BRAVO, JOHN CONYERS! The report is in, and it is awesome! (plus: More vote fraud news)

This is a huge news day for those following the vote fraud controversy.

The Report on Ohio vote tampering is here. Just a day before the ratification of the electoral votes, the House Judiciary Committee has just released its findings on the election horrors in Ohio. Yes, it's a long pdf file -- but it is filled with must-read material.

In fact, this report offers everything we could have hoped for. From the summary (emphasis added by me):

We have found numerous, serious election irregularities in the Ohio presidential election, which resulted in a significant disenfranchisement of voters. Cumulatively, these irregularities, which affected hundreds of thousands of votes and voters in Ohio, raise grave doubts regarding whether it can be said the Ohio electors selected on December 13, 2004, were chosen in a manner that conforms to Ohio law, let alone federal requirements and constitutional standards.

This report, therefore, makes three recommendations: (1) consistent with the requirements of the United States Constitution concerning the counting of electoral votes by Congress and Federal law implementing these requirements, there are ample grounds for challenging the electors from the State of Ohio; (2) Congress should engage in further hearings into the widespread irregularities reported in Ohio; we believe the problems are serious enough to warrant the appointment of a joint select Committee of the House and Senate to investigate and report back to the Members; and (3) Congress needs to enact election reform to restore our people's trust in our democracy. These changes should include putting in place more specific federal protections for federal elections, particularly in the areas of audit capability for electronic voting machines and casting and counting of provisional ballots, as well as other needed changes to federal and state election laws.

With regards to our factual findings, in brief, we find that there were massive and unprecedented voter irregularities and anomalies in Ohio. In many cases, these irregularities were caused by intentional misconduct and illegal behavior, much of it involving Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio.

The document presents page after page filled with courtroom-quality evidence against Blackwell -- and let me tell you, this stuff is damning. This vile manipulator should, must go to jail. He is nothing short of a criminal mastermind.

On page 32 of the report, Blackwell -- who had the audacity to compare himself with Gandhi and King -- is quoted as saying that he would rather go to jail than to comply with the rulings of Judge Carr (a "liberal" judge, according to Blackwell). Why this show of defiance? Because that judge ruled that the Secretary of State issue specific guidelines on the use of provisional ballots. Somehow, I doubt that Gandhi or King would have disagreed with that ruling (which, I should note, was overruled on appeal; these days, the bad guys often win).

Well, Kenny-boy -- if you long for a stay in the joint, we'll be happy to see your wish granted.

Blackwell stands specifically accused of direct violations of the Help America Vote Act, as well as Article 1, Section 5 of the Ohio Constitution (see page 48 of the report) -- not mention the first amendment to the United States Constitution (page 49), the Voting Rights Act and all constitutional guarantees of due process (page 52), Ohio statutes regarding ballot tampering (page 59), the Civil Rights Act of 1968 (page 65), and possibly the National Voter Registration Act (page 69). He also has a statutory obligation to investigate election irregularities; the paper documents numerous problems, most of which received no investigation from Blackwell's office.

The report damns Blackwell for deliberately delaying the official count to render the recount challenges moot:

By setting the vote tally deadline so late and then delaying the declaration of results -- it took a full 34 days after the November 2 election for the results to be certified -- Secretary of State Blackwell insured that the time for completing recounts, therefore, was pushed to after the date of the Electoral College meeting. As a result of this intentional course of conduct, it appears tha Mr. Blackwell has ensured tha the controversies concerning the appointment of electors could not be resolved by December 7, 2004, thereby causing Ohio to lose the benefit of the electoral college safe harbor so that the appointment of electors is not necessarily binding on Congress.

Oh -- and do you recall Blackwell's nonsensical ruling that all registration forms must be on 80-lb paper? Turns out that forms obtained from his own office were printed on 60-lb stock. (See page 38.)

This is a powerful indictment. It speaks not just to Blackwell's criminality, but to the exit poll controversies, the recount controversies, and the bizarre behavior by Triad: "...it appears that Mr. Barbian's activities were not the actions of a rogue computer programmer but the official policy of Triad." Moreover:

We have received several additional reports of machine irregularities involving several other counties serviced by Triad, including a report that Triad was able to alter election software by remote access...

After these incidents -- there were more than a few -- are detailed, the report states:

Based on the above, including actual admissions and statements by Triad employees, it strongly appears that Triad and its employees engaged in a course of behavior to provide "cheat sheets" to those counting the ballots. The cheat sheets told them hoe many votes they should find for each candidate, and how many over and under votes they should calculate to match the machine count. In that way, they could avoid doing a full county-wide hand recount mandated by state law.

Does this pattern of activity violate state and federal law? Appears so. Check out page 84 of the report.

There is much more.

We were asking for a political miracle -- a new piece of evidence that would give much-needed credibility to a challenge by a Senator. (Perhaps Senator Kerry? Alas, he is reportedly away, and has sent an email to supporters announcing that he will not participate in a challenge to the electors). This paper offers "credibility cover" -- and more. It places all the evidence acquired heretofore in damning context.

I have never seen a more hard-hitting report by any congressional committee. Ever.

Exit polls: The Big Lie gets a big push. Since no-one now believes the "chatty Dem" theory of the great exit poll disparity, the Republicans must now publicize their "fall-back" position. Yep, they will try to convince the country that Mitofsky intentionally skewed the results to help Kerry.

So far, this nonsensical notion has been relegated to the dark corners of the net. (You may have noticed the snipings of a particularly obsessive right-wing conspiracy theorist in the comments section of this very blog.) But now the GOP Ministry of Love is making this idea the new Party Line. Yes, the meme is making the big time -- if you can call GOP flack Mickey Kaus the big time. Rush should be getting his copy of the script any day now.

The very concept is inane, of course.

Supposedly, Mitofsky -- formerly a long-time employee of Republican-run Viacom, whose firm is funded by a consortium of mainstream media outlets (also owned by pro-Republican interests) -- is a fervent Kerry supporter. So fervent is he, in fact, that he was willing to salt the exit poll results on November 2, in order to depress the Republican vote.

And were these faked exits leaked via ABC, AP, CBS or any similar mainstream outlet that might actually have reached a whole bunch of people? Nope. The big media could have discussed the polls openly -- no law prevents them from doing so. After all, they did pay for the data, and they no doubt would have publicized it heavily if the numbers showed Bush ahead. But the large broadcasters kept silent about the (preliminarily) good news for the Democrat.

Instead, on election day, the exits leaked out via blogs not so very unlike the one who are reading now. Atrios. Daily Kos. Guys like that.

As we all know, those conservative farmers in Iowa just can't get through their day without regularly checking on what good ol' Kos has to say. According to the conspiracy theory, those Iowa farmers saw the exits and said: "Shucks! Looks like Kerry's gonna win! Why bother voting? Guess I'll just stay here and plough the north 40..."

Talk about your tin foil hat notions!

Yet that's the scenario the Republicans want you to believe. After all, the only alternative scenario has a distinctly Ukrainian flavor.

The latest attempt to push this inane line centers on mysterious files posted to this site. Although no-one has verified their authenticity, and no-one knows how they got on the net, we are told that here, at last, is the gen-yew-ine raw exit poll data.

In recent days, I've been given this link by a horde of correspondents who never wrote to me previously -- always a sure tip-off that Rovian trickery is afoot.

I was particularly amused by Kaus, who claims that the exits favoring Kerry were the results of "weighting." All polls weight the results, of course. If, for example, you've interviewed ten men and twenty-five women, you'll have to weight the results to reflect the actual male-to-female ratio of our society.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Don't be surprised to see Mitofsky himself give credence to the Big Lie. Better than most, he must understand that we no longer live in a democracy. To thrive in an empire, one must parrot the lines assigned by Power.

Fritakis does it again. Bob Fritakis has another fine story on the Ohio debacle, as well as New Mexico and Florida. He quotes from various affidavits testifying to GOP malfeasance. His account nicely complements the House Judiciary COmmittee's report.

Here are some samples -- and as you read the following, keep in mind Ken Blackwell's recently-disclosed bragging about "delivering" the Ohio vote:

"I was a volunteer all day on Nov. 2 and noticed a big discrepancy in the number of voting machines. Where I vote, in an affluent neighborhood, a voting machine had been added (total of five machines). In the lower-income neighborhoods, there were two-three machines and people waiting over three hours to vote!"

Here's what the vote was like in a rich, white neighborhood:

"No problems. I was a runner in Bexley precincts 1A, 1B, 1C. There were no lines in my visits to these precincts three times. I will point out that 1B is perhaps the wealthiest precinct in Franklin County – including the Governor, OSU (Ohio State University) President, etc."

Here's what the vote was like in poor and black neighborhoods:

"Long lines. My vote would have been for Kerry. Not enough machines for people to vote. About 200 people in line ahead of me and it was pouring down the rain and freezing cold. I had worked all day and had the flu."

"I waited in line for 1 hour 45 minutes. A friend of mine left after voting. At this time I was standing where he was when I came in. I have a 1 hour 45 minute wait until I get to vote. Total three and one-half hours. My voting place had three voting machines and appears to be 90 percent black voters."

"11:30 am. I visited the Columbus Precinct 25C, where 1275 voters had voted. I observed three voting machines only… 4:30 pm. I visited the 25C precinct again. The lines were longer, well past the inside front door. I personally observed at least 175 voters in line, plus babies and children. The building was hot and uncomfortable. Almost all people in line were black. Less than 20 were white."

"The lines were three hours long. I have three children and no one to watch them for that long. I was not able to vote. However, I would have liked to have voted for John Kerry. I wish we could have the chance to vote again."

"I reside in Columbus… My race is black. I am, or believe I am, a registered voter in Columbus, OH. I have been registered for 40 years. On Nov. 2, 2004, I arrived at the polls at 9:45 am. I left at 1.15 pm. There were only three voting booths. I had to wait three and one-half hours to vote."

"I had a lot of people in my precinct who vote religiously and some of them, their names were not in the poll books."

"There were two unidentified lines. It was not clear which line to stand in."

This last complaint is repeated many times. Keep in mind the the names were rotated on the ballots, and that one voting place served more than one precinct. Thus an intended vote for Kerry would emerge as a vote for Bush. (We've spoken about the cross-voting phenomenon before, and will again -- below.)

Back to the testimony:

"Imagine the sight, in a Black neighborhood where a lot of young black voters are showing up for the first time, you have full police presence, even though they are sitting in cars…. You have six cars in the parking lot, and you have a well-known Republican businessman in the community asking people, 'please disperse, please get into your cars.'"

Then there are the electronic problems:

"The electronic voting machine would not take my vote although I tried repeatedly by pressing the "vote" button. Election officials tried to help, then finally the screen (front of machine) went black and I was told I had voted." I felt that I had been blocked from voting. Multiple calls resulted in no help."

"I pushed the button besides John Kerry’s name and my vote jumped up to George Bush. I began complaining about them cheating again this year. The attendant ran over to my booth and announced “just push the button again, that’s been happening a lot.” I then pushed the button again. It remained on John Kerry. Many others in different precincts experienced the same problem."

Anecdotal evidence, you say? Yes, but look at the size of it. I've given you just a sample of what Fritakis has, and he gives you just a smaple of what is available. Has anyone seen a single first-hand anecdotal report -- anywhere in the country -- of an intended vote for Bush coming up Kerry?