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  • 'Daily Voting News' For November 21, 2008

    The recount in Minnesota continues to dominate the news. Franken is inching closer to Coleman’s vote total but there are still a lot of votes to count and then a steadily growing number of challenged ballots that will have to be cussed and discussed. Also today we have news from Ohio where another close race, 15th Congressional District, may be decided by provisional ballots. Over 27,000 provisional ballots in Franklin Co were not going to be counted but a federal judge has stepped-in and ruled that at least 1,000 of those ballots must be counted and that will probably lead to a count of all of the ballots. Of course there is an appeal of this ruling so it will be another week at least before there is any final decision….

    **”Daily Voting News” is meant as a comprehensive listing of reports each day concerning issues related to election and voting news around the country regardless of quality or political slant. Therefore, items listed in “Daily Voting News” may not reflect the opinions of VotersUnite.Org or BradBlog.Com**

  • VIDEO: Citizens Oversee Election Day In Washington County, OR

    Guest Blogged by John Gideon, VotersUnite.Org

    A special hat-tip to citizen journalists K. Shawn Edgar and Shawn Waldow who produced and edited this piece and, of course, to the voters and staff of the Washington County, Oregon elections office.

  • GOP Obama Supporter Proposes Prop 8 Compromise: Civil Unions for All, Leave 'Marriage' to Churches

    Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

    The California Supreme court announced Wednesday that it will hear arguments challenging the constitutionality of Proposition 8, the anti-gay amendment that overturned the right of gay people to marry in the state.

    In May, the same court, which is composed of seven Republicans and one Democrat — who are all elected for 12-year terms — decided 4-3 to strike down a law banning same-sex marriage.

    The judges are being asked now to decide whether the constitution can be amended to make discrimination against a minority group legal, a move that directly violates the constitution’s “equal protection clause,” a foundational principle that instructs government to guarantee that all citizens enjoy the same rights — or whether a change to the equal protection clause should have been made through the constitutional “revision” process, which would have required a two-thirds vote by both houses of the legislature before going before the electorate as a ballot initiative.

    In a recent San Francisco Chronicle op-ed, Pepperdine law professor Douglas Kmeic, who served as a high official in the Reagan and Bush I Justice departments but who supported Barack Obama this year, laid out a compromise to the constitutional debacle brought on by the passage of Proposition 8 that puts the solution in the hands of California’s governor:

    Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger may well be a proximate cause of this breakdown … the Prop. 8 case should be settled, and there’s no one better to do it than our governor.

    After all, the governor has been on both sides of the same-sex marriage issue. Twice the governor was against gay marriage and twice the governor was for it.

    The governor told CNN that he hoped the state Supreme Court would overturn the people and Prop. 8. While there are some respectable legal arguments that the initiative does not meet the requirements of Article 18 of the state constitution, asking the court to invalidate Prop. 8 is a tall order. Properly, judges look for ways to avoid holding laws unconstitutional, and that is especially so when the law comes directly from the people.

    All that said, the case is too close to call because Prop. 8 did not directly address the portion of the state Supreme Court decision that declared sexual orientation to be a suspect classification requiring compelling justification and because there is federal precedent that decries singling out any vulnerable group for legal disadvantage. In short, neither side can be confident of victory, and that is the best kind of case for settlement.

    The governor should break the tie and free the judges from having to either set aside democracy or to uphold the decision of the people in a way that the governor and others would perceive as unequal treatment among his fellow Californians.

    The governor has administrative authority to have regulations issued interpreting family law, and nothing in Prop. 8 precludes him from ensuring that homosexual and heterosexual couples are treated equally under state law so long as he stays clear of “marriage.” This could be accomplished by limiting the state of California prospectively to the issuance of civil unions for all couples, rather than marriage licenses, leaving marriage, which in origin is predominantly a religious concept and not the real business of the state, to religion.

    To convince both sides to come to the table, the governor’s ruling should:

    – Eliminate any doubt as to the validity of same-sex marriages undertaken between the time of the Supreme Court’s judgment and the effective date of Prop. 8. This is only fair because the proposition did not clearly state that it would be retroactive. People are entitled to have confidence in the law as it exists today without having to anticipate how it might change.

    – Reaffirm the unfettered freedom of religions (not the state) to be either in favor or opposition to same-sex marriage as their doctrine teaches.

    Is this perfect? No. Better than waiting for the outcome of an uncertain case? Yes.

    Respectful of the dignity and equality of gay and straight citizen alike? It is intended to be so.

    Mindful of the tradition of religious freedom? I think it is.

    As Kmeic noted, Schwarzenegger could have prevented this entire debacle by not vetoing the legislation passed twice by both houses of the legislature that made gay marriage legal.

    So what are the chances Schwarzenegger would act on Kmeic’s proposal? His approval ratings are down into George Bush territory, around 34 percent. He is term-limited out of running for re-election, and it is doubtful he’ll run against Sen. Barbara Boxer in 2010, if for no other reason than the fact that he is temperamentally unsuited for the U.S. Senate. In short, Gov. Schwarzenegger’s political career is coming to an end, and he has very little to show for it, so swooping in to save the day would appear to be a good career move. On the other hand, he has already whiffed on two chances to go down in history as the man who resolved this landmark civil rights case, so there’s no reason to think he’ll take this back-door approach.

    And there is the additional issue of whether he should. Is converting all marriages in California to civil unions fair? Would these new universal civil unions be a separate but equal class from existing “traditional” marriages?

    Beyond fairness, is the Kmeic compromise even necessary? Prop 8 clearly violates the equal protection clause by amending the Constitution to restrict the rights of a minority group. As such, it should have started its path into law in the legislature as a constitutional revision, not as an initiative before voters. The chances are arguably better than even that the California Supreme Court will overturn Prop 8, if not on the merits then on procedural grounds.

    Meanwhile, anti-gay activists are threatening to recall California Supremes who vote to overturn Proposition 8. As noted, the court is dominated seven-to-one by Republicans, so a recall could target at least three GOP judges. Given the decidedly leftward trend among the California electorate since 1992, it is unlikely the recall would pass, but if it did, the vacancies could well be filled by Democrats.

  • Franken Gains on Coleman Again on Day 2 of U.S. Senate Race Hand Count in MN

    With just over 40% of the ballots in Minnesota’s U.S. Senate race between incumbent Republican Sen. Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken, the gap has now shrunk to just 129 votes at the end of the second day of counting.

    According to tonight’s update of the MN Secretary of State’s “recount” webpage, Coleman has so far lost a total of 212 votes and Franken has lost 126 during the counting. The net gain is 86 votes for Franken out of the original 215 vote advantage certified by the state for Coleman before counting began yesterday.

    The original numbers were based on the tabulations reported by the state’s faulty ES&S and Diebold optical-scanners. But today’s numbers may be equally misleading, for the moment, as there are some 360 ballots so far challenged by Coleman, and 374 by Franken, which will be judged later by the canvassing board. Those numbers are not included in today’s totals.

    Last night, after the first day’s counting with just over 15 percent of the ballots manually inspected across the state, Franken had a net gain of 43 votes. Today, with slightly over 40 percent counted, Franken’s net gain has exactly doubled that to 86 votes…

    Screenshot from tonight’s MN SoS “recount” page:

    In summary:

    AS OF DAY 1
    Coleman lost 70
    Franken lost 27
    Net gain: +43 for Franken
    Gap (as based on original, machine-tallied results): 172 for Coleman

    AS OF DAY 2
    Coleman Lost 212
    Franken Lost 126
    Net gain: +86 Franken
    Gap (as based on original, machine-tallied results): 129 for Coleman

    County-by-county & precinct-by-precinct results are available here.

    GOP Shame…

    Incredibly, the Republican National Senatorial Committee is still updating their shameful conspiracy theory website, which has claimed, since it was set up a week or so ago, that Franken and the Democrats are “stealing” the election. That, even though they offer no evidence for such claims, or evidence that embarrassingly turns out to be plain wrong (but brings no subsequent retraction or correction).

    Remember, this is an official Republican Party website making these claims!

    By way of a few of the latest examples, they post an item from someplace called The Skepticians by James Richardson which argues (without evidence):

    [Franken's] campaign is determined to win steal Minnesota’s senate seat by any means necessary

    And this from the pathetic and shameless — and also evidence-free — tin-foil hatter, John Hinderaker of PowerLine, who avers:

    The real problem in our elections, of course, is not the tiny handful of ballots that might be rejected incorrectly, it is the much larger number that are cast illegally. This year, around 25 percent of all the ballots cast in Hennepin County, where Minneapolis is located, were by voters who registered at the polls. No one will ever know how many of those votes were illegally cast by illegal aliens, felons, non-Minnesota residents, or people who also voted in other precincts or other states-both of which are absurdly easy to do. No doubt, Al Franken benefited from thousands of illegally cast votes. But there is no way to connect a particular ballot with a specific illegal voter, so it is hard to see how these illegalities can ever be remedied. Many people fear that Al Franken will steal the election in the recount process, but I think it’s much more likely that he stole it on November 4.

    And it again bears repeating: This is an official blog site of the Republican National Party!

    UPDATE: Given how close this race could end up being if these same numbers hold up, we suspect whichever party that turns out to be the loser of the hand count may want to revisit the advice we offered a week or so ago on what is needed to try to ensure an accurate reconcialition of the final numbers.

    For one, we’ve recommended public records requests for the invoices of printed ballots to determine how many were actually printed. Then, we’d strongly recommend a full count of unvoted ballots. The total number of voted, spoiled and unvoted ballots should be exactly the same as the number originally printed, as seen on those invoices. If not, someone has some ’splainin’ to do.

    We’d also strongly recommend, among other things, an immediate court order to lock-down the op-scan memory cards and hard drives for 22 months, as per the federal statute requiring all such materials from elections be retained for that full period. Unfortunately, memory cards and the like are routinely erased by election officials, incredibly enough. They shouldn’t be. For reasons I’ve explained previously.

    More such advice here, good for any and all parties who wish to try and ensure the most accurate count possible.

    As long promised, The BRAD BLOG has covered your electoral system 2008, fiercely and independently, like no other media outlet in the nation. Please support our work with a donation to help us keep going. If you like, we’ll send you some great, award-winning election integrity documentary films in return! Details on that right here…

  • 'Daily Voting News' For November 20, 2008

    For those of you who are closely watching the Minnesota senatorial recount there is a live blog that is dedicated to reports from the ground in the state. You can go here and keep up-to-date….

    **”Daily Voting News” is meant as a comprehensive listing of reports each day concerning issues related to election and voting news around the country regardless of quality or political slant. Therefore, items listed in “Daily Voting News” may not reflect the opinions of VotersUnite.Org or BradBlog.Com**

  • Napalitono's Move to the Obama Administration Would be a Nightmare Come True for AZ Voters

    Nothing against Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano (D), but moving her to head of Homeland Security in the Obama Administration would be an enormous mistake, at least for the voters of Arizona who would be stuck with the horrible Sec. of State Jan Brewer (R) as Governor.

    AZ has no Lieutenant Governor, so the rightwing loon Brewer — one of the worst Secretaries of State in the nation — would take the helm and serve as Sarah Palin to the state’s slim Republican majority in the legislature should Napolitano take over at DHS as has been reported.

    While turning the Governorship from Democratic to Republican before the important 2010 Congressional re-apportionment elections, in a battleground state like AZ — and yes, it’s a battleground state — is bad enough, that’s just one part of what makes installing Brewer as Governor such a horrible idea…

    For just a small idea of how poorly Brewer has served her voters, we’ll note first that she had the responsibility for overseeing a transparent, fair, and accurate Presidential Election for all AZ citizens this year, yet she had no problem standing on the floor of the Republican Convention in St. Paul to proudly announce the state delegation’s vote for John McCain, putting him “over the top” to be the party’s nominee.

    That display of utter disregard for the importance of even the appearance of impartiality for a Sec. of State was an outrageous slap in the face to all of Arizona’s voters.

    But it doesn’t stop there. Brewer signed the contract (see an incredible video here) to bring unverifiable Diebold touch-screen voting systems into the state, long after they had been shown by computer scientists and security experts to be inaccurate, unreliable, and easily tampered with. She has been aggressively opposed to virtually every move towards transparency and citizen oversight in her state’s elections, in favor of purges and restrictions against legal voters at the polls, and even went as far as to publicly call her own citizens who spoke up against her embrace of the use of unverifiable Diebold voting machines “anarchists” and “conspiracy theorists.”

    She and her office have also blatantly lied to their citizens about their voting machines, and subsequently were so cowardly that they even refused to discuss the issue on air with us, in a setting friendly to them (because they know we would have called them on those lies).

    She is horrible. No matter how wonderful Napolitano might be in the role of DHS — and we’ve got no opinion on that either way — the citizens of Arizona, many of whom fought like hell for the election of Barrack Obama, even in John McCain’s home state, do not deserve what they would be left with back home if she went to Washington.

    The BRAD BLOG votes a clear, transparent, and verifiable NO on Napolitano’s move to DHS, and NO to Jan Brewer for AZ Governor in the bargain.

  • Counting Minnesota & Watching the Watchers

    We’ve predicted since Election Day that Al Franken’s chances of winning the U.S. Senate seat in Minnesota are excellent. News tonight, out of the state where a manual count of the paper ballots began today, may already be bearing out that prediction, though it’s far too early to know for sure. Franken, so far, has gained about 30 votes on the incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman on the first day of counting, bring the gap between the two to just 172 votes.

    The race was previously determined, by the faulty and easily manipulated ES&S and Diebold ballot-scanning machines initially used to tabulate the paper ballots, to have given an edge of little more than 200 votes in favor of Coleman, out of nearly 3 million ballots cast.

    That hasn’t stopped Coleman from desperately and prematurely declaring “victory” — hey, it worked for Dubya in 2000, and he was able to successfully take that to the Supreme Court, after all! — nor has it kept the GOP conspiracy theorists and potential sore-losers from declaring all manner of unsubstantiated claims of “fraud” and attempts to “steal the election.”

    But as the hand count moves slowly forward — and as I may be “off the grid,” or otherwise unable to keep up with every beat as quickly as usual over the next several weeks — I’d ask that you folks keep a very close eye on a very important point likely to reveal itself (to those who pay attention) during this count…

    Back during the election contest hand-counts following this year’s New Hampshire Primary, officials in the state carried off some misleading sleight-of-hand that the mainstream corporate media were all too happy (and lazy) to report repeat to readers. The scam worked like this:

    If two precincts, for example, were hand-counted and in one it was found that Hillary Clinton actually had 10 more votes than the Diebold machines originally reported, and in the other Barrack Obama was found to have had 11 more votes than originally reported, state officials (and the lazy media) would report that: “Today’s recount found little change in the results, with Barrack Obama picking up just a single vote against Hillary Clinton.”

    In truth, 21 votes had been miscounted in that scenario, but to officials and the public, it would become a nearly perfect count, off by only a single vote. Had Obama gained 10 instead of 11 in that scenario, the media would have said “the hand count has revealed no errors from the original machine count.”

    Misleading and deceptive? Of course. Please watch for that happening in MN. The machine miscounts in NH revealed, even in the limited number of ballots hand-counted there, an enormous error-rate, well in excess of that allowable by federal law. But it was downplayed because some of the miscounts “evened each other out” and because states have a great self-interest in making their election systems look as good as possible to the public, no matter how bad they may be.

    You can help counter that nonsense, if you pay close attention.

    Today’s numbers…

    “The scoreboard reads 0-0 with 2.9 million to go,” Franken attorney Marc Elias correctly noted before today’s hand-count began.

    “We do not know the winner…until the completion of the process,” said MN’s Sec. of State Mark Ritchie.

    They were both correct, unlike Coleman, who had already declared victory. “The only person who has declared Norm Coleman the winner of anything is Norm Coleman,” Franken spokesman Andy Barr noted, as reported in MinnPost.com’s excellent coverage of today’s proceedings.

    The Minnesota Independent reported tonight’s results, noting Franken’s gains, after the first day of counting:

    Al Franken closed his vote count gap with incumbent Norm Coleman to 172 on Wednesday, the first day of Minnesota’s statewide U.S. Senate election recount. Both candidates lost votes as officials recounted by hand slightly more than 15 percent of 2.9 million ballots cast â€" but Coleman lost 70 and Franken only 27.

    As mentioned above, the numbers “lost” by both candidates is somewhat misleading, e.g., the Independent went on to report that “Hennepin County’s manual recount of barely more than 1 percent of ballots cast had Coleman losing seven votes and Franken gaining one.”

    In truth, a quick look tonight at the tiny number of ballots counted in Hennepin today show that Coleman actually lost seven votes, while Franken gained two but lost one from the original machine tally:

    That’s a very minor example of what I was mentioning above, on a very small number of ballots, but you get the idea. I can’t comb through the numbers right now to search for more egregious examples, but I welcome you to do so. Each day’s manual count numbers will be available after 8pm CT via this link.

    The Fraud Fraudsters…

    Finally, tonight, by way of preempting the cries of “voter fraud” that will come from the GOP when/if their man falls behind in the count (they are already making such cries, but expect them to become increasingly louder and even more obnoxious), the Star-Tribune offers an excellent editorial today that begins this way:

    Accusations about improper election procedures have been hurled with abandon by combatants in Minnesota’s U.S. Senate battle, which enters its recount phase today. But it’s worth noting that neither the Al Franken nor Norm Coleman camps has accused election officials of allowing significant numbers of ineligible people to vote. The two campaigns’ close scrutiny of events on Nov. 4 apparently has found nothing notably defective in either the voter registration or sign-in that occurred at the polls.

    That’s the way it has been in every election since Minnesota began allowing voters to register at the polls in 1973. Ramsey County elections manager Joe Mansky said that, in his 24 years as a state and county elections administrator, the number of cases of orchestrated group efforts to subvert the law by registering improperly or voting multiple times has been “exactly zero.”

    Imagine that, voters get to register at the polls on Election Day and there are “exactly zero” examples of improprieties. By all means, let’s not do that in the rest of the country any time soon!

    As long promised, The BRAD BLOG has covered your electoral system 2008, fiercely and independently, like no other media outlet in the nation. Please support our work with a donation to help us keep going. If you like, we’ll send you some great, award-winning election integrity documentary films in return! Details on that right here…

  • Stealing Georgia - Let's Hope Not Again

    Guest Blogged by Katherine Forrest of The Commonweal Institute

    Why Georgia? There’s strongly suggestive evidence that the 2002 senatorial election in Georgia was stolen. That was the first election in which Diebold DRE (Direct Recording Electronic, usually touch-screen) voting machines were used statewide. Republican Saxby Chambliss beat front runner Democrat Max Cleland, with an astounding 12-point reversal of the vote count compared to pre-election polls. A last-minute “patch” had been applied covertly by Diebold staff to multiple voting machines throughout the state.

    Now the Senate race hangs in the balance in Georgia again…

    Incumbent Saxby Chambliss is facing a strong Democratic challenger, Democrat Jim Martin, in a run-off election on December 2. And guess what–Georgians still vote on Premier Election Systems (the new name for Diebold) DRE voting machines without even a voter verifiable paper audit trail.

    This race affects the whole country, not just Georgia. Democrats are seeking a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate so they’ll be able to pass legislation to correct some of the disasters of the past eight years. As of today, they hold 58 of the 60 seats needed. This makes the upcoming Georgia and still-undecided Minnesota races critical.

    It’s time for America to wake up. In a democracy, citizens’ ultimate power–our only true power–lies in our ability to vote, and have our votes counted correctly. We don’t only vote for those we might like to have lead us, we also vote OUT of office those who are not serving the needs of the people.

    One of the top priorities for the next Congress and the incoming administration should be to sort out this voting mess once and for all. No more unverifiable DREs. No more blocking citizen observers from the vote tallying process. No elections without automatic audits of a substantial percentage of the ballots. No more outsourcing our elections to corporations. No more disenfranchisement, caging, and other tricks to keep citizens from voting. We’re supposed to be the leading democracy in the world, a model for others; let’s make that more than wishful thinking.

    And in the meantime, keep your fingers crossed that Georgia won’t be stolen again.

    Cross-postedat The Commonweal Institute Blog

  • 'Daily Voting News' For November 19, 2008

    We have another report today from Connecticut and the UConn memory card tests that are done in that state regularly. These are Premier/Diebold memory cards and 9% of the cards inspected failed for various reasons including that some contained additional random data.

    The recount of ballots for the Senator from Minnesota has begun. Already some new numbers are coming from at least one county. And in Alaska the decision seems to have been made and the voters have been heard. That leaves Georgia where early voting has begun….

    **”Daily Voting News” is meant as a comprehensive listing of reports each day concerning issues related to election and voting news around the country regardless of quality or political slant. Therefore, items listed in “Daily Voting News” may not reflect the opinions of VotersUnite.Org or BradBlog.Com**

  • BRAD BLOG Status Update…

    A combination of factors, which I can get into at another time (but which include a still-very sore wrist that I’ve had to wrestle with over the last several months, despite doctor’s orders, while trying to keep up with a helluva busy election season), has forced me to slow down a bit on this end over the last several days, while allowing time for a few more guest voices here in the bargain.

    I thank you for your patience and understanding as I continue to tread water and do my best to chew well so much that I’ve bitten off over the last several years (much of which takes a while before it makes its way onto these pages) and offer an early heads-up that I am going to try to take a bit more down time — in hopes of allowing my wrist to heal a bit, my brain to heal a bit, my body to catch up with some rest, my family to actually see me for a minute or two, as well as a number of other well-worth-it super-secret projects which require some time and attention — over the next month or two (or even three if I can get away with it) during and after the holidays.

    My hope is to bring on a few more guest contributors here to allow me some of that time. If I’m lucky, I’ll be able to spend some much needed hours away from the blog in the bargain, though not immediately and certainly not indefinitedly. So, with much still on the plate, I’m still right here, and have much more to come (even today, on a number of important items, if I can catch up, with a TV taping scheduled for mid-afternoon to keep me further behind-schedule). But I just wanted to offer a quick status report, and explain why I’ve been a bit slower than I’d like in keeping up with a lot that continues to roll over the last several days in a number of places (AK, MN, and GA, to name just a few of them).

    Hopefully, you haven’t much noticed. But either way, as mentioned, thanks again for your patience and understanding, and for your support over so many months and years. I’ll do my best to keep you all up to date on the above as things move forward, of course, and hope, in the meantime, you’ll keep The BRAD BLOG high your list of daily must-reads in the ever-growing blogosphere…

  • 'Daily Voting News' For November 18, 2008

    Early voting has begun in Georgia for the senate re-election with election day on Dec. 2. By the time DVN is sent tonight nearly all of the final votes should be counted in Alaska and there should be an announcement as to who won that race. Begich was ahead of Stevens by 2,374 at last report. Will there be a recount? Re-election? In Minnesota Sen. Coleman was declared the winner of the original vote count and that recount has been audited. Now the state is going into a period of 100% hand recount. The results of that recount won’t be presented to the State Canvassing Board until Dec. 5 and the final results will be announced by the board on Dec. 19….

    **”Daily Voting News” is meant as a comprehensive listing of reports each day concerning issues related to election and voting news around the country regardless of quality or political slant. Therefore, items listed in “Daily Voting News” may not reflect the opinions of VotersUnite.Org or BradBlog.Com**

  • (Updated) AP: STEVENS LOSES AK SENATE RACE

    UPDATE: AP calls race for Begich…

    Mark Begich, the Democratic Anchorage mayor, has defeated Sen. Ted Stevens in a closely contested, see-saw race for the United States Senate, according to Associated Press projections.

    The Division of Elections has almost concluded an initial count of absentee, early in-person and questioned ballots Tuesday. That, coupled with the numbers culled from Election Day, gave Begich a 3,724-vote lead over Stevens, the 40-year Republican incumbent, with about 2,500 ballots left to count.

    Earlier tonight from Bloomberg:

    Democratic challenger Mark Begich extended his lead over Alaska Senator Ted Stevens with about 10,000 ballots still to be counted, according to the state’s elections division.

    Begich now leads by 2,374 votes as the remaining ballots are tallied from the Nov. 4 election, according to division Director Gail Fenumiai. Officials said they may complete counting about 7,700 absentee ballots today with another 2,500 ballots from military families overseas yet to arrive.

    Republicans in the Senate postponed their vote today to consider removing the felonious Stevens’ committee assignments, since indications are that he’s going to lose anyway at this point. Plus, it was his 85th birthday.

    But he’s not deterred. According to AP, “Stevens revealed that he will not ask President George W. Bush to give him a pardon for his seven felony convictions.”

    And Bloomberg says, in regard to his re-election prospects at this point, that he told reporters: “I still have faith I’m going to win.”

    Ready for a recount, Ted? (Actually a count, since all of the ballots have only been tabulated by faulty Diebold op-scanners at this point.) If so, we’re happy to help.

    UPDATE 11/20/08: Unfortunately, Uncle Ted concedes. We would have welcomed that recount. Instead, we’ll just have to be content this time with the end of an era. From Seattle Times:

    Sen. Ted Stevens conceded the election for U.S. Senate to Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich on Wednesday, bringing to an end his 40 years as the dominant force in Alaska politics and the longest-serving Republican in Senate history.

    Stevens’ office issued a written statement congratulating Begich, a Democrat who ran as a change candidate in the face of federal ethics charges against the man many Alaskans call “Uncle Ted.”

    “Given the number of ballots that remain to be counted, it is apparent the election has been decided and Mayor Begich has been elected. My family and I wish to thank the thousands of Alaskans who stood by us and who supported my re-election,” said Stevens, 85.

    As long promised, The BRAD BLOG has covered your electoral system 2008, fiercely and independently, like no other media outlet in the nation. Please support our work with a donation to help us keep going. If you like, we’ll send you some great, award-winning election integrity documentary films in return! Details on that right here…

  • Electoral History Puts Palin's 2012 Chances Somewhere Between Slim and None

    Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

    Within hours after Election Day 2008 was over, the punditocracy had moved on to speculation about 2012 and the political future of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee, whom many conservatives consider to be the next GOP frontrunner.

    If history is a guide, however, chances are next to nil that Palin will survive the primaries in four years, and even if she does, her odds of winning the presidency are even slimmer. In fact, based on past performances of losing vice presidential nominees over the last 180 years (see chart below), Sarah Palin’s chances of becoming president at any point in the future are 45 to 1, at best.

    It is not uncommon for losing vice presidential nominees to run for the big job, of course. Most recently John Edwards (who lost with John Kerry in 2004) and Joe Lieberman (Gore, 2000) have run unsuccessful primary campaigns. In the 2000 election, former Vice Pres. Dan Quayle, whose ticket with the senior Pres. Bush was defeated by Bill Clinton in 1992, briefly ran against George W. Bush and John McCain in the GOP primaries.

    Other losing vice presidential nominees who later ran but failed to be nominated include Democrat Edmund Muskie, who lost to Richard Nixon on the ticket with Vice Pres. Hubert Humphrey in 1968; Republican Earl Warren, the former California governor and eventual Supreme Court chief justice, who ran with Thomas E. Dewey against Pres. Harry Truman, who won reelection in 1948; and Nicholas M. Butler, running mate to GOP Pres. William H. Taft, who lost to Woodrow Wilson in 1912.

    Muskie ran in the primaries in 1972. Warren’s name was floated as a rival to Dwight Eisenhower in 1952, and Butler ran unsuccessfully for the nomination in 1920 and 1928.

    In fact, in the last 45 cycles, only three losing V.P. nominees have gone on to lead tickets. Vice Pres. Walter Mondale, who, with Pres. Jimmy Carter, lost to Ronald Reagan in 1980, lost again to Reagan in 1984. And Bob Dole, who ran in 1976 on the losing ticket with Pres. Gerald Ford, led the ticket in 1996 that lost to Pres. Bill Clinton.

    The only successful candidate in the group was Franklin Roosevelt, who was on the losing ticket in 1920 with James M. Cox, a Democrat, who ran against Warren G. Harding. Twelve years later, Roosevelt won the presidency against Herbert Hoover, and went on to serve four terms.

    (Prior to 1828, the electoral process and political party system was so different from today that results are statistically useless for this analysis. See this description of the 1824 race, for example, in which Andrew Jackson ran for president on one ticket and for vice president on another. And in the earliest elections, the presidential candidate who get the second largest number of votes became vice president.)

    Past Performance of Failed Vice Presidential Nominees

    LEGEND
    * Losing VP who became nominee and won the presidency
    ** Losing VPs who became nominees but lost elections
    *** Losing VPs who ran for president but lost in primaries
    YEAR   WINNER PRES. LOSER VP LOSER
    2008 Barack Obama John McCain Sarah Palin (GOP)
    2004 Pres. George Bush John Kerry John Edwards *** (Dem)
    2000 George Bush Al Gore Joe Lieberman *** (Dem)
    1996 Pres. Bill Clinton Bob Dole Jack Kemp (GOP)
    1992 Bill Clinton Pres. George Bush V.P. Dan Quayle *** (GOP)
    1988 V.P. George Bush Michael Dukkakis Lloyd Bentsen (Dem)
    1984 Pres. Ronald Reagan Fmr. VP Walter Mondale Geraldine A. Ferraro (Dem)
    1980 Ronald Reagan Pres. Jimmy Carter VP Walter F. Mondale** (Dem)
    1976 Jimmy Carter Pres. Gerald Ford Bob Dole** (GOP)
    1972 Pres. Richard Nixon George McGovern Sargent Shriver (Dem)
    1968 Richard Nixon V.P. Hubert Humphrey Edmund Muskie *** (Dem)
    1964 Pres. Lyndon Johnson Barry M. Goldwater William E. Miller (GOP)
    1960 John F. Kennedy Fmr. VP Richard Nixon Henry Cabot Lodge (GOP)
    1956 Pres. Dwight Eisenhower Adlai Stevenson II Estes Kefauver (Dem)
    1952 Dwight Eisenhower Adlai Stevenson II John J. Sparkman (Dem)
    1948 Pres. Harry Truman Thomas E. Dewey Earl Warren *** (GOP)
    1944 Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt Thomas E. Dewey John W. Bricker (GOP)
    1940 Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt Wendell L. Willkie Charles L. McNary (GOP)
    1936 Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt Alfred M. Landon Frank Knox (GOP)
    1932 Franklin D. Roosevelt Pres. Herbert Hoover VP Charles Curtis (GOP)
    1928 Herbert Hoover Alfred E. Smith Joseph T. Robinson (Dem)
    1924 Calvin Coolidge John W. Davis Charles W. Bryan (Dem)
    1920 Warren G. Harding James M. Cox Franklin D. Roosevelt (Dem) *
    1916 Pres. Woodrow Wilson Charles E. Hughes Fmr. VP Charles W. Fairbanks (GOP)
    1912 Woodrow Wilson Pres. William H. Taft Nicholas M. Butler *** (GOP)
    1908 William H. Taft William Jennings Bryan John W. Kern (Dem)
    1904 Theodore Roosevelt Alton B. Parker Henry G. Davis (Dem)
    1900 Pres. William McKinley William Jennings Bryan

    		 Fmr. VP Adlai Stevenson I (Dem)
    1896 William McKinley William Jennings Bryan Arthur Sewall (Dem)
    1892 Fmr. Pres. Grover Cleveland Pres. Benjamin Harrison Whitelaw Reid (GOP)
    1888 Benjamin Harrison Pres. Grover Cleveland A. G. Thurman (Dem)
    1884 Grover Cleveland James G. Blaine John A. Logan (GOP)
    1880 James A. Garfield Winfield S. Hancock William H. English (Dem)
    1876 Rutherford B. Hayes Samuel J. Tilden Thomas A. Hendricks (GOP)
    1872 Pres. Ulysses S. Grant Horace Greeley B. Gratz Brown (GOP)
    1868 Ulysses S. Grant Horatio Seymour Francis P. Blair, Jr. (GOP)
    1864 Pres. Abraham Lincoln George McClellan G.H. Pendleton (Dem)
    1860 Abraham Linclon John C. Breckinridge Joseph Lane (Dem)
    1856 James Buchanan John C. Fremont William L. Dayton (GOP)
    1852 Franklin Pierce Winfield Scott William A. Graham (Whig)
    1848 Zachary Taylor Lewis Cass William O. Butler (Dem)
    1844 James K. Polk Henry Clay Theo. Frelinghuysen (Whig)
    1840 William H. Harrison Pres. Martin Van Buren VP Richard M. Johnson (Dem)
    1836 VP Martin Van Buren William H. Harrison Francis Granger (Whig)
    1832 Pres. Andrew Jackson Henry Clay John Sergeant (Nat. Rep.)
    1828 Andrew Jackson Pres. John Quincy Adams Richard Rush (Nat. Rep.)

    Bonus trivia factoid: The daughters of two losing vice presidential nominees are nationally known Californians today. Maria Shriver, the former NBC News reporter who is married to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, is the daughter of Sargent Shriver, the Democrat who lost to Richard Nixon on the ticket with George McGovern in 1972. And Stephanie Miller, the comedian and Los Angeles-based liberal radio talker — it was she who first called Palin “Caribou Barbie” — is the daughter of William Miller, who lost with Republican Barry Goldwater to Pres. Lyndon Johnson in 1964.

  • The Sacrament of Democracy

    Guest blogged by Shannyn Moore

    ANCHORAGE - If democracy were a religion, voting would be the sacrament.

    I grew up in what I call “The First Free-Range Organic Christian Church of Homer.” Sundays brought a message, fellowship, and a line of repentant souls taking communion-a remembrance of sacrifice.

    The first time I cast my vote, it struck me as similar. The blood shed for my right to stand at a flag draped table and make my choice part of the collective wasn’t lost on me. I had one of those “Come to Jesus” moments and in 20 years I haven’t missed an opportunity to vote. Unlike Christ, the idea of democracy has never shed a drop of blood; patriots did. The same cannot be said of the suffragettes. Unlike the sacrament celebrated in religious ritual, elections should not be faith-based. The framers never intended our government to be run on trust; hence the myriad of checks and balances. “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”

    Election integrity is not about restoring faith in the system. Checks and balances are…

    When we vote, the agreement we all make is we cast our ballots for candidates who may not be the victor. We know that. Taking the risk of voting for a loser only works if you have confidence the process is beyond reproach. It is equally vital the winning candidate have an agreement the citizenry will follow their lead. Leadership can only be ordained if the people know their votes counted.

    The past eight years have shown us the result of questioned elections. After election disasters in Florida and Ohio, a good portion of the country didn’t agree George W. Bush was legitimate. I know people who refused to call him President Bush because of the suspected election fraud.

    Alaska has a rich history of questionable elections. 2008 has been no different. Anomalies prompt people to scratch their heads and watch just a little closer. From some reactions, you would have thought asking a question was “unpatriotic.” After reporting on the 2004 Election tampering, and knowing full well it was questionable, I wondered what this year’s ballots would tell us. Apparently, Alaskans have completely changed their “voting habits” to include: a mail-in preference, cross-ballot voting, and finally, registering to vote and then not showing up. Alaska headlines are screaming “record turnout!” But in truth, our percentage of voter turnout is still lower than our average historical Presidential election records show. So what? Does that mean we shouldn’t ask questions and get answers about reconciliation? As Americans we pledge to hold our leaders accountable; why wouldn’t we start by holding the process of elections to the highest levels of integrity.

    The day after the election I was in contact with both the Begich and Berkowitz campaigns. I’ve been in very close contact with the Alaska Democratic Party which has filed Public Records Requests. Experts from around the country are more than happy to answer questions or to mull over possible explanations to the election anomalies. People much smarter than I are paying attention, and are asking their own questions. A reporter I’ve bumped into for several years called today. He wanted to know if I thought the current vote count in Alaska was still “stinky.” Another local asked if I thought the process was now legitimized since Begich was now leading Stevens. ARE YOU SERIOUS??? That my questions would hinge on partisanship is insulting and indicates a complete lack of understanding. Anyone who thinks we don’t need a more transparent election process because their candidate is in the lead is a pathetic partisan hack. I became a voter registrar in February of this year. To want to count only votes cast for my party of choice is vulgar. Not watching the referee calls when your team is winning is to invalidate the game.

    So do I still smell the mudflats? Yes. Do I know what the source of stench is? No. Could it be the late wafts coming off the 2004 election? Possibly. What I know most certainly is this: voting is a sacred right; a remembrance of those who fought hard and shed blood for a bulletproof idea. Guarding the integrity of elections is essential to our democracy and anything less is blasphemy.

    Show up. Ask questions.

    Every vote counts.

    ===

    Shannyn Moore is a Native Alaskan and a top rated progressive broadcaster based in Anchorage, Alaska. Shannyn blogs at ShannynMoore.wordpress.com and Huffington Post.

    As long promised, The BRAD BLOG has covered your electoral system 2008, fiercely and independently, like no other media outlet in the nation. Please support our work with a donation to help us keep going. If you like, we’ll send you some great election integrity documentary films in return. Details on that right here…

  • VIDEO: Ashton Kutcher On a Wednesday Election Holiday

    During a discussion on last Friday’s Real Time w/ Bill Maher on HBO, the topic of electoral reform came up. There were the usual discussions of electoral college concerns, primaries vs. caucuses, and then Ashton Kutcher broke in with a point that may well signal he’s a reader of The BRAD BLOG, as I believe we were the first (only?) to call for Wednesday as a national election/voting holiday, for the precise reasons that Kutcher points out in the following video clip (appx 1 minute)…

    Hey, Ashton! Drop us a line! Given the above, as well as other comments you made on last Friday’s show (one of them we posted earlier here), we’d be delighted to make you our first official BRAD BLOG Celebrity Ambassador At-Large! No, seriously. We could use one.

    For the record, we most recently wrote about Wednesday as a national election holiday in our piece last week warning about the dangers of the increasing move towards the bad idea of “Vote-by-Mail” elections. Quoth yours truly at the time:

    [M]aking Election Day a holiday would ease the crush of voters turning out at once (at poll opening before work, during work lunch hour, or after the work day). Though I’d recommend changing Election Day to a Wednesday when making it a holiday, so that a Tuesday holiday doesn’t simply turn into a long out of town 4-day holiday weekend for many.

    BTW, while we fully support making Wednesday an official national Election holiday, for the reasons Kutcher describes (and a few more), such a move would likely require a Constitutional amendment, unfortunately. But we could use one anyway for that electoral reform and a number of others (e.g., Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.’s amendment to ensure a Constitutional “right to vote,” as well as making it a felony offense to deny even one voter that right, as originally advocated by the legendary Leon County, FL, Supervisor of Elections, Ion Sancho.)

    Kutcher’s quick comments on this topic are transcribed in full below…

    KUTCHER: How about let’s just start with one small thing, right? Let’s just let people have the day off on the day that they vote. [applause] And with that, let’s make it a Wednesday. Right? Because if you put it on Friday, people are gonna make it a three-day weekend, and you’re just gonna have more absentee ballots. If you put it on Monday, people are gonna take the three…Make it a Wednesday. Call it Colombus Day or whatever you want to call it…

    MAHER: Hump Day!

    KUTCHER: …or whatever, we invented a holiday for him…

    MAHER: It’s Hump Day already!

    KUTCHER: Make it Hump Day, make it Election Wednesday, so people don’t take the vacations and they aren’t out of their election places on the day that we do the free election vote. [applause]

    As long promised, The BRAD BLOG has covered your electoral system 2008, fiercely and independently, like no other media outlet in the nation. Please support our work with a donation to help us keep going. If you like, we’ll send you some great, award-winning election integrity documentary films in return! Details on that right here…

Posted by Administrator at 4:04 pm, July 21, 2006
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