More voting machine irregularities

In a Republican primary in Iowa, it was becoming apparent that the voting machines (optical scanning machines) were not counting the ballots properly, so a hand count of all the paper ballots was ordered:

While no statewide race results were changed by the new tallies at least one local race was changed. Machine results were indicating that Pottawattamie County Board of Supervisors Chairman Loren Knauss was trailing in a field of ten candidates in the race for the county board. The hand-count revealed that, in fact, Knauss was the top vote getter, by a wide margin, in a race for three candidates on the Republican ticket to face three Democrats in November.

Of course the county realized they had a problem somewhere and that it was probably with the ballot programming that was provided by their vendor, ES&S. The same ES&S that has failed in Texas, West Virginia, Indiana, Arkansas, and Pennsylvania in this year's primaries. Investigation found that, in fact, the ballot programming was the problem.

Now, this happened in a purely Republican race. But, would the Thuglicans ever stand for a hand count in a race against Democrats? And, what about the machines that have no paper backup?

As it turns out, Brad Blog is saying that many of the Diebold machines used in the California-50 race, where Francine Busby lost by a small margin had been de-certified and were being stored in private cars and basements.