Ron Paul May Have Secretly Won The Iowa Caucuses. - Ron Paul may have officially come in third tonight, but if the campaign's caucus strategy went off as planned, then Paul may actually be the real winner of the first Republican voting contest. That's because Paul's massive organizational push in Iowa focused on both winning votes, and also on making sure that Paul supporters stuck around after the vote to make sure they were selected as county delegates — the first step towards being elected as a delegate to the Republican National Convention. That's because Iowa's Republican caucuses are non-binding — they are technically just a straw poll, so once selected, delegates are free to vote for whichever presidential candidate they choose.

Russia's leadership was forced to defend its legitimacy yesterday after about 100,000 demonstrators rallied in central Moscow to demand democratic reform and fair elections in the largest wave of popular dissent since the fall of the Soviet Union.

The rally on Moscow's Sakharov Avenue on Saturday was the fourth and by far the biggest of the mass demonstrations provoked by the parliamentary vote held on 4 December. The ruling United Russia party, led by the Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, held on to a slim majority in parliament in those elections, but the results have been tainted by claims of wholesale fraud. The demonstrators stood for hours in sub-zero weather on Saturday listening to a line-up of speakers as diverse as the crowd itself, including TV celebrities, writers, musicians, politicians, scientists and a jailed dissident whose video message was broadcast on a giant screen beside the stage.

"The people are waking up," said Sergei Udaltsov, the leader of the Left Front opposition group who was arrested on the day of the elections as he heading to a rally. "The people have stopped putting up with this humiliating regime."

Just two weeks after the Russian capital saw its biggest opposition rally in nearly twenty years, Russians unhappy with the results of the December 4 parliamentary elections have gathered once again.

But this time, it's in even bigger numbers, with the hopes that their collective voice will be heard. Police estimate the current number of demonstrators at about 29,000. They are coming together to protest against vote fraud – and to demand a new ballot.

This time around, the rally is being held on Akademika Sakharova Boulevard, with nearby streets closed off to traffic. Police have refrained from calling in reinforcements from the Defense Ministry, but are maintaining a presence at the rally; metal detectors and barriers have been set in advance.

RT’s crew at the scene say the police on duty are friendly and polite, a fact which has also been stressed by human right activists at the rally.

The protest's organizers have managed to collect around 100,000 US dollars, which they say is more than enough to provide necessities like a stage from which speakers will address the crowds, as well as lighting and sound equipment. Taking into account the time of year, and the current weather conditions, organizers will also spend some of the donations on basic comforts for the protesters – hot drinks, snacks and restrooms.

The Telegraph: Russian protests: live

The biggest opposition rally in recent Russian history has taken place in the capital. The protest against the results of Russia's December 4 parliamentary election has drawn an estimated turnout of between 25,000 and 40,000. - The rally has been held on Bolotnaya Square, in Central Moscow, on December 10 between 2 pm and 6 pm. The square is almost empty, except for media crews and a few groups of youngsters, say police. Earlier the Interior Ministry reported around 25,000 people gathered at the scene. However opposition leaders claim up to 40,000 on the square. Before the rally police have blocked access to the squares adjacent to the Kremlin and have restricted entry to Red Square. Security in the capital has been stepped up with police trucks and Interior Ministry troops surrounding the scene. Moscow police say security will be tightened in the city until nightfall to prevent possible incidents.

Al Jazeera: Thousands across Russia protest poll fraud
RIA Novosti: Tens of thousands of Russians join nationwide vote protest
The Independent: Russia's middle class rises up against Putin
The Telegraph: Bloggers who are changing the face of Russia as the Snow Revolution takes hold
The Guardian: Soros's minions use CIA-ware Facebook and Twitter to foment rebellion in Russia

Russian news website Life News has published emails it claims show correspondence between the US State Dept. and the Russian election watchdog Golos discussing payments for work done to discredit the results of Russia’s parliamentary vote. - Life News says it has come into the possession of 60 megabytes of Golos' private online correspondence. According to Life News, they are letters sent and received by Golos Executive Chief Lilya Shibanova and her deputy Grigory Melkonyants. Judging by the documents published on the site, the group which claimed to be independent was actually funded in order to defend the interests of US State Department. In one of the letters Yulia Kostkina, a financial analyst for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) sends Melkonyants a list of remarks and guidelines considering Golos' activities.

Russia Today: Medvedev: Protests a manifestation of democracy

Alex Lantier: US officials threaten Russia amid post-election protests - Amid deep popular disaffection and opposition protests against the regime of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin following Russia’s December 4 parliamentary elections, US officials are mounting a campaign to destabilize Russia. The elections, which were marked by numerous instances of vote fraud, saw Putin’s United Russia party officially receive only 49.5 percent of the vote, down 15 percent from 2007. This reflects broad and deeply-felt anger with the disastrous social conditions of post-Soviet Russia. In response, Washington has ratcheted up military and political tensions with the Kremlin, including by backing ongoing protests politically dominated by Russia’s official right-wing “opposition” parties. US officials are seeking to exploit the fact that protests are limited to relatively small layers of the urban middle class and dominated by the official “opposition,” to push Russian politics in a right-wing direction favorable to US imperialism.

Russians took to the streets of Moscow for the second successive day on Tuesday to demand an end to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's 12-year rule, but riot police blocked their way and hundreds of pro-Kremlin youths tried to spoil the protest. - Ignoring warnings of a police crackdown, about 500 protesters chanted "Russia without Putin!" and "Freedom!" after opposition leaders used social media such as Twitter and Facebook to swell their ranks, witnesses said. But hundreds more pro-Putin youths in blue anoraks also turned up at the protest in central Moscow and tried to drown out their chants by shouting: "Russia, Putin!." The crowd was held back by dozens of riot police and it appeared that opposition supporters were struggling to make it past police to the rally. Police said more than 100 people were detained as scuffles broke out. Boris Nemtsov, a liberal opposition leader, told Reuters he had been detained and was being held at a police station.

USA Today: Thousands in Moscow protest Putin, election results

Vladimir Putin's ruling party suffered a serious blow in a parliamentary election on Sunday, exit polls showed, as voters signalled growing unease with his domination of Russian politics before a planned return to the presidency next year. - The result, in which the opposition said Putin's United Russia was boosted by fraud, is likely to dent the authority of the man who has ruled for almost 12 years with a mixture of hardline security policies, political acumen and showmanship. Two exit polls suggested Putin's party, United Russia, would win 45.5 and 48.5 percent of the votes in the election to the State Duma compared with 64.3 percent in 2007 and that it could struggle even to hold on to a majority in the chamber. "These elections are unprecedented because they were carried out against the background of a collapse in trust in Putin, (President Dmitry) Medvedev and the ruling party," said Vladimir Ryzhkov, a liberal opposition leader barred from running.

Stephen Lendman: Russia Bashing
New York Times: Victory for Putin’s Party Looks Smaller Than Expected
LA Times: Russians vote amid signs ruling party's dominance is slipping
Russia Today: Putin says parliamentary poll is optimal for United Russia
Jason Ditz: British, US Officials ‘Concerned’ by Russian Election

The Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice party seems set to emerge as the biggest winner in Egypt's elections with some analysts estimating it will capture about 40% of seats in the new legislature. Al-Nour, a more conservative Salafist party, looks likely to secure second place. Official results from the first round will be announced today , before a series of runoff ballots on Monday.

New York Times: Early Results in Egypt Show a Mandate for Islamists

Senator Obama: I'll Stop Torture, Abide By The Geneva Conventions, Roll Back NSA Wiretapping Programs. No More Spying On Americans. No More ignoring the law when it's convenient. This is not who we are.

Al Jazeera: Is the US government spying on Americans?

Three generations from now, when our great-grandchildren are sitting barefoot in their shanties and wondering how in the hell America turned from the high-point of civilization to a third-world banana republic, they will shake their fists and mutter one name: George Effin' Bush. Ironically, it won't be for any of the things that liberals have been harping on the Bush Administration, either during or after his term in office. Sure, misguided tax cuts that destroyed the surplus, and lax regulations that doomed the economy, and two amazingly awful wars in deserts half a world away are all terrible, empire-sapping events. But they pale in comparison to what it appears the Republican Party did to get President Bush re-elected in 2004.

"A new filing in the King Lincoln Bronzeville v. Blackwell case includes a copy of the Ohio Secretary of State election production system configuration that was in use in Ohio's 2004 presidential election when there was a sudden and unexpected shift in votes for George W. Bush," according to Bob Fitrakis, columnist at http://www.freepress.org and co-counsel in the litigation and investigation.

If you recall, Ohio was the battleground state that provided George Bush with the electoral votes needed to win re-election. Had Senator John Kerry won Ohio's electoral votes, he would have been elected instead. Evidence from the filing suggests that Republican operatives — including the private computer firms hired to manage the electronic voting data — were compromised.

Egypt’s ruling military council issued a new election law by decree Wednesday, overriding objections from the youth groups that spearheaded the mass movement against the dictatorship of President Hosni Mubarak and retaining many of the antidemocratic provisions under which the old regime regularly rigged elections. - Most significantly, the decree postpones the general election scheduled for late September, although a military spokesman claimed that voting for two houses of parliament would be completed in three stages by the end of this year. The election of a new president to replace Mubarak would be put off until next year, effectively leaving the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces in control, with the military’s top officer, Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, a longtime Mubarak crony, as de facto head of state.

There are a number of flagrantly antidemocratic electoral provisions. More than one-fourth of the upper house will be appointed by the next president rather than elected. Half the seats in the lower house will be reserved for independent candidates, rather than those running on party lists, ensuring the influence of wealthy individuals, many of them connected to the military, with the means to carry out vote-buying on a large scale. That provision also opens the door for former officials of the Mubarak regime to return to power as “independents,” despite the dissolution of the ruling National Democratic Party, the political machine through which the Egyptian military ruled for many decades.

Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani: ‘One Mubarak Goes, 18 Come In’
PressTV: Egyptians demand end to military rule
AWIP: Egypt refuses international election monitors

Egypt's military rulers refuse to allow international election monitors to observe upcoming parlimentary elections. - The decision, which is part of a new election law approved by the country's ruling generals, was swiftly criticized by activists who said it raises questions about the transparency of the first elections after the ousting of Hosni Mubarak and urged the military to reconsider. Major General Mamdouh Shaheen, who presented the new law to reporters on Wednesday, said barring foreign monitors was a necessary step to protect Egypt's sovereignty. "We have nothing to hide," he said, adding that "we reject anything that affects our sovereignty." Egyptian election monitors will observe the process instead, he said.

Drawing on almost 2,000 classified U.S. diplomatic cables on Haiti released by WikiLeaks, a partnership between The Nation magazine and the Haitian weekly, Haïti Liberté, exposes new details on how Fruit of the Loom, Hanes and Levi’s worked with the United States to block an increase in the minimum wage in the hemisphere’s poorest nation, how business owners and members of the country’s elite used Haiti’s police force as their own private army after the 2004 U.S.-backed coup that ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and how the United States, the European Union and the United Nations supported Haiti’s recent presidential and parliamentary elections, despite concerns over the exclusion of Haiti’s largest opposition party, Lavalas, the party of Aristide. We speak with the reports’ authors, longtime Haiti correspondent Dan Coughlin and Haïti Liberté editor, Kim Ives.

US knowingly supported rigged Haitian election - The United States, the European Union and the United Nations decided to support Haiti’s recent presidential and parliamentary elections despite believing that the country’s electoral body, “almost certainly in conjunction with President Preval,” had “emasculated the opposition” by unwisely and unjustly excluding the country’s largest party, according to a secret US Embassy cable. The cable was obtained by WikilLeaks and made available to the Haitian newspaper Haïti Liberté, which is collaborating with The Nation on a series of reports on US and UN policy toward the country.

Poll shows that 52% of Americans feel that a third party is needed - the two parties continue making election laws to prevent what the majority want.

Fifty-two percent of Americans believe the Republican and Democratic parties do such a poor job of representing the people that a third party is needed. Forty percent believe they do an adequate job. The percentage calling for a third party is down from August, when it tied its high of 58%. Support for a third party has fluctuated since October 2003, when Gallup first asked this question. The majority of Americans thought a third party was not needed at that time. Since then, Americans have generally favored a third party, but twice there has been an even division of opinion -- both of which occurred in the fall of an election year.

AV referendum: full details of donations to yes and no campaigns. Publication of donors reveals extent of Tory money funding NO to AV group and the yes campaign's dependence on two main backers. [AV = Alternative Vote] The fullest yet account of the donations made to the campaigns for and against electoral reform reveal the extent of the Tory money funding the NO to AV group and the yes campaign's dependence on organisations such as the Electoral Reform Society. Among around 50 donors to the NOtoAV campaign are several high-profile City figures, including hedge fund financiers, bankers and businessmen.

Both political parties are manifestly hostile to citizens. This hostility reduces electoral participation to just over 50% of the voting age population for presidential elections and less than 40% for off-year congressional elections. The absence of 50% to 60% of those eligible to vote creates minority rule and threatens the legitimacy of any ruling party. Truly, every election ratifies the rejection of both parties.

The forbidden fact about public rule in the United States is simple and obvious: it is nothing more than perpetual battle between two minority factions that consistently fail citizens. Major changes in power represent voter punishment of the most recent failed rulers, while the largest faction, non-voters, consistently make the most profound statement about governance - it's not worth the trouble of voting.

Koch Funded Organization ALEC Writes Legislation That Makes It Harder For Young Americans To Vote. Why? Well, Probably Because Young Americans Tend To Vote For Democrats. Nearly forty years after a Constitutional Amendment giving 18-21 year-olds the right to vote, Republican legislators across the country are trying to disenfranchise youth under the subterfuge of combatting "voter fraud." However, as Christina Francisco-McGuire recently pointed out at progressivestates.org, instances of *voter fraud "are so rare that one is more likely to be struck by lightening." Amongst the legislation being pushed in various states are photo id requirements, the abandonment of election-day registration, and the redefining of student residency requirements.

Counting is underway in Haiti, after the delayed second round of the country’s Presidential election. UN peacekeepers monitored the polling stations in Port-au-Prince, on hand in case of fighting between rival supporters. The first round last November was marred by violence and allegations of fraud. There had also been fears that the return of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide after seven years in exile in South Africa would destabilise the vote. But election officials say this time it passed off peacefully and many of Haiti’s 4.7 million voters turned out. The head of the electoral council told reporters the definitive result is due on April the16th and would reflect the wishes of the Haitian people.

High turnout marks 'orderly' Egypt vote. Some irregularities, but turnout was massive, with many people excited that for the first time their votes would actually be counted. Long lines, orderly queues and a mostly calm and jubilant atmosphere marked Egypt's first nationwide vote since a popular uprising forced Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's long-time president, to step down in February, leaving the country without a constitution and under the control of an unelected military council.

Observers reported an unprecedented turnout across the country, as thousands came out on Saturday to vote "yes" or "no" on a package of controversial constitutional amendments that may set the stage for parliamentary elections within months. The results are scheduled to be released on Sunday. The country's most established political forces - Mubarak's National Democratic Party and the Muslim Brotherhood - are both pushing for approval, while most of the opposition parties and the youth movement want the amendments defeated. But even those who feared the amendments would pass, paving the way for a fast election likely dominated by the NDP and the Brotherhood, seemed happy to cast a vote that, for the first time, they believed would actually be counted.

"Happy, ecstatic, delirious, laughing, crying," Karim Beshara, who had pledged to vote against the amendments, wrote on Twitter. "This is definitely the country I was fighting for and it is totally worth it." In Cairo, voters chanting "Those times are past us!" reportedly ejected Abdel Azim Wazeer, a local governor, from a polling station after he attempted to cut in line.

William O’Brien, Republican speaker of the New Hampshire (NH) House of Representatives is quite sure that college students are “foolish.” That’s just one of the ludicrous reasons NH Republicans are promoting legislation that would prohibit out-of -state college students from registering to vote. Only students whose parent(s) reside in NH will be able to participate in the democratic process. Thank God one state has the courage to finally do something about those damn marauding student ALIENS! O’Brien doesn’t even bother to play the PC game of hiding his political agenda in promoting such legislation. The last thing the conservative Republican wants are more foolish liberal voters in his state. To quote esteemed speaker:

"Voting as a liberal. That's what kids do," he added, they don’t have any real "life experience," and "they just vote their feelings."

"did anyone else have to swear on a bible that their address was correct before they were able to vote? just wondering, because i did," Philadelphia voter Lindsay Granger wrote on her blog after voting in last Tuesday's mid-term election. "i had to lay my palm on the good book and state my name and address before i was allowed to sign my name in the voting log and enter the booth. they called it an affirmation. i call it creepy… and a little offensive…"

"The Bible was sitting out in the open, and the procedure wasn't done in secret, which leads me to believe that I am not the only person who was asked to do that."

"i'm not a christian, so why should i have to swear on a bible? ... if anything, i should swear on a constitution or something."

Myanmar's military will keep its grip on power after the country's first election in 20 years through parties that emerged on Monday as the likely winners of a vote marred by fraud, and condemned by Washington and London. Complex rules for Sunday's election thwarted any chance of a pro-democracy upset as Myanmar ends half a century of direct army rule. State TV said voters "freely and happily" cast ballots, but witness accounts suggested low turn-out and irregularities.

Illustrating strains multi-ethnic Myanmar has faced for decades, a clash erupted between ethnic minority Karen rebels and government soldiers in the border town of Myawaddy, Reuters witnesses on the Thai side of the border said. Several rockets or mortar bombs fell on the Thai side. At least 10 people were wounded, witnesses said.

The Guardian: Burma election observers report voter intimidation

Polling stations close in country's first elections in 20 years with odds heavily stacked against opposition parties. The junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) has not said when the results will be announced, saying only that they could come "in time". It was almost certain, however, that through pre-election engineering the USDP will emerge victorious despite widespread popular opposition to 48 years of military rule. Sunday's election was held amid tight security, but few expect it to bring any real change in power, with the military and its proxies likely to dominate parliament and senior positions.

In the commercial hub of Yangon on Sunday, armed riot police stood guard at near-empty polling booths or patrolled streets in convoys of military trucks, part of a clampdown that includes bans on foreign media and on outside election monitors. The carefully choreographed end of direct army rule, marred by complex rules that stifled major pro-democracy forces, enters its final stage in a race largely between two powerful military-backed parties running virtually unopposed.

Al Jazeera: Myanmar Elections 2010

Voters forced to an hour to vote, some simply left... Well, it's a good thing last Tuesday wasn't a Presidential Election with really huge crowds of voters in Utah County, UT. As polls opened at 7am, digitally encoded cards used by voters to begin the voting process on the state's oft-failed, easily-manipulated, 100% unverifiable Diebold AccuVote touch-screen voting systems didn't work at all 110 polling locations across the county. A programming error was blamed.

Voters were forced to wait in line for up to an hour while technicians struggled to figure out how to correct the failure. Many voters simply gave up, walking away and becoming disenfranchised in the bargain when they couldn't hang around to wait that long to vote on a work day. As usual, the wide-spread failure (county-wide, in this case) was marginalized by the media as little more than a "glitch". Of course, had the county used paper ballots, nobody would have been disenfranchised, or had to wait on line for an hour to cast their vote. Voters across the entire state are now forced to vote on the Diebold touch-screen systems on Election Day.

Employing baseless fear mongering about the (no longer existent) ACORN and other liberal groups that are supposedly trying to steal next week's elections, conservative "anti-voter-fraud campaigns are popping up across the country, but their biggest rollouts have tended to be in lower-income areas with large minority populations." From the Illinois Republican Party and Tea Party groups to the right-wing astro-turfing group American Majority Action, a startling number of right-wing groups have rolled out aggressive campaigns to "block Democrats…err, voter fraud, at the polls," as Mother Jones' Suzy Khimm sarcastically noted.

While campaigns and political parties have long dispatched trained poll watchers and election judges to the polls to look for irregularities, this year, conservative groups are turning to grassroots activists with little or no training in thinly-veiled efforts to suppress liberal voter participation. Right-wing blogger Michelle Malkin announced on Fox News that "we are all voter-fraud police now," while American Majority Action lets anyone with an iPhone become a poll watcher with their Voter Fraud app.

McDonald’s sells itself as the ultimate happy place. But this election season, a local McDonald’s franchise in Canton, Ohio is telling employees how to keep the company happy: vote Republican.

Along with their recent paychecks, employees received a pamphlet from their employer on company letter head that stated “as the election season is here, we wanted you to know which candidates will help our business grow in the future.” While pointing out that the vote is the employee’s “personal decision,” the pamphlet explicitly states, “if the right people are elected we will be able to continue with raises and benefits at or above our present levels. If others are elected we will not”.

The "right people" are John Kasich, Rob Portman, and Jim Renacci for this franchisee.

In explicitly endorsing gubernatorial candidate John Kasich (R), Senate candidate Rob Portman (R), and House candidate Jim Renacci (R), the pamphlet — which was directly inside the envelope with the paycheck — appears to directly violate Ohio Revised Code regarding elections:

No employer or his agent or a corporation shall print or authorize to be printed upon any pay envelopes any statements intended or calculated to influence the political action of his or its employees; or post or exhibit in the establishment or anywhere in or about the establishment any posters, placards, or hand bills containing any threat, notice, or information that if any particular candidate is elected or defeated work in the establishment will cease in whole or in part, or other threats expressed or implied, intended to influence the political opinions or votes of his or its employees.

An unknown group handed out misleading fliers to voters in a primarily African American polling place in Houston, Texas, reports KTRK. The fliers, which were handed out near an early voting location Tuesday night, claimed that "Republicans are trying to trick us" and said that voting Democrat was actually voting for Republicans.

"When you vote straight ticket Democrat, it is actually voting for Republicans and your vote doesn't count," says the flier. "We are urging everyone to VOTE for BILL WHITE. A VOTE for BILL WHITE is a VOTE for the ENTIRE DEMOCRATIC ticket. We have fought too hard to let Republicans use voting machines to deny us our basic rights. We must guard the change and NOT VOTE STRAIGHT TICKET DEMOCRAT! YES WE CAN!" Democrat Bill White, the former Mayor of Houston, is currently running against Republican Governor Rick Perry.

"I expect this to be illegal because it's so inaccurate, no political group would want to associate itself with a lie, this is the under the table stuff that we see in elections," said Dr. Richard Murray, political consultant for KTRK.

Imagine the look of contempt on Karl Rove's face this past Sunday as he swaggered toward his star turn on CBS's Face the Nation only to be served with our subpoena sanctioned by the Secretary of the State of Ohio. The federal subpoena orders Rove to testify in deposition. Our attorney, Cliff Arnebeck, intends to ask Mr. Rove about his role in the theft of the 2004 election, and to discuss his orchestration of tens of millions of corporate/billionaire dollars in the one coming up on November 2, 2010. As co-counsel and plaintiff in the on-going King-Lincoln-Bronzeville federal lawsuit, we have fought for six years to win justice and full disclosure in an election that Rove stole for George W. Bush.

BradBlog: E-Voting Systems Left Unattended at UT Poll Site

The latest reports regarding the investigations into allegations of fraud in last month’s Afghanistan parliamentary election continue to turn up evidence beyond all reason, with the latest evidence showing conclusively that fraud was pervasive across the nation in the vote.

Which is sort of old news, but the definition of “pervasive” continues to expand, and now officials familiar with the investigation say that roughly a quarter of the votes cast, or roughly one million votes, will be thrown out on the basis of fraud.

The Afghan Presidential election last year saw heretofore unprecedent levels of fraud in an ostensibly free election, and officials had expressed concern that very little had changed with regard to the oversight in the election. In the end this concern was vindicated, as both violence and complaints of overt fraud far exceeded even last year’s vote.

The fact of the matter is that nearly a quarter of polls didn’t even open on the day of the election, and that a quarter of the votes are being thrown out because of fraud, while violence, ballot stuffing and intimidation were reported nationwide. It seems impossible that anything resembling a truthful result can emerge from this fiasco, even assuming (however unlikely) that the election commissions are honest.

The US military claimed responsibility for killing scores of insurgents over the weekend as it unleashed its long-awaited offensive against Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second-largest city. The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), the NATO umbrella organization for the US-led occupation, reported the largest body counts in two eastern regions of the country. In eastern Laghman Province, ISAF reported that a US-led air assault killed at least 30 in an “engagement with enemy fighters” in the Alishing district. The report claimed that there were no injuries to civilians in the area. On Saturday, however, several hundred Afghans demonstrated in the streets of Mihtarlam, the provincial capital, to protest the slaughter of unarmed civilians in the raid. The protesters chanted slogans condemning the US-led occupation.

PressTV: US drone kills two in NW Pakistan.
PressTV: US strikes kill nine in Pakistan

Afghan vote-rigging videos emerge -- The integrity of Afghanistan's recent parliamentary election has been plunged into fresh doubt with the emergence of amatuer videos that appear to show police officers tasked with stopping fraud allowing vote-rigging to occur.

The integrity of Afghanistan's recent parliamentary election has been plunged into fresh doubt with the emergence of amatuer videos that appear to show police officers tasked with stopping fraud allowing vote-rigging to occur. The videos, obtained by Al Jazeera, cannot be independently verified but appear to show Afghan police involvement in electoral fraud, dealing a blow to official claims that any dishonesty that occurred was the work of independent fraudstars and was not carried out on a massive scale.

Indian authorities have arrested a computer scientist for refusing to divulge the source of an electronic voting machine that he and a team of researchers used to expose holes in the country's election system. The Hyderabad home of Hari Prasad, managing director of Netindia LTD, was raided on Saturday morning at 5:30 by authorities who questioned him for two and a half hours before taking him into custody, a colleague of his said here. Police then transported him to Mumbai, which is about 14 hours away. The arrest follows research released in April that disclosed several vulnerabilities in India's electronic voting machines, which authorities have claimed are fully tamper-proof and even perfect. The flaws were discovered on a machine that an anonymous source donated to the research team in February, after elections officials refused to make one available.

Proof of voter fraud in the USA - from the horse's mouth

One district in Paktika province recorded 626 percent voter turnout, according to reports obtained by McClatchy Newspapers. Internal reports from Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission on Tuesday provide new evidence of serious fraud in Afghanistan's parliamentary elections, including turnouts that exceeded 100 percent in many southeastern districts under the control of the Taliban or other militants. The new indications of fraud appear to strengthen allegations of widespread intimidation, vote rigging and violence that independent Afghan poll monitors began making almost immediately after the polls closed on Saturday and cast new doubts on the commission's assertion that it knew of no instances in which commission staff members stuffed ballots.

Afghanistan's electoral watchdog said on Tuesday that it has received over 3,000 complaints about irregularities in the run-up to Saturday's parliamentary election and on polling day itself. The Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) said 1,388 complaints had been received specifically about election day irregularities -- which could affect the results -- ahead of a 4 pm (1130 GMT deadline) deadline for submissions.ECC commissioner and spokesman Ahmad Zia Rafaat told AFP that on top of those complaints, another 1,700 had been lodged relating to problems ahead of the vote.

There are concerns that the ECC could be hard-pressed to handle the volume of complaints, which are expected to rise as preliminary results are posted on its website.More than 2,500 candidates stood for the 249 seats in parliament's lower house, or Wolesi Jirga, and many of the losers are expected to lodge complaints. Canada.com: Afghanistan braces for rush of poll complaints.

Officials were trumpeting Saturday’s parliamentary election in Afghanistan as a resounding success, with General David Petraeus insisting it “sent a powerful message” to the insurgency and other NATO officials maintaining that violence wasn’t nearly as bad as expected.

But the reality on the ground was at least 18 deaths, widespread fraud and intimidation, and security problems which kept roughly 20% of the country unable to vote at all. Voter turnout was expected to be robust, with a pre-vote poll showing a bizarre split between cynicism about the massive corruption and yet that 70% of Afghans planned on voting. The reality was that they didn’t, not even close. Official turnout figures from IEC said 40% of eligible voters cast ballots, but this was revealed to be a fudged estimate based on an artificially reduced eligibility number. In reality only 3.6 million votes were cast, and over 16 million registered voters in the nation.

And of course, 3.6 million votes in Afghanistan doesn’t mean 3.6 million voters, as fake voting cards were being sold openly in bazaars and ballot stuffing was reported at multiple sites. Between these and the reports of bribery and coercion, reports of violence and ballots running out, the results of the election seem to be exactly what the polls suggested, an unfair vote.

Patrick Martin: Fraud, violence and mass abstention: election debacle in Afghanistan
Jason Ditz: Official Count Fudged 'Eligible' Voter Count to Raise Turnout Percentage.

About one third of Afghanistan's eligible voters came to polling stations on Saturday to elect a new parliament, the head of the Afghan Independent Election Commission said. According to preliminary data, a total of 3.6 million people out of 11,4 million [numbers corrected by this editor] eligible for voting casted their ballots to elect the 249-seat Wolesi Jirga, the lower house of the country's parliament, Fazil Ahmad Manawi said. Taliban fighters launched dozens of attacks across the country to prevent people from voting in the polls, Afgnanistan's second general elections since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001.

WaPo: Afghan turnout low amid violence
Reuters: Fraud concerns weigh on early Afghan vote count
Tom Peters: Another rigged election in Afghanistan
RAWA: Fraud casts doubt over Afghan election

A new poll indicates that only about a third of Afghans have any confidence that Saturday’s parliamentary elections will be “transparent and fair,” a serious paucity of confidence for what US officials are calling a very important election. The pessimism is perhaps understandable, considering the massive number of fraudulent votes cast in last year’s presidential vote. Very little has changed in the meantime, except that the Karzai government has managed to cut the level of international oversight. Yet international concerns have focused almost exclusively on security. And even here officials have remained optimistic about the vote despite large numbers of pre-vote kidnappings, and insist that the sites will be secure even though security forces were unable to stop the killing of at least five candidates and the kidnapping of two others. But the reality is considerably less rosy, as security officials concede that roughly one in seven polling places won’t even open on Saturday because it is simply too dangerous.

PressTV: Afghanistan begins vote count
PressTV: Afghans cast ballot despite violence.
RAWA: Fraud casts doubt over Afghan election.
Axis of Logic: Voting in a Karzai-style election
WSWS: Another rigged election in Afghanistan
NYT: Afghan Votes Come Cheap, and Often in Bulk

Since the stolen presidential election of 2004, Jonathan Simon has been at the forefront of analysis and research into election fraud in America. Yesterday, Simon published the result of his inquiry into the special election last January in which Ted Kennedy's Senate seat (from the nation's most solidly Democratic state) was offered up by the Democrats to a Tea Party Republican. This was an election with crucial national significance. The Democrats had exactly the 60-vote margin in the Senate needed to push through Obama's health care initiative over united Republican obstruction. Ted Kennedy had been a lifelong champion of that legislation, and his was widely regarded as a safe Democratic seat. State Attorney General Martha Coakley was supposed to be a shoo-in.

But Coakley campaigned half-heartedly -- some would say incompetently. The RNC shoveled money into the race. A media campaign before the election proclaimed that challenger Scott Brown was unexpectedly competitive. Most inexplicably -- perhaps this is the biggest clue -- Coakley conceded the race at midnight, with a quarter of the votes still uncounted.

Police have arrested the person who showed Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) can be tampered with in India in a sting operation. Today, at wee hours Maharashtra police landed up at the residence of Hari Prasad in Hyderabad, a technologist and Technical coordinator of VeTA to arrest him. The arrest was made on the flimsy charge of ‘theft of EVM’ used for vulnerability demonstration by Hari Prasad and a team of security researchers that included Alex Halderman, professor of computer science, University of Michigan and Rop Gonggrijp, a security researcher from Netherlands along with a team of their colleagues. Earlier, police came to Hyderabad in the first week of August and recorded a statement on the EVM they had used for exposing the vulnerability of EVMs. They summoned him to Mumbai for further questioning. Hari Prasad could not go as he was busy with his professional work. Then, the sudden arrest happened this morning. Over the past one year, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has been lying blatantly and willfully to ensure continued use of EVMs at all costs. It attributed all kinds of qualities to its EVMs: “totally tamper proof, perfect, fail safe and requiring no improvement” etc. etc. When Hari Prasad agreed to meet the ECI’s challenge to demonstrate tamperability of EVMs, the ECI backed out imposing silly, unscientific restrictions.

Do you ever just sit back and wonder what in the world has happened to America? The truth is that the America that so many of us once loved so much has been shattered into a thousand pieces. The "land of the free and the home of the brave" has been transformed into a socialized Big Brother nanny state that is oozing with corruption and has accumulated the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world. The greatest economic machine that the world has ever seen is falling apart before our very eyes, and even when our politicians actually try to do something right (which is quite rare) the end result is still a bunch of garbage. For those who still love this land (and there are a lot of us) it is heartbreaking to watch America slowly die. The following are 50 random facts that show just how dramatically America has changed....

Vic Rawl says inexplicable Democratic primary contest casts 'cloud' over state election; Notes 'irregularities', problem reports from voters, poll workers, vows 'electoral reform', calls for 'full and unblinking investigation of overall integrity' of state's ES&S voting system. A formal challenge to the announced results of South Carolina's Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate has now been filed by Judge Vic Rawl, the candidate who wasn't announced the winner by the state's oft-failed, easily-manipulated, 100% unverifiable ES&S e-voting system. Rawl released an official statement on his website today, in conjunction with the filing and a press conference he held in Charleston this afternoon.

After all these years, not much has changed for the denialist jurisdictions that still insult their voters by using 100% unverifiable electronic voting machines. Pittsburgh's WTAE filed a report last week with a ring of exhausting familiarity --- at least to long time readers of The BRAD BLOG. This one stars, as usual, both an open, unsecured door to the warehouse, and an election official --- in this case, Allegheny County Pennsylvania's Election Division manager, Mark Wolosik --- claiming he's "seen" no problems before, so everything is just dandy, nothing to worry about when it comes to his support of the use of 100% unverifiable electronic voting systems by his county's voters...

I made some graphs. And yes, I am a nerd. But these make the scale of the unfairness clear.

The US has expressed deep concern over the Afghan president's recent remarks, which implicated "foreign governments" [the US] in vote rigging during the country's elections. In an April 1 speech to Afghan election commission workers in Kabul, Hamid Karzai said "foreign powers" were to blame for the fraud that occurred during last years elections. “There was fraud in presidential and provincial council elections -- no doubt that there was a very widespread fraud, very widespread,” he said. “But Afghans did not do this fraud. The foreigners did this fraud,” he added, referring to the August presidential election. AntiWar: Karzai Faces Fallout: Will Vote Fraud Claims Undermine War?

Admits 'Vast Fraud' in August Vote, Claims UN Conspiracy Against Him. For the first time since the vote, Afghan President Hamid Karzai admitted today that there was “vast fraud” in the August election which gave him a second term as president. Despite the fact that the vast majority of the fraudulent votes were cast on his behalf, however, Karzai maintains innocence. Instead he claims there is a UN conspiracy behind the fraud that was intent on denying him reelection. The claim is perplexing since then-UN official Kai Eide was reported to have tried to cover up the extent of the fraud. The allegation comes as Karzai is locked in a battle with the Afghan parliament over his attempts to seize unilateral control over the UN electoral watchdog, a move which is poised to lead the international community to deny funding for the parliamentary election later this summer.

Over three weeks have passed since the Iraqi election, and its resolution seems as uncertain as ever. The top two factions, the Iraqiya bloc of Ayad Allawi and the State of Law party of Nouri al-Maliki remain at each others throats, and neither seems to be making much progress in gaining partners among the smaller blocs.

The west's acclaim of a democratic dawn rings hollow as long as Allawi and Maliki refuse to observe the rule of law. The idea that elections are the be-all and end-all of democracy is naive at best. At worst they are a shallow and unsustainable justification for the carnage that followed invasion and regime change. Iraq's new ruling elite was brought back to the country by US and British troops; they are now presiding over a country that has repeatedly gone to the polls but received precious little beyond politically motivated violence, widespread corruption and now a flagrant disregard for the rule of law by their elected politicians. AntiWar: Move Could Ban Six Allawi MPs From Office. The Independent: Links to Ba’athists could end Allawi’s hopes of seizing power.

"No way we will accept the results," Mr. Maliki said. "These are preliminary results." Gesturing angrily, he said he would challenge the vote count through what he described as legal process. Former U.S.-backed prime minister Ayad Allawi and his secular, anti-Iranian coalition narrowly won Iraq's parliamentary elections in final returns Friday, edging out the bloc of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who angrily vowed to challenge the results. The Economist: Iyad Allawi wins most seats in Iraq, but long wrangling will decide who rules.