Chilling.
The changing of the guards: Bay Minette, election nightBy Steve McConnell
Staff Reporter
Gulf Coast Newspapers
Friday, July 20, 2007
Nearly five years later, the specter of the 2002 Alabama gubernatorial election lives on.
Republican Bob Riley edged out a narrow victory over incumbent Democrat Don Siegelman, but a midnight vote recount in Baldwin County, giving Riley the edge, stirred a firestorm controversy that still receives national attention to this day.
A recent New York Times editorial called into question “suspicious vote tabulations” that may have occurred at the Sheriff’s department in Bay Minette – the county seat - shortly after 11 p.m., the eve of election day, Nov. 5, 2002.
And, Time Magazine published an article entitled “Rove Linked to Prosecution of Ex-Alabama Governor” by Adam Zagorin which touched on a controversial computer glitch: “Though Republican Riley…initially found himself behind by several thousand votes, he had pulled ahead at the last minute when disputed ballots were tallied in his favor.”
Glynn Wilson, a former Christian Science Monitor correspondent who now publishes and writes for his news site locustfork.net, posted a piece in June stating that Dan Gans - Riley’s chief of staff during the would-be governor’s time as a U.S. Representative for Alabama’s 3rd District – electronically changed the results, giving a razor thin edge to Riley, who went on to win the state by 3,120 votes.
An unidentified source, according to his report “How the 2002 Election Was Stolen in Bay Minette,” reported that Gans was at the county courthouse and that he was “interested” in the final vote results.
Gans, who was assisting Riley’s gubernatorial campaign at the time and then went on to serve as his Montgomery chief of staff, later left the governor’s office to join the Alexander Strategy Group, a top Washington lobbying firm that disbanded in 2006 due to ties with incarcerated lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Harper’s Magazine columnist Scott Horton also claimed that Gans “is a Republican ‘voting technology expert’ who played a mysterious role in the 2002 gubernatorial election.”
Horton’s column “Abramoff and ‘Justice’ in the Heart of Dixie,” published June 9, went on to say that Gans “was in Republican controlled Bay Minette, Alabama, when 6,000 votes inexplicably shifted from Siegelman’s column to Riley’s due to a ‘computer glitch.’”
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What were exactly the chain of events which continues to irk Democrats, Siegelman supporters, election analysts and the national press when the power of the highest office in Alabama shifted in the middle of the night from incumbent Don Siegelman to Bob Riley?
On the eve of the election, the Siegelman camp believed the governor had secured enough votes in Baldwin County to win the election, but evidently a “glitch,” according to probate court officials, caused Siegelman to lose 6,334 votes from his tally.
Riley, due to the “glitch,” barely edged out the Democratic governor, who was considered a threat by Republican officials.
The following morning a recount seemed reasonable and evident to the Siegelman campaign as two men laid claim to the governorship.
But, the recount was denied by then Attorney General William “Bill” Holcombe Pryor, who was appointed Feb. 20, 2004 - during a congressional recess - to the federal-bench, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals by President George W. Bush.
Siegelman conceded November 18, and Riley was sworn in as governor January 21, 2003 at the state capital in Montgomery.
Today and for the unforeseeable future, Siegelman will remain in prison due to a lengthy and controversial federal investigation; although, his prosecution – now being deemed a “persecution” in some circles - was referred to House Judicial Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI), by U.S. Representative Artur Davis, (D-AL), as a possible example of selective prosecution by the Department of Justice.
Siegelman was sentenced June 28 to more than seven years in prison mainly on charges that he appointed HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy to a state hospital regulatory board – an appointment he served with three previous governors – in exchange for Scrushy’s $500,000 donation to a Siegelman campaign supporting a state lottery to fund education.
Scrushy was sentenced to six years and 10 months.
While the election seems at best a distant memory for the history books perhaps, the Bay Minette debacle certainly turned the tides of power, disavowing Siegelman of the governor’s office as federal investigations into his political career swelled.
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(Much more. This is A MUST READ.)