$100,000 Reward: for Citizens to Stop another Stolen Election

[jamess]

10/02/2008

Today, VR <VelvetRevolution> offered a $100,000 reward for information from whistleblowers who have knowledge of election related criminal activity by Michael Connell, Randy Cole, Karl Rove and others. The full ad will be published this week in the Akron newspapers

Click for Actual Reward Notice



ATTENTION: Employees of GovTech Solutons, New Media Communications, and Technomania

If YOU know anything about Vote Tampering -- the time to speak up is Now!

http://www.velvetrevolution.us/

---------

Wow, even the Corporate Media has picked up this story!

What's up with that?

CBS Market Watch -- Oct. 3, 2008

Non-Profit Offers $100,000 Reward for Information Tying Karl Rove and Michael Connell to Election Rigging

WASHINGTON, Oct 03, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Today, Velvet Revolution (VR), a non-profit dedicated to clean and accountable government, offered a $100,000 reward to whistleblowers for information tying Karl Rove and Michael Connell to illegal election manipulations. Other Republican whistleblowers, most notably world renowned computer expert Stephen Spoonamore, have stated recently that the Republican Party has been rigging elections for years through electronic computer manipulations. Mr. Spoonamore, a colleague of Mike Connell, gave a recent interview in which he stated that the upcoming election will be stolen and rigged by the GOP unless otherwise exposed. That interview is posted in full at www.rovecybergate.com.

Mr. Connell is the CEO of GovTech Solutions, a company that works with a "Who's Who" of Republican politicians. Mr. Connell refuses "to work for Democrats" and is "loyal to the Bush family." And it was Mr. Connell who ran the Florida Government computer network during the presidential election of 2000 and the Ohio Secretary of State election computers during the presidential election of 2004. He has been at the scene of every major national electoral scandal of the past decade and has been fingered as being involved in the destruction of White House emails.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/non-profit-offers-100000-reward-information/story.aspx?guid={529BEB5E-5DB6-47C3-98BA-4BB620906AAF}&dist=hppr



Who is this Man behind the "Tech Curtain" -- Michael L. Connell ??



Rove-ing emails: what else could go missing?
by Todd Johnston

As reported here, the Bush family's personal Internet strategist installed proprietary database, email, and web servers on the U.S. House of Representatives IT networks, less than three months after President George W. Bush took office in 2001.

Six years later, Michael L. Connell and his twin companies -- New Media Communications and Govtech Solutions -- have replicated that early success and spread throughout the federal government like one of New Media's award-winning viral marketing campaigns.
...
should a top campaign consultant with a history of electoral fraud be a systems administrator for federal government IT networks?

http://scoop.epluribusmedia.org/story/2007/4/22/33926/1773



Citizens CAN make a difference
(Indeed it's the only thing that ever has ...)

Velvet Revolution Interviews Stephen Spoonamore
youtube Link


"Voting Machines are IT-Junk"

warns this respected Banking Security and Cyber Expert, Stephen Spoonamore.
(and Citizen Witness at a recently Re-opened Ohio court case)



2008-09-30
Security Expert Warns Of Rigged Election
Jason Lee Miller -- Staff Writer

Security vulnerabilities in electronic voting machines threaten to skew results in the upcoming national election, says a Republican security expert. Stephen Spoonamore has come forward as a whistleblower willing to testify in an Ohio court case stemming from the 2004 Presidential elections.

Spoonamore, former CEO of Cybrinth, specialist in data management and remote electronic monitoring, and card-carrying member of the GOP, explains in a series of YouTube videos how Diebold e-voting machines can be hacked and manipulated to change vote tallies. The videos were posted by Velvet Revolution, an activist group with the aim of exposing voter fraud and returning to paper ballets.

The voting machines, according to Spoonamore, communicate with central government systems in the same way mobile phones connect with each other. The machine sends a signal to a tower, is filtered through third-party, corporate-owned computers identifying both sender and receiver, and then the votes-which are anonymous and without any type of paper trail-are then forwarded to the government receiver.

The inherent problem is that third party wireless intercept of information. Spoonamore says without a doubt tabulations can be intercepted and changed before they are sent on to officials. More specifically, as was the case in Ohio in 2004, tabulations were funneled through servers in Chattanooga, TN, owned by SmarTech. Coincidentally, the Bush Administration has used these servers for sending and receiving email to avoid public scrutiny.

Spoonamore, who has helped develop security solutions for MasterCard, American Express, Bloomberg, Boeing, NBC, News Corp., the Dept. of Energy, the US Navy, and the Dept. of State, is on record, in a sworn affidavit, explaining how easily these voting machines can be hacked and manipulated.

http://www.securitypronews.com/insiderreports/insider/spn-49-20080930SecurityExpertWarnsOfRiggedElection.html



Hacking 101: The "Man in the Middle" Attack


It's "IT child's play", especially if you're already behind the Gov't Firewall,
like New Media Communications, Govtech Solutions, SmarTech already ARE!


Here's the Nuts and Bolts of the HOW TO Steal an Election:

Velvet Revolution Interviews Stephen Spoonamore (segment 2)
youtube Link



As the last few weeks have proven, No One has been been "minding the store" on Wall Street ...

SO is it really a Surprise to find out, those same No Bodies
have been "looking the other way", when it comes to Electronic Voting Machines, too?


Speaking of Gov't Oversight:

WARNING: Serious Gov't Didactions about the vulnerability of all those Electronic Diebold Votes ...

No need to worry -- you can Trust us!

Diebold Coverup, Says SAIC Report And Stephen Spoonamore
youtube Link



Note: Diebold -- is now Premier Election Systems"

That's sounds much more "trustworthy" ... it's all in the Marketing ..

The only thing that HAS Changed, has been the Logo!

SO Here we go again ...

bye bye, Democracy ....

going, Going, GONE!


ATTENTION: Employees of GovTech Solutons, New Media Communications, and Technomania

you CAN make a Difference this time around ...


Click for Actual Reward Notice



American Citizens, the Time is NOW -- to Undo the Damage of done to out Democracy over the last 8 years ...

Stop the Shredding of ALL we hold dear --
by those Operatives who only work in the shadows ...






Protecting Democracy IS Patriotic!

Stop another Travesty by those
who claim to be Accountable to No one ...

Enough!

It's Time to take OUR Country Back!

Demand a Paper Ballot
with a verifiable Audit Trail!

Every. time. you. VOTE!



The alternative is well not exactly
"Freedom on the March" ...

Peter King "We'll take care of the counting."
youtube Link

(Let's stop the de'ja vu BEFORE it happens this time.)

[jamess]

1. Thanks for reading

If anyone can tell me how /if

it's possible to embed youtube <object> code here

I'll edit the story and add the clips directly.

thanks

[L. Coyote]

4. Sorr, DU only allows youtubes in the PV forum.

[jamess]

7. thanks

for letting me know

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

5. You can only imbed in Political Video forum.

However, you can add an url anywhere.

[tabatha]

2. Yes, this series of interviews is very interesting.

Stephen Spoonamore is impressive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAyEfovA404
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTBLfgos5b8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzKbigGoMoo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vNvweInGFs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX8fRwsTpoQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9Kq4dxPwY8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsgY4_BB2lo

[jamess]

8. thanks for the links!

this guy is very credible --

Banks and Credit Cards companies trust him with their financial networks --


And Stephen Spoonamore spells it out in Black and White
WHY we can't Trust those Electronic Voting Machines --
we'd be fools if we did, (or keep doing so)


Where has the Corporate Media been on this Story?

Where is the Oversight?

Where is the Accountability? (MIA once again)

Has American already become a "Banana Republic"?

[tabatha]

15. I forgot the most impressive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jy1sz-xBxf8

Mr. Spoonamore is considered a leading theorist and innovator of systems involved with compression, digital image management and remote electronic monitoring. He has developed solutions for government agencies and elements of the US Armed Forces who have been aware of the threat risks in cyber security since the early 1990s.

Mr. Spoonamore also serves as a member of the NEEEC/ANSI task force to determine standards and needs for E-Authentication of Identity, and the ComCARE Alliance task force to examine the security and development needs of the EPAD All-Hazards National Alert System.

As an Entrepreneur he has founded, or co-founded, eleven previous companies in sectors. The best known of these firms Creative Production Resources Group (sold in 2002) developed television studios, corporate control rooms and technology centers for numerous clients including GE, GM, ABC/Disney, Viacom, Bloomberg, Lehman Brothers and the US Army. Under his leadership, the firm was awarded two technical Emmy Awards (for the Nagano Olympics Studios and Oprah Winfrey Studios). He has served on several public sector investigation boards examining disaster after-actions.

He has received several awards for his contribution to the public sector including: 1995 he was awarded a Civilian Citation for outstanding contributions to the Defense Department by Secretary of Defense, William Cohen. In 2003 he was recognized by Mayor Michael Bloomberg for his work helping expand the NYCTV system. 2004 he was thanked by Sec. of Homeland Security Tom Ridge for his work developing process for the www.ready.gov web site. He has also served on delegations and task forces for the UN, UNDP and USArmy, including in 2001 when he was honored to serve as the small business delegate on a US Trade Mission to Central Europe. During this tour he led presentations on small business strategy in Warsaw, Prague and Munich. Finally he has been called on as an expert witness for congressional testimony both on the House and Senate sides in the areas of secure communications and emergency systems used in communications.

[jamess]

16. you got to love Air America

Ohio Attorneys Seek Protection for Mike Connell and his Family against Alleged Threats from Karl Rove
Submitted by: cho on Thu, 07/24/2008

Sources close to the Ohio Corrupt Practices Act/RICO claim sent us a copy of the following letter that asks Attorney General Mukasey for protection for Michael Connell and his family who have been allegedly threatened by Karl Rove. Rove is believed to be the strategic mastermind behind the Bush 2004 re-election campaign and the possible Ohio election improprieties.

http://discuss.epluribusmedia.net/node/2164

Apparently Connell wants to turn State Witness, but ...
he has a family, etc.


Stephen Spoonamore was interviewed by Thom Hartmann a few days ago. Spoonamore characterized Mike Connell, a colleague, more as a "fall guy" than the Mastermind behind the MITM Attacks.

Stephen Spoonamore, also insinuated that the Swift Boaters were the deep pockets, and the Right to Lifers provided the "ethical rationalizations".

The Logistics of the theft consisted of "Network Funneling" (illegal) of ALL the Precinct Votes from 18 Ohio Counties to a SmarTech PC, JUST PRIOR to Re-Tallying those Results, and forwarding the "Final Counts" to Ken Blackwell, Ohio Secretary of State, and Chairman of ReElect Bush-Cheney.

(all without an Audit Trail, or Chain of Custody, or Witnesses)

[navarth]

3. wow. great post. velvet revolution has some resources there. excellent.

enthusiastic K & R.

[L. Coyote]

6. When I tried to claim their last reward, they did not reply. Too bad this reward

is so narrow in scope. The real fraud is readily evidenced in the punch card voting:
How Kerry Votes Were Switched to Bush Votes
http://jqjacobs.net/politics/ohio.html

This will go nowhere and cost them nothing, of course, since the "coincidence theory" they focus on is not how the election was stolen.

[Roy]

9. But at least the reward offer could cause them to consider

Whistle blowers from within may decide they could use some extra cash. They will have to at least scale back their thievery.
Remember also, Whistle blower laws will be enforced in an Obama administration.

[Peace Patriot]

10. Hm-m, am I going to trust Velvet Revolution or you?

Ohio had not been fully Diebolded in 2004, thus Rove had to activate the Blackwell election theft machine, not only for punchcard switching but also for blatant, visible violations of the Voting Rights Act, in order to steal Ohio.

And that exonerates extremely insecure 'TRADE SECRET' vote counting, with virtually no audit/recount controls, now fully in place...how?

It just makes election theft a whole lot smoother.

[Peace Patriot]

13. The complete non-transparency of our vote counting system has ramifications

beyond outright theft by "TRADE SECRET" code switching of votes without detection. Here are some things to consider:

1. Our voting system, nationwide, is now so insecure and privatized that the Bushwhack owners and funders of Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia can easily--EASILY!--decide the outcomes of any given election.

2. The code by which our votes are tabulated is owned and controlled by these Bushwhack corporations--corporations with close ties to far rightwing causes that would make your hair stand on end. The public has NO RIGHTS with regard to this code. We are barred from reviewing it.

3. Half the voting systems in the country have NO audit capability at all. There is no ballot or paper trail to audit. Half the voting systems in the country can be rigged with complete impunity. The other half have a paper ballot in the system, but no one counts the paper ballots! Some states do a zero handcount (audit), and even the best states do only a miserably inadequate 1% audit. (Some experts say 10% is the MINIMUM needed to detect fraud. Venezuela handcounts a whopping 55% of the votes, as a check on machine fraud, and they have an OPEN SOURCE code system--anyone may review the code by which votes are tabulated.)

4. Our Democratic Party leaders voted in overwhelming numbers to approve this system--'TRADE SECRET' vote tabulation, by Bushwhack corporations, with virtually no audit/recount controls, in the same month they voted for the Iraq War Resolution (Oct 02), and furthermore approved a $3.9 billion e-voting boondoggle to fast-tract these election theft systems all over the country.

5. The Corpo/fascist 'news' monopolies not only never alerted the public to the extreme dangers of this voting system, they ridiculed or black-holed any efforts to prevent it, until it was fully in place, and now treat it as a he said/she said controversy, instead of as the coup d'etat that it is.

Now, consider the impact on, say, individual candidates running for office, in a system in which, if they are chosen, they will be unable to prove that they were actually elected. Would they challenge this system after they were chosen? No. Would they challenge it while they were running? No. Would they challenge it if they 'lost' but had enduring ambitions to run again? No. Why would they not challenge it? Because their success in this system is not up to the voters; it is up to Diebold & brethren.

In one of the most egregious examples of an e-voting stolen election--FL-13 in 2006--ES&S machines 'disappeared' 18,000 Democratic votes for Congress, in an election that the Puke 'won' by only about 350 votes. When the lawyers for the Democrat, Christine Jennings, took the matter to court, and requested to review ES&S's source code--to try to figure out what happened to those 18,000 votes--ES&S refused, and argued that their right to profit from our elections, with their secret code, trumps the right of the voters to know how their votes were counted--and the judge agreed! Thus, our right to public elections was ended.

Jennings then took the matter to Congress (which ultimately controls who gets seated in Congress), and the so-called Democratic Congress that was 'elected' in 06 deep-sixed this outrageous election theft, and furthermore got the GAO to write such a fraudulent whitewash of this matter, that the head of the GAO (the last federal agency with any integrity in the USA) resigned (Jan 07--completely deep-sixed in the Corpo/fascist 'news').

So, what is Christine Jennings to think? To succeed in this system, she has to SHUT HER MOUTH about the grave injustice that was done to her and to the voting public, in the FL-13 06 (s)election, because our own party leaders are complicit in it!

Multiply that corrosive influence of privatized, 'TRADE SECRET' vote counting a thousand times. The influence of fear. The influence of career ruination. The influence of the need to toady to the "powers that be." The influence of there being no proof that you were actually elected--no one but Diebold & brethren knows for sure. The influence of the contempt for voters and public process. And understand the vast corruption that would make it even possible for such a system to be put in the place in the USA. And you have a more complete picture of what has happened to our country, than the theft of any individual election.

We have been PRIVATIZED. This is a fascist coup d'etat (melding of a corrupt state with corporate power). And there is only one way out that I can see: a huge grass roots citizen movement at the state/local level (where ordinary people still have some influence, and where control of voting systems still resides) demanding a return of PUBLIC VOTE COUNTING.

And, as to that, what would be the most effective way to head off such a movement? The (s)election of a liberal-seeming president, who is nevertheless committed to the Forever War and its war profiteers (will move the Forever War to Afghanistan), and will be saddled with gazillions in national debt, as the Final Looting of the American people, unto the 7th generation, takes place during his administration. Then?

If Germany 1930s is the model, we know what happens next. And this time, it will be sans "brownshirts" stuffing ballot boxes and beating up voters. It will be invisible. It will be a "trade secret."

My advice: If Obama wins--and, unlike in the caucus states, where his insurgent supporters, representing the 70% of the American people who opposed the Iraq War, got their footing in the primaries, with votes that were not counted by Diebold & brethren--he will be 'winning' in a voting system entirely controlled by Diebold & brethren. DON'T GO BACK TO SLEEP IF OBAMA WINS!

This voting system is rotten to the core. It is an extreme peril to our nation. We must change this. We MUST! It is our last chance to restore democracy here, and the "window of opportunity" to do it, at the state/local level, may be very brief, because the first thing I expect the Diebold III Congress to do is to federalize, computerize and centralize control over all of our elections, removing the decision over voting systems as far away from the people as they can get it.

The Bushwhacks are currently suing the state of New York--the last holdout on e-voting--to force them to abandon their old reliable, publicly owned, and virtually unriggable lever voting machines, and pay billions for these election theft systems. The trend is to take power away from the state/local jurisdictions and the people. And I expect this to be formalized and statutized, and then it's over. Our democracy will be OVER at that point. It is barely functioning now. After a short and very tumultuous Obama presidency, the global corporate predators who are running things will be able to install anyone they wish, for any length of time, with whatever powers they want him or her to have, to utterly destroy the American people and our potential as a progressive force in the world.

Our elections will be run from computers in Dubai, or maybe from our fortresses in Baghdad. Who knows? Our democracy will be OVER.

[flamingdem]

11. k n r

[jamess]

12. few issues are ..

few issues are so overlooked
while being SO Important.

I would contend, this "lack of an Audit Trail"
has given us, these last 8 disastrous years!


It's only our Vote --
yet most of the time it receives as much care or interest
as a Fast Food Receipt!

If our System of ATMs and ETFs had the same level of scrutiny,
Our Country would have collapsed, long ago,
into a 3rd-rate sham democracy --
perhaps we're in the midst of that process now?

[renate]

14. stories about election fraud--in advance, of course--in the MSM is the best protection against fraud

This is great to see--NOTHING happened in November 2004 after Kerry's totally unexpected loss in Ohio because the public's mind wasn't primed to accept that democracy had been derailed in the very country that represents democracy around the world. It was just too much for the general public to believe.

So I really think that stories like this ahead of time will do more than even the threat of legal action in terms of keeping the election results from being tweaked to the same extent that they were last time. People might not just quietly accept funky results if they're prepared to look out for them.

[jamess]

17. No wonder those Rove E-mails disappeared ...

Maybe Mikey is a Loyal Bushie?

Are Rove's Missing E-mails the Smoking Guns of the Stolen 2004 Election?

...
4. Ultimately, however, it is the GOP's computerized control of the vote count that may have been decisive. And here is where Rove's e-mails, and the wee hours of the morning after the election, are crucial.

Despite the massive disenfranchisement of Ohio Democrats, there is every indication John Kerry won Ohio 2004. Exit polls shown on national television at 12:20am gave Kerry a clear lead in Ohio, Iowa, Nevada and New Mexico. These "purple states" were Democratic blue late in the night, but, against virtually impossible odds, all turned Bush red by morning.

Along the way, Gahanna, Ohio's "loaves & fishes" vote count, showed 4,258 ballots for Bush in a precinct where just 638 people voted.
...

But the most critical reversals may have come as exit polls indicated that despite massive Democratic disenfranchisement, and even with preliminary vote count manipulations, Kerry would win Ohio by 4.2%, a margin well in excess of 200,000 votes.

The key to that reversal may be electronic. It has now become widely known that the same web-hosting firm that served a range of GOP websites, including the one for the Republican National Committee, also hosted the official site that Blackwell used to report the Ohio vote count.

This astonishing conflict of interest has been reported at the epluribusmedia.org on-line investigative service. Cross-postings have come from luaptifer at Dailykos and blogger Joseph Cannon's Cannonfire.blogspot.com. They all confirm that the RNC tech network's hosting firm is SMARTech.com, based in Chattanooga, Tennessee. SMARTech hosts georgew.bush.com, mc.org and gop.com among other Republican web domains, in a bank basement.

Furthermore, the same hosting site that handled redirections from Blackwell's "official" site also handled the White House e-mail accounts that have become central to investigations of the Gonzales purge of eight federal prosecutors, some of whom were themselves involved in vote fraud investigations.
...

But overall, the electronic record of every vote in Ohio was transmitted to the Secretary of State's office, and hosted in real time in Chattanooga. Under such circumstances, the joint hosting of the White House e-mail system and accessibility by Blackwell and Rove to the same computer networks linked to the Ohio vote count, takes on an added dimension.

Mike Connell, a Republican computer expert, helped create the software for both Ohio's official 2004 election web site, and for the Bush campaign's partisan web site during the 2000 election. The success of Connell's GovTech Solutions has been attributed by Connell to his being "loyal to my network," including the Bush family.

Blackwell shared those loyalties. Like Connell, he worked for the Bush-Cheney campaign, serving as its Ohio co-chair. He was also in control of the vote count that was being reported on software Bush loyalist Connell helped design.

It was in a crucial period after midnight on election night 2004 that these paired conflicts of interest may have decided the election. As exit polls showed a decisive Kerry victory, there was an unexplained 90-minute void in official reporting of results. By this time, most of the vote counts were coming in from rural areas, which are traditionally Republican, and which, ironically, usually report their results earlier than the Democratic urban areas.

In this time span, Kerry's lead morphed into a GOP triumph. To explain this "miraculous" shift, Rove invented a myth of the greatest last-second voting surge in US history, allegedly coming from late-voting fundamentalist Republicans. No significant evidence exists to substantiate this claim. In fact, local news reports indicate the heaviest turnouts in most rural areas came early on election day, rather than later.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/25/761