Filibuster-Proof Democratic Majority Begins to Line Up in U.S. Senate

Still-Outstanding Races in AK, MN & GA May Well Add Up to 60 Seats for Democrats IF The Elections Are Counted As Per the Voters' Intent...

In case you haven't been able to keep up with our barrage of reporting over the last 48 to 72 hours -- concerning serious election irregularities in various races around the country -- allow me to connect at least the dots that may well now add up to a filibuster-proof Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate.

With the media having declared challenger Jeff Merkley (D) as the victor over incumbent Sen. Gordon Smith (R) in Oregon, the Democrats have currently been named the winner in enough elections U.S. Senate races that they will have at least 57 seats when President-elect Barack Obama takes office next January.

There remains, however, three U.S. Senate races still in serious contention, all of which, there is very good reason to believe, may end up going to the Democratic candidate if serious attention is given to issues of election integrity in each of those races. Setting aside whether or not a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate is a good or bad thing, the undecided races at this hour are quickly summarized below, along with links to more detailed coverage, for your convenience...

ALASKA: Ted Stevens (R-incumbent) v. Mark Begich (D)

Despite Stevens' felony conviction on 7 counts, just days before the election, and some pre-election polls showing a likely victory for Begich, the final results -- overseen by Gov. Sarah Palin's friend and Lt. Governor -- are being slow-walked and are revealing enormous irregularities, including a so-far inexplicable 11% decline in the turnout rate from the 2004 election.

While Alaska votes on paper, they are tabulated on faulty, hackable, and often inaccurate Diebold op-scanners (more details on that below). The state has also been a long-time Diebold "company town", as it's one of the few places where the Democratic Party has actually fought for election integrity by suing the state for database records of how voters voted, following reported turnout rates of more than 200% in some areas in the state's highly questionable 2004 election.

See our latest coverage here and from last night here.

MINNESOTA: Norm Coleman (R-incumbent) v. Al Franken (D)

At last count, just 443 votes separate the two candidates, out of some 2.5 million votes counted to date. An automatic manual recount has been triggered, and is now scheduled for mid-November. The state uses all paper ballots, but in much of the state they were counted on ES&S optical-scan systems which "reported inconsistent vote totals", such that "The same ballots run through the same machines, yielded different results each time" when the same machines were tested just before the election in Michigan.

Two of the three largest counties use the same Diebold op-scan machines which miscounted huge numbers of ballots in the January NH primary (among other elections), were used to hack a mock-election in HBO's Emmy-nominated Hacking Democracy, and, by Diebold's own admission, regularly drop thousands of votes when memory cartridges are uploaded to the central tabulator.

Some good news: MN's Sec. of State Mark Ritchie has been one of a handful of Democratic state election chiefs to have been a long-time election integrity advocate.

See our detailed coverage from last night here...

GEORGIA: Saxby Chambliss (R-incumbent) v. Jim Martin (D)

The state uses Diebold touch-screen machines across the entire state. Every vote cast on one of those machines is a 100% unverifiable vote. Chambliss, was declared the victor in 2002 in an upset over incumbent Max Cleland (D), despite pre-election polls predicting a Cleland win. That was the year that the state used the Diebold touch-screens for the first time, and the year that Diebold themselves secretly patched all of the machines, just prior to the election, with uncertified software patches

This year, while untold numbers of voters may have been denied the right to cast a vote at all, due to failures and slowdowns in the new Diebold e-registration computers on Election Day, Chambliss reportedly received 49.9% of the votes, triggering a runoff with Martin, now scheduled for December 2. We've also seen reports of inexplicable drops in turnout, comparable to Alaska's, as mentioned above, though we've haven't yet confirmed that. We'll update this report when/if we are able to do so.

Unfortunately, given the Diebold voting system used by the state of Georgia (as implemented by the previous Democratic Sec. of State and Diebold Cover Girl Cathy Cox), whatever numbers are reported by it and the Republican Sec. of State Karen Handel, who now oversees it, will have to be taken 100% on faith as being "accurate".

If Democrats pay close attention to issues of election integrity in each of these three still-undecided contests, and insist on strict and secure chain-of-custody and accounting for all ballots (voted, spoiled and unvoted), memory cartridges, voting machines, and pollbooks, as well as access to all full access and transparency for voting records, databases, election night poll tapes and machine logs, I see no reason why they couldn't end up with a fully filibuster-proof 60 seats in the next U.S. Senate.

Cross-posted at The BRAD BLOG...

Brad Friedman is an investigative journalist/blogger and the creator/publisher of The BRAD BLOG, which has been focusing for some years on the many issues involved in election integrity. He can currently be seen in a number of documentaries on the topic, now in release around the country, including David Earnhardt's Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections, and the just-released Murder, Spies & Voting Lies: The Clint Curtis Story, by documentarian Patty Sharaf.

Follow Brad Friedman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TheBradBlog

Comments

[karela]

Is there any way that a federal court could order a trial run with Georgia's machines by say having a few thousand known votes entered and seeing if they come out as entered, with perhaps a three time repeat to check for consistent accuracy? If they failed, paper ballots could be ordered for the run off.

[karela]

People who think we should kick Lieberman out even if it would mean forfeiting a fillibuster proof majority aren't thinking strategically. Lieberman votes with democrats on nearly all domestic issues. The satisfaction of punishing Lieberman is not of greater value to the country than the passage of healthcare, education and tax relief to middle class America. What are people thinking? Remember all those months when these same people were having anxiety attacks because Obama wouldn't go as negative as they wanted? Obama has a focused strategy and he never lets personal stuff get in the way. He can do a much better job if we give him the tools he asked for. He says he wants the 60 seats if it is at all possible. So how about if the rest of us let the new president run the show about how to get the job done. He's played it right so far hasn't he? The republicans are waiting until they have the results of all three remaining Senate races, which may be early January, before they decide just how hard to boot Stevens because they know they need the votes. We can be the party that always does exactly what we want to do, or we can be the party that brings real change to America. We need the da*n votes if we can possibly get them. Have you forgotten how the republican senate used the fillibuster to block EVERYTHING for the past two years? Chill.

[HateLieCheatKillRepubWay]

You know what, forget about the fillerbuster proof majority; kick Lieberman O-U-T! IF it were up to Joe lieberman, President-Elect Barack HUSSEIN Obama would not be. He should not be rewarded; the Dems can get a few republicans to work in a bi-partisan fashion with them; kick Joe out!

[thinkgra]

I have a one-word solution for America's voting problems:
Oregon.
Seriously, Oregon has been voting by mail for 5 years. A month before Election Day, we get booklets in the mail. Who's running. What propositions, zoning changes, and bond issues are up for vote. A week after that, a second booklet comes, with comments on propositions. Two weeks before the election, your ballot is in your mailbox. You have time to sit down and think about what you are doing, not a few brief minutes in a booth after hours in line. If you mess up or change your mind, you can take your ballot down and exchange it for a fresh one. When you're done marking your ballot, you put it in the envelope, sign the envelope and either mail it in or hand deliver it to your local Election Board or Public Library. The signature on the envelope is compared to the signature on your voter registration form before your ballot is counted.
Yes, you have to register to vote, proving citizenship and residence. No lines. No missed time at work. No Showing up at the wrong polling place. A paper trail. 87% participation. What's not to like?

More info here:
http://www.co.multnomah.or.us/dbcs/elections/election_information/voting_in_oregon.shtml
and here:
http://www.sos.state.or.us/executive/votebymail/

[justobserve]

Agree wholeheartedly! I have been saying this, without knowing the details, that we need to do mail-in voting just like Oregon. It's convenient and equally important, the paper trail. Why on earth in a democracy like ours, we still have to fight for integrity in vote counting? We are no better than other countries that we wanted to export our democracy to. That's a disgrace!

[karela]

Oregon has provided a model for the country and we should follow! Oregon has also worked out the kinks and has virtually no voter fraud. The idea should be that all American citizens can vote and Oregon has moved much closer to that target. We owe the state of Oregon a big thanks. And we should imitate their success.

[kfdan]

The Diebold voting system is totally unreliable and needs to be disengaged as a serious voting practice in every state!

[brassminnie]

I like technology, but not in the voting booth. I'm too familiar with bugs and glitches (Download patch for this security problem, 6.5 meg, fixes problem in previous patch.) to have 'faith' in electronic voting and vote counts. Back to all paper ballots? I think it's the only way to regain the trust of the American voter that there will be an accurate count, or recount, recount, recount.... Then we watch those, from both sides of the political spectrum. I think handing over voter registration to the states is proving to be an error, as well.

[madprophet]

What a country you live in. 4 different states, 4 different ways of counting votes. Exactly HOW many ways are votes tabulated in the U.S.

And you proclaim yourselves the bastion of democracy.

[foreignsand]

We do?

[Leota2]

Who told you that?

[sippewissett]

DISGUSTING. The fact that Diebold is involved in all three of these close situations -- with less turnout than in 2004 in two of them -- smacks of a big problem with machines from that company. I recall accusations of software chicanery in earlier elections involving the Diebold company. It is probably time to delve deeper because it is un-American to screw around with our votes. The rest of the world looks up to us as having exemplary rights as citizens. Let's not have a corporation steal that out from underneath us. It IS time for a change!

[conductrix]

You know that Diebold also does ATM machines, right? Ever notice how many times the ATM machine miscounts and gives you TOO much money?

Right.

NONE.

Need I say more?

[Artos]

I would recommend that the Democrats create an investigatory group that would confiscate all of the Diebold machines and have computer specialists dissect them and their software. If these machines are found to have been perpetuating voter fraud then what should follow is the immediate incarceration of Diebolds owners and the CEO and whoever else had a hand in that corruption. If there is found to be a link between that conspiracy and those who were elected because of it then they to should have those charges added to all the others that they should face. We need a thorough house cleaning of the voting system. It should be Federalized and never again be allowed to become corrupt.

[decm]

Agree. Except note that Diebold is now called Premier Election Systems. They deserve to be shut down (as opposed to what'll probably happen: another name change).

[philistine]

"We need a thorough house cleaning of the voting system. It should be Federalized and never again be allowed to become corrupt."

We did partially Federalize our voting laws - the Help America Vote Act got us into this mess with forced electronic voting with no provisions for hand verification. The honest truth of the matter is that our elections have always been messy, and vigilance is the only way to protect your vote.

When Australia updated their voting system some years ago, they developed systems from open-source code which could be - and was - vetted by experts. We bought systems from private companies which refused to provide system designs and source code. That was a mistake. We should have done what Australia did. Maybe we can go back and get it right a second time, because the first time was a failure (from our perspective; from the Repugnican't perspective, it was a Machiavellian Delight).

[sylar]

For America to become a credible democracy again, the voting process needs to be standardized: all computers removed from the voting process and safeguards put in place to prevent voter purging and the like.

The constitution needs to be amended to remedy this.

I expect this to happen before BO's first term is out.

[karela]

How about if every baby born in America is registered to vote on the day of birth and ditto every naturalized citizen? How about if your address and nothing else matters if you're an American citizen, (maybe excepting people actually in prison)? If we can give out social security numbers at birth, why not voter registration? Or maybe your social security number is your voter registration number? If we gave up the electoral college and chose our presidents by popular vote, we could end a lot of mess. No more disenfranchising American citizens. No more political redistricting in efforts to make your party's votes count more and the other party's votes count less. No more voter purges/your name comes off when your social security number is reported as deceased--period. Time to clean house on voting in America.

[dabberc]

At some point, someone needs to hack one of these systems and make the results so ridiculous that it can't be ignored.

[ttMo2]

yeah, maybe we could have Ralph Nader take 60% of the vote in Mississipi. That oughta do it.

[Warthog]

Let's go back to the paleolithic system. You get a pile of rocks and some holes to drop them in. Well heck, which would you trust: granite or processor 'glitches'?

[DrPaulProteus]

Screw that. Have the candidates fight to the death. It's the only definitive way.

[proreality]

Thank you for pointing this out to people. If anyone looks at the total's in Georgia as compared to other races for the senate the most striking thing is that it looks as if it were literally figured out by a calculator before absentee and provisional votes were counted and skewed the numbers.

[Auburn McCanta - Huffpost Blogger]

Thank you, Brad, for your always excellent and fearless work. Perhaps under President Obama we will at last clean up the enormity of election issues. With your prominent voice, we find hope that every vote will once again be counted.

[instagladiator]

Paper ballot at all levels, no matter. Also, those doing the vote counts MUST BE held accountable for their part of the process. If a law exists to protect movie copyright infringements of a $250,000.00 fine and/or 5-10 years in Fed prison, why not apply the same principle. Prevention is the best cure.