Diebold, ES&S in Texas and Ohio.

The respective Presidents of the two companies are brothers.


Bob Urosevich is president of Diebold, his brother Todd is president of ES&S, the two major private vendors involved in counting the votes in Texas and Ohio. These two companies, as most of us are aware, have been involved in countless election irregularities over the years. If you recall in 2004, Diebold's CEO, Walden O'Dell, wrote in a fund-raising letter that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to President (Bush) next year."

The Aug. 14 letter from Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold Inc. - who has become active in the re-election effort of President Bush - prompted Democrats to question the propriety of allowing O'Dell's company to calculate votes in the 2004 presidential election.

O'Dell attended a strategy pow-wow with wealthy Bush benefactors - known as Rangers and Pioneers - at the president's Crawford, Texas, ranch earlier this month. The next week, he penned invitations to a $1,000-a-plate fund-raiser to benefit the Ohio Republican Party's federal campaign fund - partially benefiting Bush - at his mansion in the Columbus suburb of Upper Arlington.

The letter went out the day before Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, also a Republican, was set to qualify Diebold as one of three firms eligible to sell upgraded electronic voting machines to Ohio counties in time for the 2004 election.

Well, now we can see why yesterday's results were completely out of line with the exit polls.
The GOP would much rather run against Hillary, and why Rush Limbaugh had been imploring his listeners to register as Dems in Texas and vote for Hillary in order to help make that happen.

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Some background info on the Urosevich brothers.

www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html

This non-match up is getting worse and worse.

These machines will ultimately be used in the GE against the Dem nominee.



10/30/2006

MESS WITH TEXAS: State Rep Reports ES&S Touch-Screens Dropping Candidate Names, Flipping Straight Ticket Ballots from Democratic to Republican in San Antonio!
Audio Interview with Texas State Rep. Jose Menendez on KTSA with Chris Duel (and Brad) Says Paperless Voting Machines Failing in Bexar County...

The drumbeat of reports from around the country of touch-screen voting machines failing during Early Voting continues to grow. These aren't "glitches." These are failures.

So far, the reports have all involved Democratic (or Green) votes flipping to, or otherwise benefitting, Republican candidates. In South Florida, St. Louis County, Missouri, Virginia, Arkansas, Dallas, and now San Antonio, Texas.

While I was guesting this evening on the Chris Duel show on KTSA News-Talk 550 AM, we received a call from Democratic State Rep. Jose Menendez, who reported several incidents that have come to the attenion of his office during Early Voting, which is already under way in San Antonio. The reports concern votes flipping and candidates not showing up on the summary screens of Bexar County's paperless ES&S touch-screen systems.

During the short interview (audio posted in full at end of this article) Menendez reported an incident involving a teacher in his district who noticed that one of the candidates wasn't showing up on the confirmation summary screen. I later learned off air that the missing candidate was Menendez.

Another incident involved a voter who voted for a straight party ticket only to have it flip to a straight party ticket vote for the other party.

Menendez didn't identify which parties were involved while on air. Since then, Duel followed up to let me know that the straight party ticket the voter intended to vote for was Democratic and it flipped to Republican.

Menendez said during the interview that he now plans to file legislation requiring a paper "trail" on all voting machines across the state of Texas where none are (incredibly) now required. As you'll hear, I made it clear that it's paper ballots that are needed, not uncountable and uncounted so-called paper "trails." For the moment, his efforts are unfortunately too little, too late to do anything for 2006. While he may not have realized the dangers to our democracy and national security until now, Bexar County Election Administrator Jacquelyn F. Callanen has no such excuse. She needs to be held directly accountable for her failure to provide an auditable voting system to her voters.

Callanen, however, seems to be selling Menendez and other concerned citizens the usual bill of goods, as most of the country's election directors are now doing in hopes of saving their jobs. I pointed out in no uncertain terms, hopefully, on air during the interview, that Callanen needs to be held accountable. Her office's number is: 210-335-VOTE, and their webpage is here. Here's the interview...

-- AUDIO: Brad on the Chris Duel Show with Rep. Mendendez, 10/30/06

UPDATE: Votes reported to be hopping from Democrat to Republican also now in Jefferson County, TX. Details here...

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3697