Stoughton's Scanner problem failed to count all but 16 votes for Citizens United Referendum Question.

Not only does Thom Hartmann and Brad Freidman talk about the wrong count for the Citizens United referendum question in Stoughton, but in video footage running in the background later on, Hartmann featured my very own polling place in Middleton. Odd but cool.

They also looked at the large discrepancy between the polling results and the final vote totals for Republicans. Voter suppression? Machine malfunctions? No one knows yet:

Walker Supporters now worried about Electronic Voting Machine Fraud? Can you say "projection?"

Brad Blog has made a career out of reporting the Republican march to control election results with hackable electronic voting machines and elaborate schemes to commit election fraud. Over and over, Republicans have laughed at the accusations, calling the very idea a conspiracy theory cooked up by Democrats.

Until now! They’re scared. Scott Walker’s job is on the line. They know how easy it is to hacked into voting machines, so they are now “projecting” their own behavior on the Democratic Party.

But even worse, activist conservative media reporters are ginning up Republican voters with the possibility their votes will be stolen by those same electronic voting machines, a fear already exploited by right wingers who claim the recall will cancel out their vote in 2010.  

The conservative leaning Wisconsin Reporter is trying to spearhead a movement to get talk radio hosts riled up enough to give legitimacy to their conspiracy theory:

In a powerful piece of investigative journalism, my Wisconsin Reporter colleague Kirsten Adshead pointed out the very real possibility that there’s a land mine in Wisconsin’s election future.

Adshead’s profile of computer software tester John Washburn revealed that the Government Accountability Board, Wisconsin’s election oversight agency, does not require municipalities to recertify their election machines when they update aging technology. That makes the state’s election system vulnerable to breakdown. With the state politically polarized, any election abnormality quickly could metastasize, producing legal challenges and counter-challenges like those that trashed the presidential election of 2000. GAB, of course, is distracted, having had to deal with two years of recall elections. But by failing to certify all voting machines in all municipalities, GAB is setting us up to lose. No election system is perfect. But until GAB can assure us that it can address Washburn’s concerns, the state’s voters will continue walking blithely toward the land mine.

Here's what Democrats have been yelling about for years, yet only received a snicker from the GOP:

It’s important to point out who wrote the election fraud article above:  

Kevin Binversie is a Wisconsin native who has been blogging on the state’s political culture for more than eight years. He has served in the George W. Bush administration from 2007-2009, worked at the Heritage Foundation... 

Tamper Proof Touch Screen Voting in Wisconsin?

Brad Blog would have a field day with this story.

Titled “Touch Screen Voting Easy and Fool-Proof,” the Caledonia Patch’s Denise Lockwood took a look at the new voting gadget machines in Mt. Pleasant. They also have an interesting paper trail for recount purposes. For machine brand wonks, it's by Sequoia Voting Systems, Inc. (now owned and distributed by Dominion Voting ).

You should be interested to know the machines can be easily hacked back in 2010, as explained at Truthout:

This is your Sequoia touch-screen voting machine with Pac-Man hacked onto it without disturbing any of the "tamper-evident" seals supposedly meant to protect it from hackers... "The software can be replaced without breaking any of these seals, simply by removing screws and opening the case."

I did a search but couldn't find the latest scoop on newer machines, so if anyone can point us to a recent article, we would appreciate that. Meanwhile, in Mt. Pleasant:  

While the machines are initially expensive, touch screen voting pays off in the long run because of the cost reductions from not having to print ballots or pay poll workers for hours of tabulating. Linda Fonk, a chief poll inspector in Mount Pleasant, demonstrates how to use a touch screen voting machine.