Submitted by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
If you’ve never heard of King Lincoln v. Blackwell, don’t be too surprised. Project Censored calls the outsourcing of the 2004 Presidential elections in Ohio “one of the most censored stories in the world.” Originally filed on August 31, 2006 in Ohio, King Lincoln Bronzeville v. Blackwell is an ongoing civil case to decide if the the Ohio Secretary of State at the time, Kenneth Blackwell, violated the Civil Rights Act (42 USC §§ 1983 and 1984) and the 1st, 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution by conspiring to “deprive and continue to deprive Ohioans of their right to vote and have, in fact, deprived and continue to deprive Ohioans of their right to vote by, in a selective and discriminatory manner, unfairly allocate election resources (such as voting machines), institute a system of provisional ballots, purge voter registrations, and broke the bi-partisan chain of custody ballots”. The vote at the heart of the issue is the 2004 Presidential election where, in defiance of exit poll data, there was a sudden and unexpected shift in votes for George W. Bush.
New filings include a revealing deposition of the late Michael Connell. Connell died shortly after giving his deposition in a small plane crash that is described as “suspicious”*. In life, Connell served as the IT guru for the Bush family and their personal minister of propaganda, Karl Rove. Connell ran a private IT firm called GovTech that created the controversial electronic voting system that Ohio used during the election. GovTech’s system transferred Ohio’s vote count late on election night to a partisan Republican server site in Chattanooga, Tennessee owned by a company called SmarTech. That is when the alleged vote shift happened that led to Bush’s unexpected victory.
The filing also contains a copy of the contract signed between Kenneth Blackwell and GovTech Solutions as well as a graphic architectural map of the Secretary of State’s election night server layout system. In a possible indication that the system was designed with fraud in mind, the contracts and maps had never been made public until this filing. The lead attorney on the case, Cliff Arnebeck, consulted with IT security expert Stephen Spoonamore about the network setup. Specifically, Arnebeck asked Spoonamore whether or not SmarTech had the ability to alter the results of the election. “Yes. They would have had data input capacities. The system might have been set up to log which source generated the data but probably did not,” Spoonamore responded, further explaining that SmarTech would have had “full access and could change things when and if they want.”
Spoonamore went on to conclude that “SmarTech was a man in the middle. In my opinion they were not designed as a mirror, they were designed specifically to be a man in the middle.” For those of you not computer savvy, a mirror site is like a back back-up. It works when the main computer system fails. In contrast, a “man in the middle” is a deliberate computer hacking setup (and a violation of U.S. wiretapping statutes) in which a third party sits in between computer transmissions where they can illegally alter or steal the data. In an even more revealing statement by Spoonamore during the course of the e-mails with Arnebeck, he claims that he confronted then-Secretary of State Blackwell at a secretary of state IT conference in Boston. Blackwell’s response? “Blackwell freaked and refused to speak to me when I confronted him about it long before I met you,” Spoonamore wrote to Arnebeck. In a previously submitted affidavit, Spoonamore testified, “The SmarTech system was set up precisely as a King Pin computer used in criminal acts against banking or credit card processes and had the needed level of access to both county tabulators and Secretary of State computers to allow whoever was running SmarTech computers to decide the output of the county tabulators under its control,” and that “…the architecture further confirms how this election was stolen.
Contrary to any contention that SmarTech’s servers operated simply as mirrors and that a system failure was behind the transfer of data to the Republican partisan firm, the late Michael Connell swore under oath that, “To the best of my knowledge, it was not a fail-over case scenario – or it was not a failover situation.” This is also confirmed by Bob Magnan, the state IT specialist for then Secretary of State Blackwell during the 2004 election. Magnan further claims that the control of the system was in the hands of private contractors at the time. Magnan was unexpectedly sent home at 9 p.m. on election night.
For those of you already suspect of electronic voting and the election of 2004, these new revelations are a smoking gun and a road map to how the election in Ohio was rigged in favor of George W. Bush. King Lincoln Bronzeville v. Blackwell may be a civil case, but this newly introduced evidence merits a criminal investigation by the Department of Justice.
What do you think?
Source: TruthOut.org
* Commenter Otteray Scribe did the heavy lifting on locating more information about the crash, which as it turns out, is not very suspicious at all. His detailed and thorough post of the NTSB report is here. Thanks for the assist, Otteray Scribe!
~Submitted by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
OS,
I saw that story and I just shook my head. The good news is that his Senators are running behind in the recall elections and I suspect that Gov. Walker will be taking a hike come January.
They are at it again. Scott Walker has a new ploy to keep Democrats from voting. He just signed a new law making voter ID mandatory to prevent “voter fraud.” Then he shut down a number of DMV offices in mostly Democratic leaning districts, but increased the number of DMV employees in mostly Republican districts. Then look what happens when a mother and her son take a hidden camera into the DMV to get a voter ID. The boy is denied a card because his bank account is “not active enough.” Yes, you read that right. Rest of the story and video at the link below.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/07/26/998944/-VIDEO:-WI-DMV-Tells-Boy-His-Bank-Account-Doesn%E2%80%99t-Show-Enough-%E2%80%9CActivity%E2%80%9D-To-Get-a-Voter-ID?detail=hide
@GeneH/Buddha
“I’d ask if you realize that civil and criminal process are two distinct processes that are not predicated on the finding of the other, but clearly you don’t.”
Stop being such an idiot with your loaded statements.
rafflaw, I think he did steal two elections in a row. Now here comes Perry.http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2011/07/26/Perry-expected-to-join-2012-race-soon/UPI-52141311658682/?dailybrief
Great story Gene! It is a scary thought that W. might have stolen two elections in a row.
Voter suppression is another one of their tactics. Look at all the laws passed by the republican legislatures and signed by their governors in 2010. Voter suppression also happened in Ohio in 2004. Blackwell was gone by 2008.
Electoral shennanigans have been a hallmark GOPer electoral politics since shortly after LBJ signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 with the result that the old slavers and segregationists of the Old South moved solidly into the GOP and brought their christianist allies with them to the Grand Old Party. I rememeber here in Orange County, California when the Prince of Orange hired armed guards to provide security at polling places here in OC that had heavy latino populations or at least latino names. None of these guards were dispatched to polling places like the Balboa Bay Club in Newport Beach or other majority anglo and GOP strongholds. Nothing much has changed over the decades since that shift occured. I suppose the inevitable questions needs to be asked: is liberty and democracy (or more correctly the march toward liberty and democracy for all) dead in this Nation. Are we being governed by fascist oligarchs? Is this Great Experiment over?
You are welcome, Gene.
We have had a couple of crashes at our local regional airport due to similar icing conditions. One of them killed NASCAR driver Alan Kulwicki. Ice and airplanes do not go well together.
kderosa,
As usual, your statement is a distortion. Saying that new evidence in a civil case merits opening a criminal investigation is not the same thing as ruling before the court has on the civil matter. I’d ask if you realize that civil and criminal process are two distinct processes that are not predicated on the finding of the other, but clearly you don’t. You should ask OJ about this. Even he knows better.
You boys seem to have already ruled before the court has. That’s convenient. Will you cry that it is jury rigging if there is no liability found?
OS,
Thanks for the updated information! I was just out looking for information on the crash and you just saved me a ton of work. I’ll add a note to the story referencing this post.
@Geney
“Just like your improper inference that I’m a partisan.”
Giggle.
Gene – thats the problem. Clowns like kdreadful are only interested in furthering the interests of their masters. That means it OK if a Republican does it. Crimes can only be committed by Democrats just like terrorism can only be committed by Muslims, not by Christian white guys like Timmy McVey.
Normal people want all criminals prosecuted, paid trolls want to pretend their masters don’t commit crimes and when they get caught the other side does it.
Klownderosa, if this voter fraud is so wide spread how is it that there are not more prosecutions? Is every DA, every State AG, every investigator in on it?
Sorry folks. As much as we might be suspicious, the crash occurred in bad weather with icing conditions. Collins apparently had a case of “get-home-itis,” which is an itch that has killed many pilots and their passengers over the years. Having accidentally flown into icing myself, it is one of the scariest things any aviator can experience. I have lost good friends to icing and in almost every case, they were simply too eager to get home.
This report is long (sorry ’bout that), but here is the full NTSB Narrative Report. It reads like a clinic on all the things a pilot should not do.
kderosa,
“Now the vote tallies have to comport with exit poll sampling?”
That would be your improper inference. You seem to have a general problem with that process. Just like your improper inference that I’m a partisan. If you’re upset that your boys the Republicans got caught in this instance, I suggest you take it up with them. I’m for prosecuting criminals on a strictly non-partisan basis.
Another great story Gene. Two in a row. You keep it up it might be time for your own blog.
@Howington
“The vote at the heart of the issue is the 2004 Presidential election where, in defiance of exit poll data, there was a sudden and unexpected shift in votes for George W. Bush.”
Giggle. Now the vote tallies have to comport with exit poll sampling?
If republicans are going to commit voter fraud, they should just do it the old fashion way the way Democrats still do it in big cities.
funny about small plane crashes – Sen Carnahann, Sen. Wellstone, this guy. I’m not a believer in conspiracy theories but if I may quote Auric Goldfinger:”Once is accident, twice is coincidence, thrice is enemy action.”
They, the republicans, were desperate to regain control in ’10… lots to of stuff to cover up. Lots of eyes on them too. 🙂
The subversion of elections has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt in some Kentucky election cases involving judges and other officials.
Ironically, the federal government prosecutor advanced a criminal “conspiracy theory” in the indictments.
Conspiracy theories, they are not just for nuts any more.