeared?
If the list exists, does the Sworn Registered Voter List for ward 44 have 186 people listed?
If the list exists and has 186 voters on it, why weren't these sworn registered voters given a voter number like everyone else?
If the list exists and is short, were these same election inspectors allowed to corrupt subsequent elections?
When did this meeting with the MPD about Sworn Registered Voter List occur and why is there no record of it or results documented? I did ask for such records and was told none exist.
How is it ward 39 located at Sandberg Hall of UWM handled more electors (2100) than ward 44 or ward 43, but manage to have every single number reconcile nearly perfectly?

More missing records !?!
It was not reported until July 2007 that many of the poll lists for the November 2, 2004 election had disappeared. The explanation offered was the poll books were lost by the MPD sometime during the 2 years the records were unavailable for inspection. Since, there no receipts were issued or demanded, there is no way to confirm or deny this speculation on the poll books. The Sworn Registered Voters list though disappeared sometime on or before April 5, 2005. This assumes the lists were created at all. Within 5 months of the election it was known that vital election records had gone missing or had not been created. I don't remember any prosecutions of election official for negligence in performing their duties. These emails support my speculation that the task force focused on voter fraud (e.g. Kimberly Prude) instead of election fraud. The task force is and was majoring on the minors". But, the bigger question though is what other records are missing?

Has anyone on the task force bothered to look?
Or, is the complete catalog of missing records hinted at in the preliminary report contained in the as-yet unpublished, final report?

Conclusion
As usual the more questions you ask the more "answers" you get and the more answers you get the more questions you have. The official explanation though remains constant:"Mistakes were Made".

Blegging for Records

2007-11-30T15:52:00.002-06:00

I have only blegged for money once before, but at I would like to pay for the first batch of emails requested from the Office of Governor Perry.

This CDROM of data will cost me $568. The cost is for the 31.5 hours of staff time needed to locate the requested email records on the email server and transfer them to the CDROM. My Response to this charge is here.

If are so inclined to help on this project, a donation would be most welcome.

As of 2007-12-02 17:25 CST: Your generous donation total $130.00. Thank you.

Texas Email Foot Print

2007-11-28T16:59:00.000-06:00

My recent scuffling with the Governor of Texas has gotten me to thinking about email retention. I am looking for a long term home for the emails I expect to receive, so the natural question is how much data will that be?

What are the storage requirements in order to store one year’s worth of email generated by the Governor's office?

There are 300 people on staff with the Governor's office. According to email research from 2000 the average worker gets 40 email messages in his office every day and the size of an email averages 18.5 kilobytes

This seems low to me and the research is old, so I increased both size and volume 5-fold. This yields:

300 people getting 200 email message each day where each email is 100K in size.The total storage foot print for email from the whole whole office is then 6 gigabytes per day. Assuming the email traffic on Saturday and Sunday is the same as any other day, one year's worth of traffic is 2.2 terabytes.

I will splurge and go for 2.5 terabytes.

This will cost me $1,500 for an off the shelf USB compliant unit.

I seems to me that it would be cheaper for the Governor Perry to spend $2,000 to $4,000 for proper archive storage than to delete emails after only 7 days because there is too little space as the Governor's spokes man has stated here.

Since, I may have to buy this unit, a donation would be appreciated.

Internet fund raising

2007-11-21T22:54:00.000-06:00

Supporters of Fred Thompson such as Blogs for Fred and Sean at the American Mind are hoping to replicate the November 5th fund raising success of Ron Paul.

It is called Fred's Giving Day. The Ron Paul campaign posts its donation information online. Fred Thompson's campaign does not.

Rumors are Fred's Giving Day has less than 500 people pledging. Ron Paul's next money bomb is scheduled on the aniversary of the Boston Tea party.

The effort on Thompson behalf looks on track to garner less than $100,000 (500 people at $200 per). Tea Party 2007 on behalf of Ron Paul looks on track for $5.5 Million (50,000 at $110 per).

On December 17th we will know about the December 16, 2007 Tea Party.

I wonder if Fred's campaign let us know this Friday the ammount raised by Fred's Giving Day or will we have to wait until the Q4, 2007 FEC reports are released in Feburary 2008?

[As poor as Fred's Giving Day may have done, it looks as if Barak Friday may have done even more poorly.]

Milwaukee Election Problems Are Solved

2007-11-20T10:07:00.000-06:00

According to the testimony given by Neil Albrecht before Congress last week, all of the problems of the November 2, 2004 election have be satisfactorily explained.

Here is the testimony of the assistant director of the Milwaukee Election Commission, Mr. Neil Albrecht in his own words:

Here is the ~~whole of the~~ testimony given that day so you can check on the faithfulness of the excerpt.[the original link from Congress has gone 404 as has the testimony of the first panel. The link here is of part two and is two hours long. Sorry for the broken link -- jww]

I know the final report of the Joint Task force is not an open record because I have already filed an open records request for the final report Mr. Albrecht references in his sworn testimony. The final report has been classified as an unpublished draft by the Milwaukee County District Attorney. Because the unpublished final report is a draft document it is exempt from disclosure because draft documents are not records under WI Stats. 19.32(2).

According to Mr. Albrecht, all of these discrepancies as I reported earlier have been explained? I don't think so.

This is why I wanted the final report of the joint task force between the US Attorney and the Milwaukee County DA. I want explanations, but I want them in public, not in a some report which is on double, secret probation.

Messin' With Texas

2007-11-12T16:03:00.006-06:00

Counter to all bumper sticker urging me not to, last week I messed with Texas.

Specifically, I asked Governor Rick Perry for the emails from his office for the prior several days. This is now big news in Texas and is now an AP wire story.

Here is how this devolped.
The Purge: Part One,
The Purge makes The Carnival,
The Purge: Part Two,
The Purge goes old stream, and
The Purge: Part Three.

To follow this developing story please refer to The Political Junkie

I have been warned that Governor Perry does not have the good humor that this letter would indicate.

JWW-20110909. All of the links in this story had gone 404, so I have substituted the original ULRs with URLs from the internet Archive. It is my custom to mark all such retroactive changes to a blog post in green. Here though that would not be appropriate given the nature of the post hoc changes I have made. It is my hope this footnote suffices.

The link in the comment has gone 404 as well: The Archive.org link is here

Solution for WI Stats. 7.23(1)(g)

2007-11-12T10:27:00.000-06:00

I have had several clerks anonymously ask the question: What is my solution to the WI Stats 7.23(1)(g) problem? Those comments can be found here and here.

The arguments given for disobeying the law are:

No state certified equipment allows us to meet this requirement of Wisconsin election law
The Wisconsin State Elections Board certified these voting systems so we should not have to comply with the law.
It is unreasonable to insist clerks, DA's, and state Boards obey the law after they have ignored its enforcement for 20 years.

To these points, it is not my fault the clerks of the state bought crappy equipment which violates state law. It is not my fault the State Election Board certified crappy systems which violate state law. I showed up all through 2005 and 2006 and pointed out other, statutory short comings of these systems. The systems were certified and bought with full knowledge of these other, statutory short comings. So yet another statutory short deficiency should come as no surprise. So, my over-arching solution is to find and purchase equipment which meets this clear statutory requirement.

That said here are my solutions from short term to long term for the Wisconsin election industry (WI SEB, municipal and county clerks, vendors, and vendor representatives).

Short Term:
I suspect the various election management systems (EMS) such as GEMS, UNITY, WinEDS, BOSS, etc. already provide this functionality even if it is not well documented. It is ludicrous to believe an application which can read and write to the memory cards cannot read the memory cards in order to make a backup.

If your vendor is unwilling to help you comply with the law, then purchase the extra equipment which will allow you to obey this 20 year old law in spite of your vendor's intransigence. If the intransigence of your vendor is too obnoxious, then sue them for breach of contract. They did after all warrant the system met all applicable state election laws.

Medium Term:
If the election system truly does not allow you to make backups of the cards it can read and write to, then Wisconsin State Elections Board does have some culpability here. They certified systems which did not meet the requirements of state law. The intermediate solution for the clerks of the state is to petition the Wisconsin State Elections Board (or the Government Accountability Board) for relief. Ask the Board to state in writing that obeying the law is optional in this case.

Long Term:
If the election system truly does not allow you to make backups of the cards it can read and write to, then the long range solution for the clerks is to argue before the state legislature that these backups are unnecessary. Talk to your legislator and have the law (WI Stats 7.23(1)(g)) changed.

Exemption from Having an SSN

2007-11-12T07:26:00.001-06:00

My 16 year old son is in the process of getting is Wisconsin class D operator’s license. He decided some months ago to avail himself of a little known (and never advertised) provision of Wisconsin State law which requires the DMV to create a DMV without a social security number.

As part of the new and unconstitutional process for the implementation of this statue and transportation regulation, my son and I travelled to Madison so he could be interviewed on the nature and sincerity of his religious beliefs; an inquiry into his religious purity if you will.

The question I have for this small audience is this. How do you file for and receive an exemption from having an SSN? During this interview the interviewer from the DMV asked if either my son or I had filed for and/or received an exemption from having a social security number. I have ask for just such an exemption over the course of the last two decades and have been consistently told NO. There is no procedure for exemption from having an SSN.

Clearly I was wrong. The DMV knows that such exemptions are possible and have been granted or it would not have been part of the administrative hearing. The exemption from using an SSN for a WI driver’s license is little because unless you ask for the proper form by NUMBER, you will be told no such form exists and that you must provide a SSN to get a driver's license.

I would like to file for and gets this exemption. I suspect the federal version of this exemption is the same as the state's version. It is a secret unless you ask for the precise forms by number and cite the correct, arcane, implementing federal regulations. If anyone knows how this is done, please leave a comment to this blog article.

A Guide To Hiding Public Records

2007-11-05T12:58:00.000-06:00

Here is a short piece of satire byJohn Foust on How to Hide Public Records from nosy citizens. Hat tip to Wisconsin Sunbeam.

The article is orgainzed into two sections: Reasons and Tactics. There are three reasons to hide public records and ten tactics to used hide public records.

The three reasons are:

You have nothing to hide. (because you do little)
It's none of their business. There are plenty of embarassing facts in those files. Why volunteer them to a pesky newpaper?
We can't do our job if we had to tell everyone what we're were doing.

The ten tactics are:

Deny the record exists.
Claim the request isn't specific enough.
Make them pay for what they really want.
Make haste slowly.
Drive them nuts.
Don't say more than you have to.
Make mistakes and publicize requestor mistakes.
Fake ignorance.
Invent authority.
Hire attorneys.

The paragragh on making mistakes cuts close to the bone for my current open records scuffle with my county clerk, Brenda Jaszewski [emphasis mine]:

You can always ask for forgiveness. Surrender the wrong records. Forget to hand over some of their request. Split up the request into pieces, give out some, forget others. When they complain, say their request was so complicated and that you were so busy, you made a mistake.

Mea culpa! Big deal! "What are you going to do, make a Federal case of it?" It's not as if you're going to be fired for making a mistake.

The best mistake destroys a record. Zap those e-mails, and later claim you didn't know you had to keep them. Don't make backups. Claim you don't have the budget [voting system] for that.

Erase audio tapes as soon as someone asks for them. These sorts of literal records are the most dangerous to release. After all, everyone knows the minutes of a meeting are the first opportunity to re-write history. One phrase in the minutes like "It was the general consensus that we should move ahead" will clear away the evidence of an hour of dissent on a tape. Losing the tape is an important part of preserving the official record of the minutes.

If someone asks for an electronic record in electronic form, print it out and destroy the computer file. A database on paper is almost worthless for research, but the printed version probably complies with the legal requirements for preservation of the record.

On the other hand, if the requester makes a mistake of any kind, say a lot about it. You'll look smart for pointing it out, and it'll build sympathy with your superiors. Point out that frivolous and repeated requests need not be answered.

I am sure the piece is satire, but I admit it is hard to tell. The line between satire and reality blurs badly sometimes when dealing with the humorless, such as public officials.

Swearing out a Complaint

2007-10-27T02:22:00.000-05:00

As I posted earlier, Washington County District Attorney, Todd K. Martens, does not think it is his job to enforce state election law within the Washington County courthouse.

In order to force his hand and set the ground work to take this to circuit court and/or to the State's Attorney General, I filed a formal complaint under WI Stats. 5.08 outlining 14 criminal lapses of WI Stats.7.23(1)(g) by the Washington County Clerk, Brenda Jaszewski to backup electronic election records.

A copy of the complaint can be found here.

The most interesting information today thousgh was from the clerk of Washington County, Brenda Jaszewski.

As I was delivering a copy of the complaint and its supporting exhibits, I asked Ms. Jaszewski if she had made any backups of the memory cards yet. She told me that the GEMS election management system from Diebold Election Systems, Inc. (now Premier Election Solutions) provide no feature or function to her so she can comply with the backup requirents of WI Stats.7.23(1)(g). I then asked her if she has destroyed the data containing election information from the April 3, 2007 in preparation for the upcoming November 9, 2007 School Bond Referendum in West Bend. On this question Ms. Jaszewski lawyered up and State should would not answer that question until she had first conferred with the county attorney.

I wonder if Ms. Jaszewski remembers her trip to the Brookfield Village Hall with ten other county clerks on January 18, 2006. She and other clerks from around the state came before the Wisconsin State Elections Board to demand that the Board certify the exact Diebold Election System equipment and software which is failing her now.

Back in August, 2005 through December, 2006 myself and others around the state and country were pointing out that the election equipment and software from Diebold did not meet the minimum statutory requirements of Wisconsin. In January, 2006 Clerk Jaszewski took time to actively pressure the WI State Elections Board to certify "her" equipment.

Now that Ms. Jaszewski has to admit that the Diebold system fails to meet yet another state statutory requirement, I have very little sympathy for her. She fought very hard 18 months ago to buy the bed in which she must now lie.

DA Todd Martens Shirks His Duty

2007-10-25T06:33:00.000-05:00

I received a letter from the Washington County District Attorney, Todd K. Martens, official stating that he will duck and shirk his duty to enforce election laws in the Village of Germantown. Moreover, District Attorney Martens absurdly states that it is not the responsibility or jurisdiction of a Wisconsin district attorney to investigate or prosecute election misconduct.

Here is a short recap of this matter. Using the open records law I discovered that my county clerk was not creating election records she is required to make. I reported on this here. I turned the matter of over to the DA by sending him this letter on October 9, 2007. The complete response from Washington County DA, Todd K. Martens, dated October 22, 2007, is here: Letter from Washington County DA Todd K. Martens. [In order to fight the "Memory Hole" effect of URLs, I have highlighted this post publication updatein green. jww].

According to the Washington County DA:

My office has the responsibility to enforce Wisconsin's open meetings, open records, and ethics laws. Assuming there is a violation of the statute you cited [WI Stats. 7.23(1)(g)], my office does not have the authority to investigate it or prosecute it.

Aside from the frightenly short enumeration DA duties, this statement is in clear contradiction to written statute, WI State Election Board Regulations, and recent history in Southeast Wisconsin.

Wisconsin state statute 5.08 reads[emphasis mine]:

5.08 Petition for enforcement. Any elector[I] may file a verified petition alleging such facts as are within his or her knowledge to indicate that an election official has failed or is failing to comply with any law regulating the conduct of elections or election campaigns or proposes to act in a manner inconsistent with such a law, and requesting that an action be commenced for injunctive relief, a writ of mandamus or prohibition or other such legal or equitable relief as may be appropriate to compel compliance with the law. The petition shall be filed with the district attorney of the county where the violation or proposed action inconsistent with this chapter occurs or is proposed to occur. The district attorney may then commence the action or dismiss the petition. If the district attorney declines to act upon the petition or if the district attorney fails to act upon the petition within 15 days of the date of filing, the petitioner may file the same petition with the attorney general, who may then commence the action.

My most forgiving characterization of these events is that Washington County DA Todd K. Martens does not believe my letter of October 9, 2007 does not meet the definition of "verified complaint".

As a matter of law he is correct. The allegations in the letter are not submitted under penalty of perjury. So, I will recast my letter as a formal petition for action under 5.08 and follow every tittle and jot therein in order to create a verified complaint.

Milwaukee county district attorney, Mike McCann, began investigating election frauds from the November 2, 2004 election on the basis of newspaper reports by Greg Borowski. From a legal point of view this is flimsy evidence upon which to begin an investigation. DA Martens must have privately thought DA McCann was out of line in January of 2005 for investigating election fraud and voter fraud in the City of Milwaukee. DA Martens does not believe it is the place of a County DA to investigate election official breaking Wisconsin election law.

Clearly, on this front (election law), DA McCann was a much better prosecutor than DA Martens is.

No Backups of Election Records

2007-10-23T05:42:00.000-05:00

For 19 years (since the passage of 1987Act391) Wisconsin law has required election officials to make backups of the electronic records found on the removable memory cards of voting equipment. The specific statute, WI Stats. 7.23(1)(g) reads:

7.23(1)(g) Detachable recording units and compartments for use with electronic voting machines may be cleared or erased 14 days after any primary and 21 days after any other election. Before clearing or erasing the units or compartments, a municipal clerk shall transfer the data contained in the units or compartments to a disk or other recording medium which may be erased or destroyed 22 months after the election to which the data relates.

I have been given a number of excuses over the last two years as to why required election records have not been created. The excuses are many and varied, but are all variations on the theme:

"But, this is a new (procedure/form/requirement). The election officials are not used to following the new (law/regulation/recommendation)."

I thought for sure a twenty year old law has been followed all along or at least for the last five or ten years. But, being the trusting soul I am, I took Reagan's advice to "Trust, but verify".

I sent out open records requests to various municipalities in the state for copies of the electronic backups created pursuant to 7.23(1)(g) for both the scanners and disability devices for the september, 2006 and November, 2006 elections. So far only the City of Milwaukee and the Village of Germantown (via the county clerk, Brenda Jaszewski) have responded. Neither creates the electronic backups mandated by WI Stats. 7.23(1)(g). From the followup questions to the open records request (e.g "What records are you talking about?"), I don't think anyone in the state is creating the backups legally mandated by WI Stats 7.23(1)(g).

Since, I live in Germantown this is the only place where I have only pursued the matter further. On October 10, 2007 I turned the matter over Washington county DA, Todd Martens. As of Friday, October 19, 2007, offical statement of the office of the Washbington County DA is that the matter is under investigation and there is no further comment at this time. You may contact the DA's office at: 262-335-4311, for further updates.

Here is the original open records request to the Washington County Clerk and her response stating there are no such records in existence. By her own records, Ms. Jaszewski put data on to memory card 6131-DA-D1 on August 26, 2006. More data was added on September 12, 2006, (if nothing else candidate vote totals), and no backup was made before the data was destroyed on October 3, 2006 by Cathy Weston.

I have spoken with a top attorney who specializes in Wisconsin election law. He was unaware that there was a data backup requirement and mention that it is likely I am the first person in 20 years to have checked to see if this election law is being followed. There are a lot of citzen watch dogs (and WI SEB staff) who oversee the enforcement of Chapter 11 (campaign finance), but no watch dogs who double check on the enforcement of Chapter 7 (Election Administration).

Here is to being a Chapter 7 watch dog. Woof Woof.

Gossip Girls at West Bend High

2007-10-14T13:57:00.000-05:00

The West Bend High School Library has used tax funds to add the whole Gossip Girl series to the library collection. Some parents are tentatively scheduled to meet with the school administration about this acquisition at 3:00 pm on Monday, October 15, 2007. If you would like to participate, please contact 262-335-5570 (WBHS West) (262) 335-5530 (WBHS East)

Some West Bend parents are objecting to the use of tax money for such questionable additions to the library. It is good parents should know, review, and approve what is being purchased with their money. The argument by the American Librarian Association for including the Gossip Girls series in a library collection is that reading anything is better than reading nothing. (I disagree with this false dichotomy). The Librarians contend that only by reading trash will young readers be able to recognize good literature should they happen to trip over something such as Wuthering Heights. Source: Pam Spencer Holley of the American Library Association [ALA]

So, I am clear, I believe the Gossip Girls to be trash. The endless parade of casual sex, drugs, and betrayal is titillating, but not redeeming literature. The money of parents should not be stolen in order to purchase these books. It is good for the owners of the school (the taxpaying parents) to tell the hired help (the librarian) what are and are not acceptable library books. Withholding one's patronage is not censorship.

But, the main problem in the West Bend High Schools has less to do with the trash which is the Gossip Girls than with the confiscation of money at gun point in order to buy the books. Even Thomas Jefferson disagrees with the librarians on this one: To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is both sinful and tyrannical.

The problem here is the funding for the West Bend youth propaganda camps. It is coerced and attendance at the camps is mandatory for 12 years. The problem is the tax-funded school which Horace Mann transplanted from Prussia to Boston and which then infected the rest of the country. There must be a separation of State and School.

The article, "The Problem is the School" expounds on the educational problems Jefferson identifies above. The salient quote is:

With a private school, Newdow can avoid entanglement with beliefs he does not share simply by abstaining from patronizing it. He can’t do that with a government school.

To have the State involved in education is both sinful and tyrannical. Education must always be about ideas. The contents of our thoughts and the formation of those ideas is never a matter for the State.

Would anyone care if Living Word Lutheran High School carried Gossip Girls in the library? No. Because unless you are paying the tuition, you will rightly rule that the content of the library at the private school is a private matter.

But, the library contents of a tax-funded school can never be a private matter. Public money means the public as unwilling owners get to dictate the spending of their stolen money.

To the parents of West Bend students:

If these are not the books you would choose for your young girls, then you should withdraw you support of the school by any means necessary. You pay the bills. You name the tune the band will play.To the librarians of the West Bend High Schools:

You claim you have no power to remove this book from the collection. That removal is censorship. This is a lie. You had the power to remove something from the library shelf to make room for the Gossip Girls. You have the power to remove the Gossip Girls in favor of worthwhile literature. You censored some book(s) to make room for the Gossip Girls. Removing or not selecting new books in order to create room for the Gossip Girls was censorship, because you used the coercive power of the State to inflict your notion of literature on students and parents. If you do not like that the owners of the library (taxpayers) can control the content of the collection they own, then work for a private library, a book store, or open your own library.To the Administration of the West Bend High Schools:

anointed and utopian vision

raise up their children

US Star Chambers

2007-10-10T12:39:00.000-05:00

If Star Chamber Court(s) are not already set up in the USA there is nothing in current US law to prevent it.

To undertand why this is important you need to understand history and why the disappearance of the Rule of Law from America is dangerous. Nothing does both like this excerpt from the play, "A Man For All Seasons", by Robert Bolt:

Alice: Arrest him!
More: Why, what has he done?
Margaret: He's bad!
More: There is no law against that.
Roper: There is! God's law!
More: Then God can arrest him.
Roper: Sophistication upon sophistication.
More: No, sheer simplicity. The law, Roper, the law. I know what's legal, not what's right. And I'll stick to what's legal.
Roper: Then you set man's law above God's!
More: No, far below; but let me draw your attention to a fact -- I'm not God. The currents and eddies of right and wrong, which you find such plain sailing, I can't navigate. I'm no voyager. But in the thickets of the law, oh, there I'm a forester.I doubt if there's a man alive who could follow me there, thank God.
Alice: While you talk, he's gone!
More: And go he should, if he was the Devil himself, until he broke the law!
Roper: So now you'd give the Devil benefit of law!
More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper: I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast -- man's laws, not God's -- and if you cut them down -- and you're just the man to do it -- do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake. (source)

Here is what happens when all the laws are flat and the Devil turns round on you. You are kidnapped, rendered to Afghanistan, and then tortured for 10 months because of mistaken identity as in the case of Khaled el-Masri

If you think this can not happen to you, an American Citizen, then you have not been paying attention. The Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA 2006) allows this to be done to American Citizens. See paragraph ii of the definition of unlawful combatant found in section 948a of the MCA 2006. This coupled with the ruling in the John Gilmore case that laws and regulations can be secret even from the defendant means the regulations creating those "other competent tribunals" under the MCA 2006 do not need be made public. Also, little noticed by Americans, is that the Posse Commitatus Act was largely gutted in December 2006 when the John Warner Defense Appropriation Act was signed.

So, under current US law, the President or Secretary of Defense can create a "competent tribunal" by administrative rule (MCA 2006). The "competent tribunal" can be created without public notice in the Federal Register or the Code of Federal Regulations (Gilmore v. Ashcroft/Gonzales). Then, this secret, "competent tribunal" can declare a US citizen (e.g YOU) an unlawful combatant. Once declared an unlawful combatant you can then be "disappeared" ala Eva and Juan Peron and shipped on a rendition flight to Afghanistan, Gitmo, or Syria to be imprison and/or tortured indefinitely. Moreover, if the "competent tribunal" decides you are part of a "conspiracy", then under the restructured Posse Comitatus Act the armed forces (rangers, seals, MP's, etc.) can be used to ~~kidnap~~ give you Schutzhaft.

Welcome the Empire. All hail the Decider! May his benvolence reign lightly opon you.

Self-Incrimination in the UK

2007-10-01T16:06:00.001-05:00

Many people think the US Constitution is a quaint document and can and should be ignored when convenient so that Congress is able to legislate at will. After all Congress is elected so it can't stray far from the will of the people. This is the UK model to protect human liberty and it is a very weak protector indeed as the UK has proved again today.

In the UK you can be compelled to provide testimony and evidence against yourself. This requirement to self-incriminate or go to prison has been extended to the electronic realm of Blackberries.

In the US the theory (untested in the courts) is that providing decryption keys is providing testimony. This is because the government is asking you to say something, write something, or otherwise communicate information to the investigators. Forcing testimony you consider self-incriminating is prohibited by the Fifth Amendment. The analogy is my shed which is locked by a combination lock and the police have presented me with a valid, Judge-signed search warrant. I am under no obligation to unlock the shed nor can I be compelled to recite the lock combination. If the police want to search fine, they can get out the bolt cutters and search the property (shed) named in the warrant. It is the same if the search warrant calls for the seizure of my hard disk. I am under no obligation to decrypt the data nor am I under any obligation to recite the description key. Let the police use the access technology on the market (electronic bolt cutters) to access the hard disk named in the warrant or find the password written down on a piece of paper in my desk.

Here are competing theories on this:
The US DOJ thinks your crypto key is not "testimonial" and, thus, not protected by the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution.

Mr. Sergienko disagrees and backs up his analysis with case law citations the DOJ paper lacks. His position is that your crypto keys are testimonial (protected) because the keys are both communicative and can be used for authentication. Either property makes an utterance testimonial.

Both (US DOJ and Sergienko) though agree that the matter rests squarely on the testimonial, compelled, and incriminating nature of the plain text recovered. The DOJ avoids the topic of authentication completely and only addresses the communicative nature the plain text recovered.

But, as I said earlier neither theory has been test before by the 9 demi-gods in black dresses, so relying on the fifth for protection when needed may prove as helpful as a broken tooth.

BTW, did you notice in the article that Blackberry seems to be the only internet PDA device which routinely encrypts your email traffic end-to-end? Do Section 49 directives only target Blackberry because the other PDA’s (e.g. iPhone) send your email traffic in the clear so all the police need to do is go to your ISP or packet sniff for the emails of interest?

I may have to consider a Blackberry for that reason alone.

Paper work in City Ward 1 was not forged

2007-09-21T10:19:00.000-05:00

I had reported earlier that the numbers for Ward One did not reconcile and that the signatures on the inspectors' report appeared to be all in the same hand and not that of any of the election inspectors and asked if this was evidence of forgery.

There is no explanation as to why the numbers do not reconcile other than the official explanation of: "mistakes were made". The questions regarding the inspectors' report though have been investigated and answered by the Milwaukee Deputy District Attorney, Bruce Landgraf. Here is the complete email chain explaining the inspectors' report.

Yes, the signatures are in the same hand. No, the signatures were not made by any of the election inspectors for City Ward 1. But, this is not a forgery or false canvass report. The copy of the inspectors' report given to me as the inspectors' report for city ward 1 was in fact the sample inspectors' report used during the training of chief inspectors during the summer and fall of 2004.

There is no statutorily required inspectors' report from city ward 1 ("mistakes were made"), but this is different than forgery or a false canvass report which is what I had asked to be investigated.

Given that Detective Saxton had already investigated this (or at least noticed the oddness of the inspectors' report), this whole set of questions could have been avoided if the final report from by the US Attorney/Milwaukee county Joint Task Force Investigating Possible Election Fraud during the November 2, 2004 Election had been released by now.

The whole inspectors' report from ward 1 is a mistake not forgery. I'm relieved. Aren't you?

Report on WI SEB Meeting (20070912)

2007-09-19T14:03:00.000-05:00

Last Wednesday (September 12, 2007), the Wisconsin State Elections Board met and considered 2 items for action; my March 9, 2005 complaint and the comments of Paul Malischke on the proposed rule ElBd 5.

Most of Paul's comments were to convert MAY's to SHALL's and to include ballot bags as something that should be sealed with numbered, tamper-resistant seals. All of his suggestions were excellent and the board directed the staff to consider incorporating the proposed changes into the new regulation. [Update: Here are the complete ammendments proposed by Fair elections Wisconsin]

A non action item was presented by Kathy Nickolaus asking the Board to propose legislative change so that poll workers can be drawn from the same county instead of the current requirement from the same municipality.

On the matter of my complaint the board's findings were:

My contention that failing to canvasses votes correctly three times does not rise to the level of "willful negligence". No prosecutions of poll workers will happen.

This matter needs further study by the staff. The Board directed the staff to come back with a recommendation for detecting and correcting such procedural omission in the past.

Bullet points on the discussions regarding my complaint:

I did win over the point that my complaint was not just about Milwaukee nor was it just about the November 2, 2004 election. My specific complaint covered two other municipalities and 2 other elections.

Susan Edman was put in an uncomfortable position in have to answer the points of my complaint when she was not around at the time of the events under discussion,

I stated to the board and repeat it here election administration under Susan Edman is significantly better then it was under Sharon Robinson, Lisa Artison, or Julietta Henry.

I still think there is room for improvement as the report from the Board Staff on the single ward audited from the November 7, 2006 election shows. Beneath the focus on the machine tapes and uncertain marks for Green is the fact that 3 ballots were not secured on election night, no write-in tally was done, and the inspectors' report was not properly signed. But, this is a fantastic improvement over the blank inspector's reports from wards in Madison and Milwaukee from the November 2004 election.

It is the position of Kevin Kennedy that 7.51(2)(h) is only relevant in a recount or other election contest. So, if you PROVE the optical scanner miscounted some of the statistics printed on the end of day report (as Germantown district #1 did for November 2, 2004 and the City of Milwaukee did on September 12, 2006 for every polling locations with one scanner and more than one ward), then every other number printed by the miscounting machine is to be accepted as if correct on election night. Once the election inspectors document the machine's inability to count their statutory duty ends. it is up to a candidate or elector to contest the correctness of the machine-generated numbers.

Kerry Dwyer of the board seemed a bit dismayed with a policy of Ex Machina Ex Cathedrum est. But the question then is what should be done and who should do it? Should the poll workers count all races by hand (my position), should the matter be brought to court and a hand recount only done when a court orders it (Mr. Kennedy's position) something in between (e.g. routine audits)?

Tasered America

2007-09-19T11:55:00.000-05:00

As many of you have probably seen the government of the United States is now tasering people for peacefully asking inconvenient questions of those in power. If you have not here are two YouTube videos of the incident;

As conservative writer Craig Roberts points out: America is No More. The saddest irony is that this happened on September 17, Constitution Day. The point of Mr. Craig's article should not be lost. The agents of the state (the police in this case, BATF and marshals in others) commit brutalityand violate both the Constitution and their oaths to uphold it in broad daylight because no one, not rich or poor, not the powerful or the common is outraged by it. As a matter of fact most in the crowd initially cheered.

Some have commented that the young man's fears of being disappeared (at the end of the second video clip) are unfounded. But, are they? How far are we from the disappearing of people as happened under Juan and Eva Peron, Pinochet, Noriega, or Somoza?

I have been asked why I think government may be unnecessary and my stock response is to ask back what is the difference between the Government and the Mob? What is the difference between the Chicago Police and Al Capone's white fedoras? The answer is brutally simple, government agents can do things and the people of society will watch and cheer where if criminals do the same things the people of society resist, report and fight back. What makes this incident particularly grotesque is that a US Senator (nor any of his body guards) did not come to this citizen’s defense. The crowd did nothing.

How low the mighty have fallen.

The closest thing to resistance is a WOMAN yelling at the police to stop. How far are we from the blood of assassination staining the Senate steps and the august senator Kerry and his 99 brothers stepping over puddle to get to their offices?

We, as a society, are unworthy of the freedom granted to us by a loving creator.

March 9, 2005 Complaint to be Heard

2007-09-10T09:58:00.000-05:00

My March 9, 2005 complaint to the Wisconsin State Elections Board will be heard this Wednesday, September 12, 2007.

Here is the meeting notice on the WI SEB web site and here is the memorandum from the staff to the board members which explains the complaint and offers the staffs interpretation of the merits of the complaint and the staff's recommendations to the board on the disposition of the complaint.

The summary the complaint found on page 6 is succinct and correct.

I must object to the attempt to dismiss the complaint for lack of personal knowledge. The staff report states:

Predicating a complaint on “published reports” does not meet the personal knowledge standard. A complaint should be based on the personal knowledge of the complainant or of an affiant whose affidavit is the basis for the complaint.

But, the memorandum fails to note that I have no samples from the City of Milwaukee for the November 2, 2004 election, solely because the City Election Commission allowed me once to inspect the election records but never let me the copy the election records. Now that I have the November 2, 2004 election records I can bring in my summary of all 314 wards.

Complicating the complaint is the matter of the underlying election records. In the 30 months from the filing of this complaint to the hearing of this complaint, the records have been destroyed for 4 of the 5 elections cited in the complaint. The election records from the City of Milwaukee for the September 14, 2004 and February 15, 2005 elections have been destroyed. The election records for November 2, 2004 election for the villages of Germantown and Menomonee Falls have be destroyed. This is because I did not know enough at the time to demand a protective order for the records. Nor, did the staff of the Elections Board notify the three municipal clerks and 3 county clerks that the records were subject to a complaint and should be preserved pursuant to WI Stats 7.23(2) and subject to some other contest. Either of us could have asked for the preservation of the record, but neither of us did, so the records were destroyed when the 22 month retention period elapsed.

This should be an interesting meeting. Since, it seems I will alone against the legal counsel of the Board staff, and the 3 municipalities, I would ask you to pray on my behalf for wisdom, discernment, and a temperate tongue.

Follow-up on Ward One

2007-09-07T14:22:00.000-05:00

As I reported earlier and on BradBlog.com, the election records for ward one did not reconcile and the signatures are certainly suspicious.

I contacted the office of the Milwaukee County Distric Attorney for a progress report. The answer was simple: "The investigation is ongoing."

The Election Commission has Lost 42 poll books

2007-09-07T13:18:00.000-05:00

The Milwaukee City Election Commission has lost 42 poll books out of a total of 624. This is 6% or about 1 in 15 poll books have gone missing.

The most distressing part is that the Milwaukee City Election Commission does not know when the poll books went missing.

Nobody knows. No inventory records were kept.

There are no records of the poll books having been returned by poll workers to the election commission on the night of November 2, 2004. There is no record of which original election records were donated by the Election Commission to the Joint Task Force. The Commission did not demand nor did the Joint Task force offer a receipt of the records transfered.

All that is known is that sometime between 7:00 am on November 2, 2004 and July 10, 2007, one in fifteen poll books, official election records, have disappeared.

WI SEB Complaint Filed Regarding Donating of November 2, 2004 Election Records

2007-09-07T13:05:00.000-05:00

On August 29, 2007 I filed a complaint with the Wisconsin State Elections Board against Sharon Robinson, Interim Executive Director of the City of Milwaukee Election Commission and the three Milwaukee Election Commissioners at the time: Allen E. Campos, Victoria Toliver, and Edward Schultz.

You can read the complaint, my affidavit, and the supporting exhibits.

The summary of the complaint is that contrary to popular myth, the November 2, 2004 election records were NOT confiscated by the Joint Task Force between the US Attorney of Eastern Wisconsin and the Milwaukee County District Attorney. Contrary to Wisconsin State Election law (WI Stats. 7.24)the records were transfered voluntarily by the City of Milwaukee Election Commission to the joint task force.

The state law requires the Election Commission to do the same thing as a private citizen with a fiduciary to retain the records must do when when a DA or US attorney demands to search or seize records. Both the citizen and the commission are required to answer: "Yes, you may have the records as soon as you show me a warrant signed by a judge." The Election Commission violated state election law by not demanding such a warrant or judicial order.

Aside from this significant statutory violation, there is a far more obnoxious aspect to this voluntary donation of records.

For two and a half years the City Election Commission has denied public access to the November 2, 2004 election records based on the claim that the election records were confiscated by the Joint Task Force and thus out of the control of the Election Commission.

This was untrue.

Since the transfer from the Commission to the Joint task force was voluntary, the Election Commission could have demand access to the records at any time in order to make the copies requested by the public over the course of the last 27 months. The attorney who was copied on all of these false claims was Melanie Swank, Assistant Attorney for the City of Milwaukee. Ms. Swank has literally written the book on public records law. It is entitled: Wisconsin Public Records & Open Meetings Handbook. You would think the author of such a book would give her client, the Milwaukee Election Commission, better legal advice. But that is for her clients, city supervisors, and the Wisconsin Bar Association to sort out.

This donation of records by the City Election Commission with the Commission then claiming the public may not access the records could be a criminal violation of Wisconsin State Open Records law, but that is a decision for the Attorney General, J.B. Van Hollen, to make.

Milwaukee is still a Prosecution-Free Zone

2007-09-07T12:47:00.000-05:00

It's official. The Joint Task Force will not investigate election fraud in the City of Milwaukee committed during the November 2, 2004 election. More precisely no one on the task force will inform the taxpayers how the time on a 30 month "investigation" was ~~wasted~~ spent. There will be no final report explain the results of the continuing "investigation" promised in the preliminary findings published on May 10, 2005.

There will no description of how 40% percent of the ballots scanned by the optical scanner of Ward 192 have no record in the poll book as coming from an elector. No report of which election officials were or were not interviewed. There will be no report on how ward 192 at the French immersion Scholl has 640 extra ballots scanned by the machines, but the other two wards at the same location are only off by only 5 ballots and 1 ballot.

There will no report explaining the discrepancies in both wards of Riverside High school. There will no report explaining the discrepancies at Jericho Baptist Church. There will no report explaining the discrepancies found at Cass Street School or the Marquette Alumni Union.

There will be no report on which wards account for the 4606 extra ballots reported in the preliminary report. There will be no report on which election records were or were not examined to determine this total of 4606 extra ballots.

There will be no report on why the failure to create legally mandated election records such as poll books signature pages and inspectors’ reports has not resulted in prosecutions.

There will be no report on how 42 poll books have disappeared or whether the City of Milwaukee Elections Commission lost them or the 42 poll books were lost by the Joint task force. This is because when the City Election Commission illegally volunteered to give the original records of the November 2, 2004 election to the Joint task force, no one bothered to do an inventory of the records or create a receipt of the materials given to the Joint Task force. All is known at this time is sometime between 7:00 am November 2, 2004 and July 10, 2007 42 poll books disappeared.

According the office of the Milwaukee County District Attorney, it is not the responsibility of the Milwaukee County DA to produce a final report on 30 months of "investigation". According to Richard Frohling, assistant US attorney of Eastern Wisconsin, it is not the responsibility of the US attorney to account for 30 months of "investigation" with a final report either. Thus, both halves of the Joint Task Force claim there no one is responsible for writing a final report.

Milwaukee is still a prosecution-free zone for election fraud.

The task force will and has investigated and prosecuted voter fraud by individuals where each case created a single fraudulent vote. The task force will not investigate, prosecute, nor report on election frauds which stuff 4606 extra ballots in ballots boxes or investigate, prosecute, or report on the election officers who allowed it to happen.

But, if the joint task force should put out sweets and milk along with a stack of papers and if helpful brownies happen to write the final report, then rest assured, this brownie-produced final report will be published without delay.

February and November 2008 ought to be interesting as our reputation as a fraud-tolerant state increases and spreads across the country.

All 314 wards from November 2, 2004

2007-08-29T15:52:00.000-05:00

All 314 wards from November 2, 2004

I have finally completed my summary of the records for the 314 wards in the City of Milwaukee for the November 2, 2004 election. The completion of this task suffered because I was spending time on testing things my clients were paying me to test.

For those who want to see the details:
Here is the information sorted by Ward Number.
Here is the information sorted by Polling Location.
Here is the information sorted by Variance.

The variance is the absolute difference between number of ballots distributed according to the summary page of the poll list and number of total ballots scanned as reported on the machine tape.

A variance of +/-1 should be considered a proper reconciliation because the instructions in the election day manual are confusing. Entering the correct number, one less, or one more are all reasonable readings of the election day manual. With this forgiveness 74 wards tied out exactly (variance equals zero) and 32 more tied out with a variance of 1. This is a reconciliation rate of just under 1 in 3 (104 of 314).

If you expand the forgiveness factor to single digits then 207 of 314 or just under 2 out of 3 reconciled.

This means the reconciliation errors are found only 107 of the 314 wards of the city.

In most cases the larger differences were positive in that there were more ballots scanned according to the machine tape than were handed to electors according to the poll book. Several differences, such as at Jericho Baptist Church, were negative in that there were more ballots handed to electors according to the poll book than were scanned according to the machine tape.

In a couple of locations with multiple wards and one optical scanner, such as wards 84 and 89 located at the German Language Immersion School, the differences in two wards are offsetting. This would seem to indicate the voter was registered using the poll book for ward 84 but was actually given a ballot for ward 89.

There is probably a short story such as this for each location, so I will have to concentrate on the locations with the most serious reconciliation problems.

Here is the summary of the 25 Most Suspicious Polling Locations. A suspicious location is a location with a ward whose variance is one of the 25 largest variances found in the city. This list is sorted from most suspicious (largest variance) to least suspicious (smallest variance).

Ward 192 of the French Immersion School was the worst with 640 more ballots scanned by the machine than ballots handed to electors. What makes this ward stand out even more is that the other two wards located at the school (ward 194 and ward 195) reconciled very well by comparison to ward 192.

The second most suspicious location is Jericho Baptist Church. The poll books for the two wards located at the church (ward 297 and ward 314) clearly have the incorrect number recorded on the summary page. The explanation proffered to me was that the number on the poll book was the total number of ballots handed out for the whole location. This is unlikely because the number in the two sets of poll books are not the same. The poll book for ward 297 records 1117 ballots handed to electors, but the poll book for 314 records 1124 ballots handed to electors. Moreover, neither 1117 nor 1124 is equal to the number of ballots scanned by the machine for both wards combined. The optical scanner for the church records 1140 total ballots scanned which is either 16 ballots too many or 23 ballots too many.

The number three location for suspicious numbers is Riverside High School. In this location there is not even enough information contained in the incomplete records to know what happened at the two wards located here. I have been told that the election at Riverside High School was chaotic. Chaotic or not being off by 470 in the ballot counts is inexcusable. The high number of voters is not an excuse either. Ward 44 at Riverside had 1947 ballots scanned. Ward 39 at UWM Sandburg Hall had 2100 ballots scanned. Ward 37 at the Enderis Playground Field House had 1918 ballots scanned. Ward 44 at Riverside High School has a ballot stuffing variance of 470 ballots. Ward 39 and Ward 37 by contrast were off by only -2 (two ballots less in the machine than handed to electors). There was more going on at Riverside High School than high voter turnout.

My next step is to investigate the originals for the five or ten of the most suspicious locations listed.

ES&S could be fined $9.7M in CA

2007-08-22T10:04:00.000-05:00

According to the California Secretary of State and reported by Wired magazine and Brad blog it seems ES&S has sold uncertified voting systems to five counties in California.

As ES&S competitor, Diebold Election Systems, Inc. (now renamed Premier Election Systems), learned in 2003, selling uncertified systems in California is expensive. It cost DESI $2.6 million in fines and now ES&S faces $10 million in fines.

From the Wired article:

ES&S apparently sold about 1000 uncertified machines to San Francisco, Marin, Colusa, Solano and Merced counties. (The number of uncertified machines delivered to California was supplied by ES&S to the state; CA officials have yet to conduct their own inventory to determine if more machines are involved.)

More interesting to me are twosets of pictures from the Wired article.

The model tag on the outside of the unit clearly displays two different model numbers; A100-00 or A200-00. Also on the back of the machine is the NASED qualification tag which clearly shows both models are part of the same the NASED certified system; N-1-16-22-12-001.

The point of NASED system identification numbers is so that a voting machine manufacturer cannot "mix and match" system components and claim the new constellation of hardware and software is certified. State and local election officials rely on the list of system descriptions provided by NASED to know what specific constellation of hardware and software make up a certified and tested system.

The ES&S tags clearly misrepresent to CA officials that two constellations of hardware and software are covered by an identical NASED system ID.

The question for Wisconsin eleciton officials is:

Was the same misrepresentation perpetrated here in Wisconsin?
According the the Wisconsin State Elections Board, only Automark 100's (version 1.xx) are allowed here in Wisconsin. The largest pool of Automark ballot markers is 202 Automarks sold to the City of Milwaukee. By the Willie Sutton principle this is the logical place to start this investigation.