Brief notes (updated)

Overseas. Americans and Ukrainians are not the only ones crying electoral foul. A member of the Green party in Belgium outlines the argument in favor of vote tampering in his country. He blames the CIA. Not sure if I can follow his reasoning, but the piece is still worth a read.

Madsen: I am now told that the mysterious Mr. Horn is not a source, at least not a primary source, for Madsen's work. But according to a correspondent who has also posted here, the check is definitely a "decoy."

Ohio: Apparently, it went well. One source says 1500 people showed up, although the AP report puts the number as 400. "I would like to welcome you to the Ukraine," said an organizer.

This page has a couple of fine graphics explaining how black neighborhoods in Ohio received far fewer voting machines. I'm not sure we really need any further evidence to justify a revote.

Remember those precincts where the third party candidates received a ridiculous number of votes at Kerry's expense? This page on Kos has all the details.

The deadline for a recount in Ohio may be December 7, not December 13 -- apparently, Bush v. Gore stipulated that a recount must take place six days before the electors meet. Which means that Blackwell already has succeeded in his sneaky attempt to run out the clock.

However, some have bruited about the possibility that a lawsuit could seek a temporary restraining order delaying to meeting of the electoral college. Personally, I think that idea is terrific -- and I'm not sure we have any other hope. But will such an effort pass constitutional muster?

Cliff Arneback, a lawyer with the Alliance for Democracy, claims to have proof that the Ohio vote was hacked:

The only logical explanation is that there was a movement of some 65,000 votes or so that were cast for Kerry into the Bush column. Which created a margin that is approximately the total margin by which Bush was reported to have won Ohio. So our current view of the evidence is that this is where the fix occurred.

The link above will lead you to a CSPAN recording of a speech by Mr. Arneback.

Democratic complicity? J. F. Miglio argues that the Democrats "enabled" vote fraud by ignoring the issue after 2000. I can't disagree. The "Help America Vote Act" was a disaster -- one which we may be doomed to repeat.

Once the Democrats realized what a monumental mistake they had made with HAVA, they tried to rectify it. Bob Graham and Rush Holt wrote the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003, which would have mandated a paper trail for all electronic voting machines. In addition, Hillary Clinton wrote her own bill (although weaker than the Graham-Holt bill) asking for better vote counting procedures. Naturally, both bills were stalled out in committee, and they had no chance of passage before the 2004 election.

The opposition to a clean piece of legislation was our first, best clue that the Republicans had theft in mind.

Bush v Gore: There's an interesting discussion over on Kos on the ramifications of the Supreme Court's decision in Bush v Gore, which turned on the issue of differing counting standards. A District Court in Puerto Rico recently cited that decision in a hotly disputed race for Governor. And this is where the fun begins:

Moreover, if we take Bush v. Gore as actual jurisprudence, rather than what it was-- a brazen grab of the Presidency, then of course this most recent Presidential Election was likely unconstitutional. Take Ohio for instance.

Actually, Blackwell was careful to specify on election night that the entire state follows the same procedure for counting optical scan ballots. But the machinery of voting differed from precinct to precinct, and some say that the execution of the standards differed from county to county. Basis for a case?

Bad Brad is back again: Brad Menfil, the alleged Republican insider who first sprang to light during bulge-gate, has returned -- and he seems to be making the big time. David Shuster's column on MSNBC discusses the Menfil phenomenon, which he pegs as the delusional ranting of a "sick punk."

Alas, Shuster came into this movie late, and he may not realize that the matter goes rather deeper than that. During his first appearance, Menfil was tied into a fake Knoxville news site set up by mysterious interests overseas. Something weird was, and is, up.

Speaking of fraudsters... I've just been called a liar by a diarist at Daily Kos. This Diarist may be the same person as the "Jack Seymour" who wrote to me with the alleged intention of raising money for a joint investigation by Greg Palast and Wayne Madsen.

The truth: I wrote to Palast and Madsen and neither man has heard of this guy. And they aren't working together. (No bad blood or anything -- they just aren't working together on this.)

If you want to contribute to Palast, go directly to his page. Don't give money to any third party claiming to operate on his behalf.

The guy calling himself "Jack Seymour" seems to operate under a variety of names, and he is posting in a good many places. His writings always draw ornate conspiratorial linkages, and he points the fingers at some legitimately troubling groups: Accenture, Cybernet, Five Star, and so forth. But his writings all have one thing in common: They're confusing. The closer you read, the less sense they make.

Finally: Daniel Hopsicker has been interviewed on electoral fraud. I haven't heard the interview yet, so I can't say whether I agree or disagree with his findings. But I'll bet you three donuts that he'll have some very interesting things to say. (Scroll down the linked page about one-third of the way until you reach FTR-487 and FTR-488.)