Names to know in the Ohio 2004 election scandal

[Caligirl]

Here are three guys that are providing testimony in a court case charging election fraud in Ohio (king-lincoln v blackwell) in the forms of affidavits, and depositions.

(1) Mike Connell. He was a top republican IT expert who has worked for the Bush family and other republican candidates, and worked for Secretary of State Ken Blackwell on IT in 2004. If there was electronic rigging, this guy would be likely to know about it. There have been a few indications (articles) that Connell has been pressured by Rove to take the fall for rigging in Ohio.

The lead lawyer for the plaintiffs in the case (the guys that want to show vote fraud) are trying to get a deposition from Connell, but so far there has been a stay on the case. Through word of mouth, Connell appears to know that Ohio 2004 was not clean:

"Mr. Connell is a devout Catholic. He has admitted to me that in his zeal to 'save the unborn' he may have helped others who have compromised elections. He was clearly uncomfortable when I asked directly about Ohio 2004."

(2) Stephen Spoonamore. Spoonamore is another republican, worked for the McCain campaign and was founder/CEO of an IT policy and security firm. He provided evidence in July that Georgia's 2002 gubernatorial race was compromised electronically. He is currently an expert witness in the King-Lincoln v Blackwell case in Ohio.

Spoonamore affidavit asserts that the election computer setup used by Ken Blackwell in 2004 provided the means and opportunity for the manipulation of the election results. "The vote tabulation and reporting system, as modified at the direction of Mr. Blackwell, allowed the introduction of a single computer in the middle of the pathway. This computer located at a company principally managing IT Systems for GOP campaign and political operations (Computer C) received all information from each county computer (Computer A) BEFORE it was sent onward to Computer B. This centralized collection of all incoming statewide tabulations would make it extremely easy for a single operator, or a preprogrammed single "force balancing computer" to change the results in any way desired by the team controlling Computer C. In this case GOP partisan operatives. Again, if this out of state system had ANY digital access to the Secretary of State's system it would be cause for immediate investigation by any of my banking clients.

The Raw Story | GOP cyber-security expert suggests Diebold tampered with 2002 election

(3) Richard Hayes Philip, presumably a democrat, who wrote

"Having personally examined 126,000 ballots, 127 poll books, and 141 voter signature books from 18 counties in Ohio, and having examined many other election records as well, it is my conclusion that there is so much evidence of ballot alteration, ballot substitution, ballot box stuffing, ballot destruction, vote switching, tabulator rigging, and old-fashioned voter suppression, that the results of the 2004 presidential election, in all likelihood, have been reversed."

This guy was very active following the 2004 election, examining ballots and so on. He's got a lot of stuff on the web in terms of lists of discrepancies in ballots and etc, if anyone is interested.

Cliff Arnebeck is the lead lawyer in the case, and you can read more about this case and some of the witnesses here:

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Explosive-Events-Happening-by-Velvet-Revolution-080920-704.html

The stay on the case makes progress hard.

 

[Silence]

what happens if they prove the 2004 election was rigged?

Do they turn back the clock and call a mulligan on the last 4 years?

I want to know if only to prevent it from happening in the future but other than that, really it can't change anything.

 

[Caligirl]

I would hope there would be serious jail time. I would hope that it would cause proper reform this time, and I would hope that it would help restore more faith between countries, which seems to have taken a nose dive under Bush's governance.

 

[Caligirl]

So Mike Connell, the first "name to watch" in the list above, and who was deposed just before the 2008 election (a deposition which mysteriously coincided with Karl Rove immediately changing his prediction about who would win the election), and who was allegedly intimidated by Rove to be the 'fall guy' for the theft of 2004, and who was warned not to fly (I am just learning some of these details now, don't know who warned him or etc)....

... died in a plane crash last week.

Yeah, this event in a courtroom in Columbus may be one of the most important things to happen in this whole election and may be one of the most important things to happen in American history. I mean, this sounds hyperbolic, I know, but it is true.

Mike Connell is-has been named as Karl Rove's computer guru since 2000. The lawyers in the case refer to Connell as a high-IQ Forrest Gump, because he's been on the scene of every dubious election we've had over the last eight years, starting with Florida 2000.

-Mark Crispin Miller, October

There is really no question that Mike Connell's death has a smell of foul play that is apparent to anyone but the most Panglossian airhead. The fact alone that an experienced pilot's death came just before he was to explain, under oath, what appears to have been the rigging of the 2004 Ohio vote. But when you figure in that the plaintiffs' lead attorney in King Lincoln vs. Blackwell, Cliff Arnebeck, wrote a letter to Attorney General Mike Mukasey "seeking protection for Mr. Connell and his family from this reported attempt to intimidate a witness," well the smell gets worse than a week-old mackerel in the bedroom closet in the summertime. The letter said Rove warned Connell to "take the fall." And it doesn't stop there.

OpEdNews » Did Lame Congress Enable Connell Murder?

Incredible.

 

[WillowTree]

I notice every time there is a piece on Blago,, they fail to mention "he's a Democrat"

 

[Old Rocks]

I notice every time there is a piece on Blago,, they fail to mention "he's a Democrat"

Bullshit. And he is being taken care of. Not supported by all the ideologues as Bush is. If one can prove that Rove and company did 'create' a Bush victory in Ohio in 2004, then maybe that fat treasonous bastard can finally get the accomodations he deserves.

 

[Caligirl]

Please return thread to topic or don't reply. This thread's topic is people who may be involved in electronic vote theft in 2004 and whether there are still vulnerabilities in the systems as the governmental accountability office has reported.

Mike Connell came under increased scrutiny earlier this year when Steven Spoonamore (also linked to the Bush campaign) said that in conversations, Connell admitted that in his zeal to protect babies he may have compromised Ohio's vote.

Connell is an IT expert who was at a very high level in the vote counting process in 2004.

September 29th:

The interest in Mike Connell stems from his association with a firm called GovTech, which he had spun off from his own New Media Communications under his wife Heather Connell’s name. GovTech was hired by Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell to set up an official election website at election.sos.state.oh.us to presented the 2004 presidential returns as they came in.

Connell is a long-time GOP operative, whose New Media Communications provided web services for the Bush-Cheney ’04 campaign, the US Chamber of Commerce, the Republican National Committee and many Republican candidates. This in itself might have raised questions about his involvement in creating Ohio’s official state election website.

However, the alternative media group ePlubibus Media further discovered in November 2006 that election.sos.state.oh.us was hosted on the servers of a company in Chattanooga, TN called SmarTech, which also provided hosting for a long list of Republican Internet domains.

“Since early this decade, top Internet ‘gurus’ in Ohio have been coordinating web services with their GOP counterparts in Chattanooga, wiring up a major hub that in 2004, first served as a conduit for Ohio's live election night results,” researchers at ePluribus Media wrote.

A few months after this revelation, when a scandal erupted surrounding the firing of US Attorneys for reasons of White House policy, other researchers found that the gwb43 domain used by members of the White House staff to evade freedom of information laws by sending emails outside of official White House channels was hosted on those same SmarTech servers.

Given that the Bush White House used SmarTech servers to send and receive email, the use of one of those servers in tabulating Ohio’s election returns has raised eyebrows. Ohio gave Bush the decisive margin in the Electoral College to secure his reelection in 2004.

IT expert Stephen Spoonamore says the SmartTech server could have functioned as a routing point for malicious activity and remains a weakness in electronic voting tabulation.

November 3rd:

Connell was first subpoenaed in the case in after Stephen Spoonamore, a renowned cyber-sleuth and information security expert, came forward as an expert witness.

On Democracy Now this morning, Mark Crispin Miller, a professor of media culture and communication at New York University and author "Loser Take All: Election Fraud and The Subversion of Democracy, 2000–2008" described Spoonamore as

"…a very unusual and particularly unimpeachable kind of whistleblower. He is a conservative Republican. He is a former McCain supporter, but above all he is renowned and highly successful expert at the detection of computer fraud. He works for big banks, he works for foreign governments, the Secret Service, his job is to figure out how computers are used to steal money or information, or votes."

Spoonamore affidavits filed in connection with the case along with arguments made in a Cleveland courthouse Friday led the judge in the case to reject a motion to quash a Connell subpoena. In a surprise ruling, the judge ordered Connell to appear in the deposition, on the eve of the election.

For lead lawyer Cliff Arnebeck, the timing is auspicious given his concern about the security of the 2008 election. Speaking to earlier pleadings to the court and State of Ohio litigants, Arnebeck explained, “We submitted two affidavits and argued that the same people who stole 2000, 2004 are still in business and are engaged in a plan to steal 2008."

That the Ohio litigants agreed to the consent order to lift a two-year-old stay in the case, is evidence of growing concern among the general public and elected officials that elections employing electronic voting machines and vote counting tabulators are seen as vulnerable to manipulation or theft by those who control or can gain access.

And at the same time:

Two weeks ago, Rove was confidently saying that John McCain could win ten battleground states to become President. McCain was confidently telling everyone that he would win with a surge in the wee hours of election night.

Well, last Friday, something important happened: Michael Connell was forced to appear before Solomon Oliver, a Clinton appointed African-American federal Judge in Cleveland. After Attorney Cliff Arnebeck accused Connell in open court of rigging elections for Karl Rove, the judge ordered Connell to submit to a sworn deposition 18 hours before the polls were to open. On Monday at noon, Connell was placed under oath and grilled about election fraud, Man in the Middle attacks, Trojan horse manipulations and threats from Rove.

And guess what happened? Connell suddenly changed his tune. Connell said that to his knowledge there would be no tabulation manipulations of Tuesday's election. And something else, Karl Rove wrote on his blog late Monday that Obama would win by a landslide even in those states he had previously predicted McCain would win.

Connell was allegedly threatened by Rove to take the fall for the election:

Karl Rove has threatened a GOP high-tech guru and his wife, if he does not "'take the fall' for election fraud in Ohio," according to a letter sent this morning to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, by Ohio election attorney Cliff Arnebeck.

The email, posted in full below, details threats against Mike Connell of the Republican firm New Media Communications, which describes itself on its website as "a powerhouse in the field of Republican website development and Internet services" and having "played a strategic role in helping the GOP expand its technological supremacy."

and evidently some threats specifically involved flying his plane:

WMR has learned from knowledgeable sources in Ohio that Republican Party computer networking guru Mike Connell was warned not to fly in anonymous warnings conveyed to principals in the ongoing federal civil lawsuit of King Lincoln Bronzeville Neighborhood Association v. Blackwell, stemming from GOP-engineered vote fraud in the 2004 Ohio presidential election, as well as a potential Ohio racketeer-influenced criminal organization (RICO) criminal proceeding against former Bush White House aide Karl Rove and Blackwell, in the conspiracy to illegally steer Ohio’s 20 electoral votes to the Bush column in 2004.

The court case in Ohio is gaining traction over recent months. Connell was called "exhibit A" by the plaintiffs. He was positioned in the party and in the campaigns in such a way that he would have knowledge of electronic vote theft. the vote counting machine for Ohio was in Tennessee, run by the same company that hosted private emails for Bush's administrative people.

Investigations into the cause of Connell's fatal plane crash are underway.

 

[Lycurgus]

I would think (hope) that given the events of at least the last 4 national presidential elections that everyone would be fed up on all sides and willing to bring about real change and reform before we run around the globe telling others how to execute a fair election. Both sides are dirty as sin and this partisan bull shit is laughable. No one owns this topic!

As someone who speaks to others abroad on a regular basis it is embarrassing and impossible to defend.

We can and we should do better and each citizen should unconditionally demand it, even if that means crossing party lines, which frankly also would be a blessing!

 

[Truthmatters]

For fucks sake Im sick of every time the Rs get outed they say "democrats are just as dirty".

Your team lied us into war, your team ruined the economy, your team spent like drunken sailors.

Its not EVERYONES fault its the republicans fault.

 

[Caligirl]

There should only be one team - or if there has to be two it should be citizens v government, as a check on the system.

Consider this: If a crooked politician wants power, what will guide his choice of party affiilation?

.... I believe the answer is: whichever is in power.

 

[Old Rocks]

Calligirl, you can present evidence until kingdom come. It does not matter to the Bushbots. You are simply wrong, no matter how solid the evidence you have is.

 

[Caligirl]

Lycurgus did not say I was wrong. No one on this thread has said anything like that.

Republicans are not your enemies, they are your brothers and sisters..... and we all want democracy.

 

[Caligirl]

If nothing else someone should make a movie about this.

Mike Connell had been caught up in at least two major legal probes, one involving the disappearance of Rove’s potentially incriminating emails and one pertaining to computerized election fraud allegations in Ohio during the 2004 election. All indications were that Connell was guilty of both crimes, as well as perjury when he denied them in a sworn deposition. But he was finally ready to come clean, perhaps because of the frighteningly complex matrix of circumstances he was caught in. So he had notified his attorneys and an investigative news editor, Larisa Alexandrovna of Raw Story, that he was ready to talk.

During the interview with Alexandrovna, Connell was “frightened,” according to the reporter. He was being called upon by Ohio election attorney Cliff Arnebeck to testify against Rove. But Connell claimed that he was being threatened by Karl Rove if he did so. Rove, he said, was telling him to “take the fall.” If he did not, Rove was going to unleash the Bush Justice Department on Connell’s wife, Heather, to investigate her lobbying activities.

The Ohio attorney Cliff Arnebeck knew from his own numerous inside sources that these threats were credible. He also had been tipped off that Connell’s life was at risk. Following the alleged threats by Rove, Connell had cancelled two flights after noticing suspicious problems with his airplane. Arnebeck took all this information so seriously that he communicated his concerns to several government officials, including U.S. Attorney General Mukasey, stating that Connell was an important witness, his life was in danger, and that he should be under protective custody. Mukasey did nothing.

 

[Truthmatters]

Its so obvious they bumped him off and yes the current leadership of the Republican party is my enemy because they dont give arats ass about the US.

 

[Alpha1]

All you post is innuendo and conjecture....taken together it amounts to bullshit....

You have no proof...you have are ifs....maybes....mights....etc....

Pile this on top of the innuendo and conjecture and you have a bigger pile of bullshit...

 

[Truthmatters]

There are reports of him being warned not to fly.

He was about to testify.

 

[Caligirl]

All you post is innuendo and conjecture....taken together it amounts to bullshit....

You have no proof...you have are ifs....maybes....mights....etc....

Pile this on top of the innuendo and conjecture and you have a bigger pile of bullshit...

Actually the death is not innuendo, the man died. And it is not a matter of innuendo that the tabulator that counted Ohio's votes was in Tennessee, on the same server that provided private email accounts to Rove etc, emails which have been deleted ... and that being a serious issue that received a good amount of news coverage. Over 5 MILLION emails were deleted, on the same server that counted Ohio's 2004 vote, in Tennessee.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_White_House_e-mail_controversy


It is not innuendo that Connell was directly involved in setting up this server.

Would you like Obama to do his dealings in private? Would you like the server that allows him to have private lines of communnication, and email deletion options, be the same server that counts the votes that declares him the winner?

It is not innuendo that these specific events happened. If you are comfortable with the democrats setting up electronic back doors, doors that tie in directly to both private communication among the bigwigs as well into national vote tabulation, say the word.

I suspect you would not like to have such a set up for Obama and his staff. Correct?

It is a matter of record that Connell received warnings not to fly, and threats to his family.

 

[Caligirl]

After the July 17 news conference announcing Connell was a witness concerning Rove, Jeff Averbeck, President of Connell's firm SmarTech informed prosecutors that Rove conveyed Connell would not recieve a pardon and that his wife would be prosecuted for fraud unless Connell "took the fall".

OpEdNews » HuffPo Heavyweight Asked To Retract Report on Slain Rove IT Guru "Conspiracy Theories"

Not conjecture, a matter of record.

Connell was preparing to testify. He had been called "Exhibit A" in the case.

MSM coverage is here:

Republican IT Guru Dies In Plane Crash, Was Sought In Controversies Over E-Voting And Missing White House E-Mails; His Death Sparks More Controversy - CBS News

 

[garyd]

Yes and Clinton's buddy McDougal had a very convenient heart attack etc etc etc. Send this to the conspiracy block with the rest of the crap.

 

[Caligirl]

Do you believe McDougal was knocked off?