Explosive Events Happening in King-Lincoln v. Blackwell Case (Ohio Election Theft)

[emlev]

on the Velvet Revolution Election Protection Strike Force blog:

There have been some explosive and, frankly, nation-shaking (and Bush administration-shaking) developments in the King Lincoln Bronzeville v. Blackwell lawsuit currently pending in Ohio. Some of these developments we can report to you, some are still off-the-record. Events are happening by the day and almost by the hour, so check back frequently for further information and updates.

We've previously covered the King-Lincoln v. Blackwell suit in some detail here, but in brief, some Ohio voters filed a lawsuit about the 2004 election. They want to take the deposition of Mike Connell, a Republican IT "guru" who set up the computers for counting the votes in Ohio.

There has been a stay on the case for some time, and the lead attorney for the plaintiffs, Cliff Arnebeck, has filed a motion requesting a lifting of the stay so that he can depose Mike Connell under oath and ask him about his 20 years of work for the Bush family and for many, many Republican politicians and causes, and specifically his computer/IT work for Ken Blackwell in Ohio 2004.

In his motion to lift the stay, Arnebeck writes (PDF, 6 pages), "The public has a need and right to know, before the next presidential election, that the top Republican IT expert shares a concern about the vulnerability of electronic voting systems to fraudulent manipulation, and that this is not just 'conspiracy theory.'"

[L. Coyote]

1. Here we go again. Lots of hype and what is the substance?

How is this true? "Mike Connell, a Republican IT "guru" who set up the computers for counting the votes in Ohio."

How do they get off making such accusations without evidence?

These guys are always asking for money. Is that what the hype is about?

[emlev]

2. Check out the evidence. It's there. You responded too quickly this time

Clearly couldn't have read it. Read Richard Hayes Phillips's affidavit, linked to in the blog item. It names witnesses. His book contains mountains of evidence.

[Wilms]

3. What are the most compelling facts, as you see them? n/t

[L. Coyote]

5. More = GET REAL: Steven Rosenfeld and Bob Fitrakis as "coincidence theorists"

From: RNC's Smartech took over Ohio Election Servers on Nov 3, 2004
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x743746#743869

The GOP's cyber election hit squad by Steven Rosenfeld & Bob Fitrakis
Did the most powerful Republicans in America have the computer capacity, software skills and electronic infrastructure in place on Election Night 2004 to tamper with the Ohio results to ensure George W. Bush's re-election?
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2007/2553

Their article posts a question and does not even answer in the affirmative. Why, because they are WRONG!

"Did the most powerful Republicans in America have the computer capacity, software skills and electronic infrastructure in place on Election Night 2004 to tamper with the Ohio results to ensure George W. Bush's re-election?"

"The answer appears to be yes."

SO WHAT? Appearances mean nothing. These authors are ignoring real evidence in favor of distracting from it.

Let's discus the FACTS instead.

"... on Election Night 2004, Ohio's "official" Secretary of State website -- which gave the world the presidential election results -- was redirected from an Ohio government server to a group of servers that contain scores of Republican web sites,

on Election Night 2004, Ohio's "official" Secretary of State website -- which gave the world the presidential election results -- was redirected from an Ohio government server to a group of servers that contain scores of Republican web sites, ...."

WRONG: The Ohio SoS utilized a hosting service for their election night posting of results. It is not a coincidence that the GOP uses the same "hosting" service, but it is WRONG to infer that the State of Ohio was not directing the election results site w/o evidence beyond a coincidence.

WRONG: "On Election Night 2004, the Republican Party not only controlled the vote-counting process in Ohio, ..."

The vote counting/reporting was controlled by government entities at a county level as usual. The SoS only reports what is reported to that Ohio government office. In no way, shape, or form does the SoS count votes.

WRONG: "... the Republican Party ... also controlled the technology."

The vote counting technology was controlled by the State of Ohio and the counties.

WRONG: "...Privatizing elections and allowing known partisans to run a key presidential vote count ..."

The election was conducted by the county BOEs, not private, and counted by these government organizations. This rhetoric is both false and inflammatory. Why?

WRONG: "there is abundant evidence that Republicans could have used this computing network to delay announcing the winner of Ohio's 2004 election while tinkering with the results."

Now we also have "could have theorists" too!! How does that move anything forward except confusion?

WRONG: "On Election Night 2004, many of the totals reported by the Secretary of State were based on local precinct results that were impossible...."

The election night results gave Bush a substantial margin. Citing several precincts, a la Reagan's anecdotal logic, is now a tired old verse, discredited soon after the election, and proves nothing of substance even when true. A good analogy is Republicans using "voter fraud" to advance a different agenda.

WRONG: "... the facts are not in, but enough is known to warrant a serious congressional inquiry."

Not on this issue. The serious congressional inquiries underway since 2004 do not need to be misdirected by "coincidence theorists." The have real evidence to persue.

WRONG: "... for roughly 90 minutes the Ohio election results reported on the Secretary of State's website were frozen .... vote totals from these last-to-report counties ... were highly improbable and suggested vote count fraud to pad Bush's numbers."

"Improbable." "Suggested." Don't attorneys know how valueless such "proofs" are? Vote counts are always frozen on web sites, then a new result total is posted and they change. Bush was winning Florida in 2000, and the results moved Gore forward to a tie, for all practical purposes. The same fallacious logic would indicate Gore stole the last reporting counties in Florida.

WRONG: "... The most eyebrow-raising example to emerge from parsing precinct results was finding 10,500 people in three Ohio's 'Bible Belt' counties who voted to re-elect Bush and voted in favor of gay marriage, if the official results are true ... in Warren, Butler and Clermont Counties. The most plausible explanation for this anomaly ... was Kerry votes were flipped to Bush while the rest of the ballot was left alone. While we have some theories about how that might have been done by hand in a police-guarded warehouse, could full Republican control of the vote-counting software and servers also have played a role?"

This is easy to explain. These authors know of a plausible explanation and ignore it, as if part of the cover-up themselves. What happens when punch card ballots are switched between precincts with different ballot orders. Kerry votes can be switched to Bush votes while a distinct outcome may or may not result for other, down-ticket races with a different number of options. Warren and Butler Counties used punch cards, and Clermont used optical scanning, so all the ballots are still preserved.

WRONG: "Baiman compared the number of voters who signed in with the total number of votes attributed to precincts. He found hundreds of "phantom" votes, where the number of voter signatures was less than the reported vote total. That discrepancy also suggests vote count fraud."

This is a common problem when voters do not sign in, a well known problem with a well known cause. It does not suggest fraud in and of itself. This is iase argumentation.

WRONG: "... the highest ranks of the Republican Party's political wing, including White House counselor Karl Rove, a handful of the party's most tech-savvy computer gurus and the former Republican Ohio Secretary of State, created, owned and operated the vote-counting system that reported George W. Bush's re-election to the presidency."

This is just beyond ridiculous. Only those with no critical reasoning will not see the lie in this statement.

Laws of the State of Ohio created the system, the People of Ohio own it, and Boards of Election operated it. GET REAL!!

[Wilms]

6. You're responding as if you think I don't think the election was stolen.

I think the election WAS stolen. I just don't believe everyone who comes along with a theory about how it was done can make a case in court...let alone on this forum.

What I'm asking is where in all this is there proof that a court will see and jail people for what was done.

That "explosive" in the titled suggested something big occurred. So RHP has turned material we've seen before into an affidavit (unless there's something new there...in which case tell us).

What am I missing?

And please don't call me a coincidence theorist. The only thing here that's coincidental is that the current commotion comes at election time and is driven by a Republican.

[L. Coyote]

7. I agree with you almost completely.

I think a case can be made in court, including in criminal court. I've even supplied the forensic method to these litigants. Problem is, the proof that the forensic method would reveal would sink their case against the State of Ohio because it will produce evidence against Republicans.

Guess what! They are not using it.

All the hype is directed at getting donations from suckers who want to believe this stuff about "explosive" things happening, and more to come if you just send your meager savings .....

..... to whom should I make that out, the Church of These Lies? :rofl:

[L. Coyote]

4. That's old news about RHP. Where are the purported expolsive events?

What about all the evidence they ignore because it does not fit their complaint?

Why don't they concern themselves with all the irregularities in Ohio, instead of manufacturing a false story?

[OnTheOtherHand]

8. Phillips has evidence that Connell set up the counting computers?

I must have missed that paragraph. Which one is it?

[mod mom]

9. Off subject....

I'd love to hear what you think about Nate Silver's (538) post on the "Estimating the Cellphone Effect" in polling:

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/09/estimating-cellphone-effect-22-points.html

any comments?

[OnTheOtherHand]

12. it's a bit sketchy so far

Averaging the pollsters together the way he has is seriously apples-and-oranges, especially when the number of polls per pollster ranges from 3 to 184. There's no good way to solve this problem; we just don't know enough.

Pew has generally concluded that properly weighted landline surveys have provided similar results on political issues as dual-frame surveys that include cell phone users. That may no longer be the case, but I haven't seen strong evidence one way or another.

Let me be clear: if one just does landline calls and doesn't weight them at all, the results will be biased.

[mod mom]

13. Thanks.

I attended a machine allocation hearing recently for Franklin Co OH. In this hearing, Matt Damschroeder commented that newly registered voters have a turnout rate of ~ 72%, which of course is higher than average for turnouts of the entire registered population. In Ohio, Obama has had a strong effort to register new voters which was kicked off in May and many of the newly registered voters, are young people Isn't it correct that since they are newly registered, they will be left out of "likely voters"? I am wondering if they utilize some sort of factor, such as the 72% offered by Damschroeder, to estimate the effect of this new voter population when polling.

I guess what I am asking is, do you think the polls are reflective of these newly registered voters (assuming ~ 72% of these newly registered young people actually show up to vote) ?

[OnTheOtherHand]

14. I'm glad you were there

I got to read the transcript (I assume it was the same one). Some of the content was kind of scary. Anyway--

Different pollsters use different methods to decide who is a likely voter. In general they don't automatically exclude newly registered voters -- except for those who actually use registration lists to draw their samples! (That is unusual.) My impression is that most pollsters try to let the expected turnout for new registrants to emerge from their model (for instance, how interested people are in the campaign), rather than guess at the percentage.

Bottom line: the polls at least have a shot at fairly representing the newly registered voters, but I'm sure that some do a better job than others. And, yes, the shift to cell phones must make it even harder (unless it's easier to reach cell phones than dorm room landlines).

[L. Coyote]

10. You forgot the sarcasm emoticon!

We know you know it ain't so.

[OnTheOtherHand]

11. I'm pretty sure, yeah

But honestly, I didn't read his affidavit very closely -- I got tired of the rhetorical structure -- so I can't claim direct knowledge.